Hello there one and all!
As you may have noticed, we have not posted on this website in some time, and had left the last of our news a little open ended. However this was intentional, as we hadn't really got any proper news and we know Mr Tube Guru doesn't like posts of little consequence. Being new to the game we didn't want to upset the head honcho of this website before we have even properly been inducted. So, Mr Guru and others will be pleased to know that we do now have some news, good and bad (from our point of view anyhow).
Firstly, the bad news.
The attempt on Monday the 22nd of December had to be abandoned as Mr Mitchell was unwell, which he was up until Wednesday the 24th of December. The importance of this last date I hear you cry! It is Christmas Eve and it signals that the Sheffield Supertram no longer operates "normal public service" as the GWR rules put it. Stagecoach, the operators of the Supertram had decided, in their wisdom, that every following weekday of our Christmas break from sixth form was also to be an abnormal timetable, so this effectively meant that the attempt was off for the whole holidays and therefore off until the next break from school, the February half term. We could have done it with the abnormal timetable, but being perfectionists we didn't want to as it wouldn't have been as quick, but anyhow it wouldn't have been "normal public service."
So to this holiday, and the good news.
Today we had our first attempt at any tube challenge, and how well it went. After an altercation involving Mr Brown missing a tram that got him to the start of the challenge because it left 2 minutes and 27 seconds early, which is unheard of for the Sheffield Supertram and needless to say had Mr Mitchell sweating as to whether Mr Brown was going to make the start on time, we were all eventually gathered. Everything went swimmingly on the first two connections, with us even having a nice conductor who saved us on a fare on the first. (With our student discount cards it may only be 40 pence, but that's not the point, Yorkshire-men aren't seen as tight for no reason you know! When you add to the mix that we
are students you may see our joke now!)
The next connection was a short run, but despite overtly short steps in depth (which we hadn't accounted for, I'm sure some of you do) we were on board just in time. Then came the "possible biggest negative of the day", when we fell into the elephant trap of not knowing the rules well enough. We had planned to do a section by bus but as Mr Mitchell pointed out, the rules clearly do state that "To `visit' a station, you must arrive and/or depart by
a Supertram." (Slight bit of tampering there!)
So, a quick change of plan and a new option was chosen, which in the end worked just as well as planned thanks to a badly parked car which was blocking the tram tracks, which we would both say was our highlight of the day, as it let us catch that very tram. You may scorn or laugh at this feeble sounding highpoint, but to a person who has never attempted the GWR, nor knows little of The London Underground and its' geography (yet), this seems little different to
The highlights were the crossing at North Harrow, I'm not sure what everyone else thought but it was a work of art watching the lights change as we left the station.
(This being from Bambography's attempt.) Although he may be new to this like us, I can imagine that you all felt sympathy here, so our badly parked car was the equivalent of the North Harrow traffic lights for you.
As you probably guessed from our earlier post, we were pretty confident of breaking the record and had privately described a sub 2 hour time as very good, and a sub 1 hour 45 minute time as highly unlikely and unrealistic. We had also said that as long as we broke the current record of 2 hours 15 minutes and 2 seconds, we would like to come to the zone 1 challenge, TubeFest '09.
So with a time of
1 hour 43 minutes and 48 seconds, we would hereby like to join the competition, upon which we look forward to soundly getting thumped by an opposition of seasoned tube challenge professionals, unless any of them would be willing enough to have us weedy specimens as part of their team!
Hopefully we will attempt another challenge before then, probably in the Easter holidays, so if you want to wait till then to let us into your team then feel free, otherwise reply below or PM us.
P.S. We've just realised that we haven't answered palkanetoijala31's question aboutthe total amount raised. Well, we are hoping that now we have completed the challenge, we wil be able to raise more money, so we promise to get back to you with a final total. Also a note to jamesthegill: we didn't use your route, so you can try that if you like.