Random 15 - Round 4 - 12th March 2011

[Nigel]

According to the most recent review (posted last week) on the Beer in the Evening site you linked to, the pub is currently closed!

[greatkingrat]

Yes, I seem to remember that last time we were there it was about to be closed and turned into a restaurant?

[Soup Dragon]

Well spotted Nigel, in that case we need to rethink the venue.
I will check and report back on Friday.

[Going Underground]

Yes, I seem to remember that last time we were there it was about to be closed and turned into a restaurant?

Noooooo we lose another pub with a dartboard having just had the bitter disapointment of going to The Three Fishes in Sunbury last night and seing their board gone and replaced by mirror and tables

[Sam]

I thought it was just the upstairs that was being turned into a Thai restaurant and downstairs being refurbished. Could be wrong

[Soup Dragon]

I think Sam is correct, the upstairs was being made into a Thai and downstairs refurbished. Hopefully they will retain the darts as this pub has an established darting community.

Now back to the matter in hand, for this round lets stick with what we know, therefore the meeting point afterwards is The Rising Sun, near Barbican.

Sadly I won't be attending this round after all, a heavy cold and tiring week at work have left me knackered. I will give the sealed envelopes to Kevin on my way home this evening. Anyone wanting to step in as a substitute BERC is more than welcome.

All the best Soupy.

[al]

I'll have a go at being the sub-BERC if no one else has any objections.

[Soup Dragon]

Al, consider yourself elected as the sub-BERC
I've had a sneeky peek at the stations and I think it will be an interesting challenge.
Good luck to all the competitors and really sorry I can't be there

[al]

Todays stations were:

Highbury & Islington
West Hampstead
Oxford Circus
Shepherds Bush
Hyde Park Corner
Vauxhall
Blackfriars
St. John's Wood
White City
Clapham North
West Brompton
Fulham Broadway
Notting Hill Gate
Waterloo
Chancery Lane

[al]

And the results were:

1st Going Underground 2h21m24s (Mansion House finish)
Joint 2nd al and Mitchell&BrownLook 2h27m43s (West Hampstead)
4th greatkingrat 2h30m15s (Chancery Lane)
5th Edgemaster 2h32m45s (West Hampstead)
6th Tangy 3h28m57s (Temple)
7th Andi/uefacup81 3h57m52

The rather large gap between 5th and 6th will be explained when peoples routes are posted...

[al]

My route was:

Victoria to Stockwell
Northern to Clapham North and back to Embankment
District to Mansion House
Run to St. Paul's
Central to Holborn
Piccadilly to Earls Court
District to Fulham Broadway and back to W Brompton
Overground to Shepherds Bush
Central to White City and back to Bond Street
Jubilee to West Hampstead.

Two annoying bits during the day:

1 At Fulham there was a train already in going back North which I just missed.
2 At White City the train in the adjacent platform only had the doors on our side open, so went over the bridge to catch the train with passengers on, only for the first train to open its other doors and leave first! (With me on it).

The Central line timetable was very unbalanced, generally running on a 1/9 min frequency.

[snudge27]

Right then... Mine and Andi's route was as follows:

Highbury & Islington - Green Park
Green Park - Earl's Court (changing to the District at South Kensington)
Earl's Court - Olympia
Olympia - Shepherd's Bush (Run)
Shepherds Bush - White City - Bond Street
Bond Street - West Hampstead
West Hampstead (OG) - South Acton
South Acton - Chiswick Park (Run)
Chiswick Park - West Kensington
West Kensington - West Brompton (Run)
West Brompton - Fulham Broadway (and back again)
West Brompton - Lots Rd/King's Rd (C3 Bus) - Imperial Wharf (Run)
Imperial Wharf - Clapham Junction
Clapham Junction - Vauxhall
Vauxhall - Stockwell - Clapham North
Clapham North - Elephant & Castle
Elephant & Castle - Embankment
Embankment - Mansion House
Mansion House - St. Paul's (Run)
St. Paul's - Chancery Lane

Our journey started off well, with the plan being to head down to Fulham Broadway and then take an overground from West Brompton to Willesden Junction and run on down to North Acton. A 7min wait for said train at Earl's Court threw this out of the window and instead we took the waiting Olympia train up to Olympia with the hope of picking up the Overground there. Here's where the problems started...

We pulled in to Olympia only to see an Overground service just pulling out of the station, having missed it by about 20s. So instead we decided to run up to Shepherd's Bush and go from there. At Shepherd's Bush we elected to take the stairs rather than the escalator and arrived on the Westbound platform to find our train waiting for us (having been told of a five minute wait by the display in the ticket hall). White City to West Hampstead was trouble free and we made our way to the Overground station.

Here we had about a five minute wait for the Overground, having to take a Richmond train as opposed to the Clapham Junction train we'd been hoping for; instead hoping to change to the correct train at Willesden Junction. No such train was timetabled at Willesden, so we decided to head down to Richmond and over to the Wimbleware branch via there. Instead, Andi made the on-the-fly decision to try out a new run from South Acton to Chiswick Park (which we nailed, despite not really knowing the route!).

We arrived at Chiswick Park to the sound of a departing eastbound District train, and at this point Andi had an interesting 'conversation' with a blind man. The ten minute wait that ensued allowed us a short break and allowed me to tuck in to a rapidly congealing cheese sandwich; during which time no less then three eastbound Piccadilly Line trains sailed past. If ever there was a case for bringing in a 'semi-fast' Picc service, this was it.

The wait was not in vain though, as the next eastbound District yielded no less than four rather good looking young ladies sitting next to us in the carriage, who seemed most interested in our efforts and were very keen to find out more. It even turned out that the uncle of one of the young ladies is also a Tube Challenger by the name of Lee.

Anyway... moving on...

From West Kensington we ran to West Brompton, having a useful bus sail past us in the process. Upon arrival at West Brompton, the displays on the OG platforms told us we should just have enough time to double back to Fulham Broadway before catching a Southern service to Clapham Junction. The southbound District didn't keep us waiting long, but the return train at Fulham took an absolute age to show up and resulted in us arriving back at West Brompton only to see the Southern service starting to accelerate, having missed it by about 10s. Given that the next southbound service was 26mins away, we decided to change our plans (again!)

Another quick re-jig found us looking for a bus to Imperial Wharf/Victoria/Clapham Junction. Eventually a C3 service showed up (after having to run to Earl's Court Road to find the stop) and we planned to ride it all the way to Clapham Junction. After a quick consultation of Google Maps showed us that the bus was likely to take about 20-30 minutes to reach its destination, we bailed out at the junction of Lots Road and King's Road, with the intention of running on to Imperial Wharf. Half way down Lots Road (with only a vague idea of how to get to Imperial Wharf), the C3 decided to catch up with us and sail on by on its way to (you guessed it!) Imperial Wharf.

The only mild plus out of this whole affair was that upon arrival at Imperial Wharf the next train was delayed by 10 minutes which, after much cursing of a certain forum member and their station, turned out to be the same Overground service we would have caught if we'd have remained at West Brompton. So all-in-all no time was lost by our little excursion.

After what appeared to be the slowest Overground service known to man, we eventually arrived at Clapham Junction and had only a short wait for a SWT service to Vauxhall. Here we changed for the Victoria line and went down to Stockwell where we had a very easy change on to the Northern line. A short wait at Clapham North for a Northbound train cost us af few (by now completely inconsequential) more minutes. As we arrived into Kennington, the Charing Cross branch train was (again) just accelerating away so we stayed on to Elephant & Castle and made a quick change to the Bakerloo, which took us to Embankment.

Here we changed to the District line and headed to Mansion House, where we surfaced and made the short run (with the help of a few friendly signposts) to St. Paul's, where a Westbound train was waiting to whisk us to our final destination of Chancery Lane; from whence we headed to the Rising Sun for much beer and a comprehensive display of why, if this was Bullseye, I would most certainly be the 'non darts player'.

Clearly not the most fluid route, but one which was marred by several missed connections rather than by bad planning. We reckon that had we not missed those two trains by 10s, we'd have saved the best part of an hour!

[Sam]

Don't hold me responsible for anything to do with that sodding station.

I'm based at Willesden Junction

[snudge27]

Don't hold me responsible for anything to do with that sodding station.

I'm based at Willesden Junction

That station was also roundly cursed

[tangy]

My route wasn;t quite as mad as Andi's but did involve FIVE non-LU trains and a bus!

--Victoria line to Green Park
--Double back Hyde park Corner on the Picc ** Train was ready at HPC so couldn't get right to the back for the Green Park interchange**
--Carry on southbound on the Victoria line to VXH (could of carried on to Stockwell but decided to visit WAT first)
--SWT to WAT (after just missing one, 4 minute wait)
--Northern line to Kennington, one just pulling away on to the opposite platform
--Northern line to Clapham Common
--Bus route 35 over to Clapham Junction (it is surprising how many times this bus transfer gets included in Random 15s!)
--NLL to West Brompton, trust it to be the weekend QPR were hosting Crystal Palace!! Thus train was very crowded and left CLJ five down after finally getting a green stick!
--At West Brompton I knew I had 15 minutes to double back Fulham Broadway and did this with 2 minutes to spare.
--Back on the NLL and up to Shepherds Bush, again knew I had plenty of time to double back NHG and White City. Had good 1 minute connections at both NHG and White City
--Back to the NLL and 8 minute wait (3 late) to carry on to Willesden Junction. Held at Mitre Bridge Junction for 5-6 minutes due to "congestion" ahead.
--Into WIJ and 2 minute wait for another NLL train onwards to West Hampstead (NLL).
--Ran over to the Jubilee station but had three minute wait (saw the previous one down at Finchley Road).
--Change to Central Line at Bond Street (never interchange here on a Saturday- nightmare)
--Central line to St Paul's and run to Mansion House.
--Couldn't finish at Blackfriars, so carried on to temple to stop the clock at 03:28:57.