Z1 2010: The Write-ups

All you need to know and discuss about the 2010 Zone 1 Challenge.
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Sam
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Re: Z1 2010: The Write-ups

Post by Sam »

You were quite damn cocky before the race had started telling me more than once you'd beat me..... Looks like I was proved right :)
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Re: Z1 2010: The Write-ups

Post by Garion »

Lol it was only friendly banter :P anyway well done to you :). Good practise for the future... :P
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Re: Z1 2010: The Write-ups

Post by RichieG »

With the snappy team name of "I can't believe it's not Andi or Yes, I Got Lost Between Aldgate And Aldgate East Again And This Time I Also Lost My Pen At London Bridge", I was unique in setting off from Waterloo going southbound on the Bakerloo Line. While on the Overground train, I started to formulate a bit of a route on my Large Print Zone 1 Map, having only done routes from the northwest corner of the Zone (as I said, we started from the wrong South West terminus!) and this was put in a more readable format into my notebook while sitting on the SB Bakerloo platform at Waterloo where I noticed that I had missed the whole northern section of the Circle Line between Edgware Road and King's Cross St Pancras. Whoops. At 13:01, the train left Waterloo, passing through Lambeth North at 0h 01m 50s on my stopwatch (which prior to resetting it while waiting at Waterloo still had my Full Network attempt time on it) and then to Elephant and Castle where I left on a Northern Line train at 0:08.04, passing through Borough at 0:09.50 and onto London Bridge.

Where I lost my pen so won't be able to give comprehensive times again (to which I hear you emit a sigh of relief). I headed for the westbound Jubilee Line, as far as Westminster, getting on the first train there which was an Upminster train, for which I alighted at Aldgate East.

Now, those who remember my Z1 attempt last year will know that somehow I got lost between Aldgate and Aldgate East. I then decided that to avoid this happening again, I should double back to Tower Hill and Circle it back round. Then I thought 'how hard can it be?' and that from Aldgate I had the choice of either Circle or Met, while at Tower Hill only Circle. Ideally I'd prefer a Circle or a H&C train to continue but hey ho, this would probably be easier. Nope. I got lost again. Starting from a TfL member of staff directing me to the wrong exit of Aldgate East station, resulting in me circling Aldgate East before heading in the right direction towards Aldgate. Ah well, lesson learnt. Note to self - avoid the Aldgate - Aldgate East run at all costs in the future.

My luck wasn't too bad however; on my approach into Aldgate station, the screen told me that there was a Met train about to depart, so I dutifully got on it, just as the doors closed and it set off. If it was an H&C or a Circle train, my plan was to alight at Paddington, but as it wasn't, I made the schoolboy error of changing to the Circle at Baker Street - as soon as the doors closed at Great Portland Street I realised that this was a rather silly thing to do. Still, I continued along, to Paddington H&C, just as an eastbound train pulled in so switched over back to Baker Street, grabbed the Bakerloo Line to the other Paddington then took the District Line as far as Notting Hill Gate. From there it was the Central to Oxford Circus and the Victoria as far as KXSP.

Where I didn't quite realise just how frigging long the interchange tot he Northern Line was. Getting a little disheartened at this point, I carried on, going south as far as Bank, the Central back in to Holborn, and down the Picc to Leicester Square. Leicester Square was the location last year that I bumped into somebody... the person who runs the local kebab shop to me! This year it was the location of the most irritating thing that could happen to a Tube Challenger. Three people waking side by side in a corridor, walking quickly (I was only doing walking pace anyway) so I wasn't too bothered about being behind them. That was until they stopped for no real reason at all, and I almost tripped over one of their cases. :roll: This led me to miss my Northern Line connection up to Euston with an 8 minute (!) wait for the next one (there was an alteration though and one was put in first, where it came from nobody knows, probably Charing Cross).

Anyway, a change to the Victoria Line for a trip down to Oxford Circus, a Bakerloo Doubleback to Regent's Park, down to Green Park, where a change to an exceptionally packed Piccadilly Line train. By this time the heat was beginning to get to me; I get a litle irritable when I get hot, and was possibly a little dehydrated as well (the only drink I had left by that time was the bottles of my TCDL bitter) and contemplated going back to the surface at South Kensington, but when I did that on the R15 a while back it proved to be a mistake. So I stayed on the Picc to Earl's Court, took a Wimbleware to High Street Kensington, the Circle back to St James's Park, back to Victoria and down to finish at Vauxhall at a time that I cannot remember off hand as I didn't write it down except on my entry form, and as I alluded to earlier on and in my team name, I lost my pen at London Bridge.

And I was exceptionally surprised that I didn't come last...
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Re: Z1 2010: The Write-ups

Post by JoeGJ1984 »

This was my first zone 1 challenge. I looked on the Internet and used the wayback machine and found Hakan's rout for the zone 1 challenge 2005 (which he won by walking!). I turned that into a circular route (it started at St James's Park and finished at Vauxhall so I added a double-back from Victoria to Vauxhall to make it into a circular route). Waterloo was a point where the route crossed, so I chose to start by going westbound on the Jubilee Line. I had planned to change at Green Park for the Piccadilly Line to Earl's Court, but at Westminster, the train was held because the announcer said there was a train failure at Green Park, so I left for the District and Circle lines (after thinking for a bit, decided I'd waited a bit too long and so waiting further, and being told we were still being held) I decided I'd go for it. Anyway, went to Victoria, decided to get the Vauxhall double-back out of the way, found the indicators said 6 minutes, decided to go northbound but saw a train pulling in on the southbound platform. Went down to Vauxhall (in a nice new 2009 stock train), back up to Green Park and down to Earl's Court. Saw an eastbound train leaving in 2 minutes on the opposite platform, so took it for South Kensington, then changed to the District and Circle lines. Here I just missed a train, got the next train which terminated at Tower Hill. Went as far as Monument, where I changed for another train, a Circle line train came next so I took it to Aldgate and ran to Aldgate East (I got lost on this run; I went under the subway, didn't know where to go, so crossed the road for a signpost, which directed me back under the subway. I also found an entrance to Aldgate East station closed, so assumed that another entrance would be round the corner on the same side of the road. Didn't find it, so went back to the last junction to see the entrance in front of me across the road. I then nearly went the wrong way; seeing Upminster on the next train board - incidentally an old-fashioned light-box - set me right though. Fortunately I didn't miss a train because of this though). Anyway, took a Hammersmith and City line train to Great Portland Street and ran to Regent's Park (incidentally, do people ever use the stairs in these kind of stations on challenges unless they have to because the lift is closed? I think people are discouraged from using the stairs unless they have to for safety reasons. I waited for the lift as I thought it would be a killer running up or down these kinds of stairs - much longer than an ordinary staircase). I then took a Bakerloo Line train to Edgware Road and ran (again waiting for the lift) to the other Edgware Road, where I sprinted onto a train to Hammersmith which waited for a bit before leaving to go to Paddington (H&C, Circle) then ran to the other Paddington, then went down to High Street Kensington to double back to Notting Hill Gate (I saw a train pulling in on the opposite platform and ran onto it, thinking I had made a sexy change only to discover it was going to Olympia - fortunately, I got off it before it left). I then went east to Tottenham Court Road, up to Euston, down to Bank, along to Holborn, up to Russell Square then doubled back to PIccadilly Circus, then down to Elephant and Castle, finally up to London Bridge and then to finish at Southwark.

Anyway, I avoided a last-place finish, which I got on the last two R15s (my only previous tube challenges) hence my team name "I hope I don't complete a hat-trick of last place finishes" (I thought of that because of the world cup coming up, and a hat-trick in football.)
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Re: Z1 2010: The Write-ups

Post by Garion »

scrxisi wrote:My day started at 0700 with a bus to Morden, then the Northern Line to Elephant & Castle, Bakerloo to Baker Street, and Jubilee to Swiss Cottage. There I had my biggest wait of the day, a very unsexy 12 minutes for McDonalds to deliver my breakfast to me.
I loved the way we looked at eachother, fed up lol. I was so hungry, I ate my hash brown at the counter...and then...
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Re: Z1 2010: The Write-ups

Post by Sam »

If we'd had to wait 3 minutes more, I would have been filling in my customer charter form for delay repay :lol:
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Re: Z1 2010: The Write-ups

Post by Going Underground »

scrxisi wrote:Huge thank you to Tangy and Roger - it was a very difficult job and you had the least amount of time ever to organise a Z1 day. The day was an amazing success and probably one of the better Z1 days I have ever attended. A true credit to you and to us all as a community, who have arguably been pulling in different directions of late. It was a great day, and a pleasure to attend.

Roll on 2011 - I WILL compete next year (hopefully) following two years off!!!
Echo that I thought the guys did an amazing job at such short notice and was a truly memorable Z1 :P 8)
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Re: Z1 2010: The Write-ups

Post by Sam »

Right, my day....

My day began by waking up at 6.30am and heading for Swiss Cottage for an interview workshop only to get there for 9am and be told that the date had changed and I could go, so I contacted Garion who I had left about 25 minutes previous and we met up. Having checked Twitter, it seemed that Geoff was on a FNC, so I got Garion to call him to see if it was true then we met up with him for a bit before heading over to Shoreditch High Street.

The station was pulled out of the hat and it was WATERLOO, now being a newbie to the zone one, I knew NOTHING about planning a route so relied on my fab team mate Mr Al Brown. And so it began on a eastbound Jubilee train to London Bridge where as has been said before a hoard of people ran off the train and up the stairs with a load of screaming passengers lol! :lol: From here, we went south to Elephant and Castle where we had a bit of a wait before going north to Paddington Bakerloo, where we ran to Paddington H&C, as we ran through the barriers, the gateline lady shouted at us to ask where we were going, we quickly said H&C station and on our way we went. I've never done this run before and it was nasty, not nice at all, however, despite me being slow, we were on the same train as others and off to Aldgate East we went, from here we ran to Aldgate, everyone shot off in front of me and I thought, this is going to be a long day.... upon arriving at Aldgate, everyone who had bust a gut was still there so that was a moral victory to me(!).

From Aldgate, we changed at South Kensington to get to Earl's Court where we went off to Bayswater and again everyone shot off in the direction of Queensway whereas I was at the back of the pack again. Upon arrival at Queensway, I was horrified to see the lifts out of action and off down the spiral staircase I went, passing many suitcases coming up and a poor lady on crutches! I managed to "move" a man out of my way and apparently got swore at in a language that was not English, I didn't care, I was on a mission and onto the central line I went. This is where we left others to it, we changed at Tottenham Court Road and there was literally masses of people in my way, I took a gamble and ran down the yellow line as a train was coming in and avoided death and through the gap I went and straight onto my northbound train to Euston, where we didn't realise we had arrived and ended up stuck once again behind hoards of people, luckily this did not cost us a train as we arrived at the southbound Bank branch platform, the display said "1 min" and then it came in and off to Bank we went.

Running through Bank was once again busy, dodging people as we went and off to Holborn we went, where we changed for the Piccadilly line to Russell Square, another sexy change and a quick double back took us down to Knightsbridge where we once again doubled back to Green Park for a horrible change which I hate doing but it had to be done and off we went down the busy Victoria Line to Vauxhall where we finished in a time if 03:00:43 and we thought we would be a strong contender for first.

We were about to leave when I heard a train coming in so I said to Al, we'll go and see who is on that and saw Garion, Kev and Nozza coming in so we knew we would not be last :P

I took the opportunity to purchase a couple of NR tickets for the Saturday and then we made our way to the pub where we found out that the master that is Peter had beaten us but for a first attempt, I was thrilled with second.

I've always maintained that I did not like Alternative challenges and had no interest in them but I had a really enjoyable day, it was exhausting and the heat didn't help but it was the buzz of not knowing how others were getting on which you don't really get on a FNC unless it's a mass attempt.

A big thank you goes to Tangy and Roger for organizing the day at such short notice and i've decided that I want to get involved with the R15 championship next season.

Also, a big thank you to Al Brown for letting me gatecrash his challenge! :mrgreen:

EDIT: I've just remembered when we boarded the train at Euston, the doors were struggling to close and I looked down the carriage to see a lady with a bag stuck in the doors on the platform and her friend who was on board the train just about to pull the alarm... I jumped up and dashed down the carriage and forced open the doors, only for her to attempt to get on the train AGAIN and this time she got her pull along suitcase stuck in the door, some curse words were muttered by I and again I forced open the doors and on the train she got and she was very thankful to me, I just said a sarcastic "you're welcome" and went and rejoined Al. Somehow, I don't think I can hold her responsible for not finishing first, she's lucky it wasn't closer between us and Peter else I may have...!
Last edited by Sam on 07 Jun 2010, 20:40, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Z1 2010: The Write-ups

Post by Garion »

Haha that was a funny phone call:

Garion: Hey, is that Geoff?
Geoff: Speaking.
Garion: Is that the tube geek?
Geoff: Uhh..yeah?
Garion: Cool hi its Garion!
Geoff: Who?
Garion: Garion! The one you've been emailing?
Geoff: Sorry...?
Garion: You know? The one who you've been talking to via email? The one from Wales?
Geoff: Oh hello! How are you? etc etc...

:lol:
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Re: Z1 2010: The Write-ups

Post by greatkingrat »

I started off the day by travelling on the reopened section of NLL and the ELL for the first time going High Barnet - Camden T - Camden Rd - Dalston K - Dalston J - Whitechapel - Shoreditch.

Random fact of the day - Labour MP and leadership candidate Diane Abbott was in the same carriage as me on the ELL.

After a couple of years up north, it was time to return to the south of zone 1 as Waterloo came out of the hat. I think it was one of the better stations that could have come out.

I started, along with several other teams by heading westbound on the Jubilee to London Bridge. There then followed a stampede along the passageways to the Northern line, south to Elephant, then Bakerloo all the way up to Paddington. As I was running up the NR platforms I could see there wasn't an H&C coming so could take the last bit of the run easy. At this point there were still a few people with me, however to my surprise, I was the only person to change at Moorgate while the others continued to Aldgate. A good change at Euston was followed by the lung-bursting run from Goodge St to Russell Square. At Russell Sq I had dived into a crowded lift as the doors were closing so had a load of people to get past in order to reach the platform. As I was coming the stairs I saw a train in the mirror so pushed past a women who was not very happy but I made the train at least!

Down to Earls Court on the Piccadilly where I rejoined Andi, Al and Sam who I had left at Moorgate. We went up to Bayswater, then fought our way down the spiral stairs as the lifts were broken. I managed to avoid most of the traffic although I think some others had to resort to a little pushing! Along the Central all the way to Liverpool Street, then back on my own again as I made another good connection at Aldgate followed by the traditional run to Aldgate East. This was probably the worst change of the day as the first train was an H&C but it wasn't too awful. Then along the District to Sloane Square, a quick double back to Victoria followed by a 2009 stock to Vauxhall where I finished in 2:52:34. As I returned to the pub I was pleased to see I was the first one back, however I had a while to wait before it was officially confirmed that I had won. So after a couple of near misses in the past it was seventh time lucky!

Thanks to Martin and Roger for organising it and I look forward to trying to defend the title next year.

Waterloo dep 130036
London Bridge 130342/????
Elephant & Castle 130942/131315
Paddington 133140/133632
Moorgate 135643/140050
Euston 140935/141126
Goodge St 141404/run to
Russell Square dep 142331
Earls Ct 144033/144427
Bayswater 145129/run to
Queensway dep 145557
Liverpool St 151211/151420
Aldgate 151644/run to
Aldgate East dep 152351
Sloane Square 154338/154513
Victoria 154652/155027
Vauxhall arr 155310

Overall time: 2:52:34

As I passed through Waterloo twice I also recorded a time starting from Southwark which was 2:51:13
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Re: Z1 2010: The Write-ups

Post by Mitchell&BrownLook »

greatkingrat wrote:Thanks to Martin and Roger for organising it and I look forward to trying to defend the title next year.
And organising it too, no doubt!
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Re: Z1 2010: The Write-ups

Post by al »

greatkingrat wrote:Overall time: 2:52:34

As I passed through Waterloo twice I also recorded a time starting from Southwark which was 2:51:13
For whomever is maintaining the records page at the moment, I think every team (whichever way they started) will be able to claim faster times due to this. For those going east on the Jubilee it would seem to be 1m21s faster :)
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Re: Z1 2010: The Write-ups

Post by Going Underground »

greatkingrat wrote:.

Random fact of the day - Labour MP and leadership candidate Diane Abbott was in the same carriage as me on the ELL.

After a couple of years up north, it was time to return to the south of zone 1 as Waterloo came out of the hat. I think it was one of the better stations that could have come out.

I started, along with several other teams by heading westbound on the Jubilee to London Bridge. Overall time: 2:52:34

As I passed through Waterloo twice I also recorded a time starting from Southwark which was 2:51:13
You should have asked Ms Abbott along to draw the starting station :wink:
Westbound from Waterloo :arrow: London Bridge is an interesting one :wink:
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Re: Z1 2010: The Write-ups

Post by Going Underground »

al wrote:
greatkingrat wrote:Overall time: 2:52:34

As I passed through Waterloo twice I also recorded a time starting from Southwark which was 2:51:13
For whomever is maintaining the records page at the moment, I think every team (whichever way they started) will be able to claim faster times due to this. For those going east on the Jubilee it would seem to be 1m21s faster :)
Yes could the keeper please amend Tubeular Hell's time accordingly 3:03:05 is now 3:01:44 I think :?
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Re: Z1 2010: The Write-ups

Post by Garion »

Does that mean mine is now 3:01:44?
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