Random 15 Championship 2013/14: Round 1

[palkanetoijala31]

By the sounds of what i keep getting in texts im going to get beaten up!

[greatkingrat]

It could have been a lot worse - nothing on the northern line was drawn.

[hopeful traveller]

I will. London City Airport IS evil.

[DrainBrain]

I will. London City Airport IS evil.

Evil, and strangely deserted. Reminded me of:

"One man on a lonely platform..."

[Rhys1995]

West Hampstead is EVIL - I fell down a flight of stairs there yesterday! And managed to do a rather epic forward roll, still hurt.

[Going Underground]

Well as nobody has yet mentioned we had 10 competitors in 8 teams and 1 x Adham who came to meet us at the start

The stations were very kind considering what could have been, with only two in Z3

Liv St
Knightsbridge
London City Airport
South Ken
Lancaster Gate
Blackwall
Upton Park
Caledonian Rd & Barnsbury
St Pauls
Southwark
Holland Pk
Bermondsey
Imperial Wharf
Lad Grove
Paddington (Bak/Cir/Dis)

After opening the envelope we decided to do Upton Park first at The Hammers were at home later that day

My (trouble free )route with Damo; Aldgate run Aldagte East Upton Park West Ham Stratford (via DLR ) Caledonian Rd & Barnsbury run Caledonian Rd Holborn St Pauls White City run Wood St Paddington H & C run Paddington Dist/Cir Earls Ct Knightsbridge Earls Ct West Brompton Clapham Junction Waterloo (SWT) Canary Wharf run Herons Quay London City Airport (Woolwich Arsenal destined DLR all the way )

I will leave the BERC to post the results

We had a mixed bag of darts at the Angel in Fields with Andrew and Glen getting their first ever 2 dart check-outs and Nozza getting overall player of the night.....

[A2]

I had a horrendous day of delays followed by more delays etc.

My route:

Liverpool Street (due to overcrowding my train eventually departed here TWENTY-THREE (23) minutes after the start time... Holborn, via St. Pauls Caledonian Road and a run down to Caledonian Road & Barnsbury with a 10 minute wait Stratford West Ham Barking on the c2c West Ham, via Upton Park and through a rather overcrowded station full of football supporters Canning Town Blackwall Woolwich Arsenal via. London City Airport London Bridge Southwark Bermondsey (because I'd forgotten where Bermondsey actually was...) Green Park, going through Southwark/i] yet again... Earls Court, via Knightsbridge and South Kensington West Brompton (15 minutes later) Imperial Wharf West Brompton Paddington Bak/C&D Lancaster Gate White City, via of course Holland Park Wood Lane Ladbroke Grove and a finish, conveniently already heading in the direction of the pub.

Andrew

[The Raven]

My route was:

Liverpool Street Upton Park West Ham Canning Town Blackwall Woolwich Arsenal London Bridge Bermondsey Waterloo Clapham Junction West Brompton Earl's Court Green Park Bond Street White City Wood Street Paddington (H&C) Paddington (Bak) Oxford Circus St Paul's Holborn Caledonian Road Caledonian Road & Barnsbury Highbury & Islington

I spend most of the day changing my mind on what to do next! Big mistake at the beginning as I was going to take out St Paul's first, but thought that the next train was 11 minutes. Actually, it was a 2 min wait on the other platform as both platform where going Eastbound. Roll on next R15...

[Iain]

Do you mean westbound?

[tractakid]

Big mistake at the beginning as I was going to take out St Paul's first, but thought that the next train was 11 minutes. Actually, it was a 2 min wait on the other platform as both platform where going Eastbound.

Made the same mistake, saw Paddington and then headed for the westbound sub surface. Then, worked out my route on that train and diverted to Caledonian Road, changing at King's Cross St. Pancras. Ran down the road to Caledonian Road and Barnsbury, waited ~7 minutes for both directions, and chose to head east to Stratford. Ran down to the Jubilee, nightmare decision as all 3 platforms were filled. Once I figured out which one was first, and ran to the platform it was pulling out. Started running back for the next and it pulled out seconds later. the third, which I boarded, was 2m later.

Upton Park DB was a bit slow... then back at West Ham I checked the DLR board to see that indeed there were not direct trains to London City Airport so headed for the Jubilee. Nuh-uh, 10 minute wait! What? I thought the jubilee line had a frequency of about 10 seconds from my previous experience. So I did go on the DLR, arriving to see that, on the high level platforms, a Woolwich Arsenal train was already there. Down one floor and up 2 later, it had of course gone. 10 minutes here, then 10 minutes at London City Airport as westbound trains left a couple of seconds before eastbound ones arrived.

Straight through to Canary Wharf via Blackwall run to the Jub, Southwark, London Bridge, Bank, Holborn, Earls Court.

Run up the spiral stairs and over the bridge to see my Wimbo train leaving. Look at the indicator, it's a flipping OLYMPIA train. I DON'T NEED TO go to Olympia. But as the next train to West Brompton was 10 minutes away, I hoped to connect with a nice WLL train at Olympia instead. Of course it was pulling out as I got there. So, with time to spare I took some snaps of the pesky new ticket barriers that will make catching the 0606 that tad bit harder. If only that train had run when I needed it to...

Checked to see that the Imperial Wharf double back worked, 5 minutes as planned. Silly station has separate barriers for each platform though so require manual entry of the gates by a staff member tucked away in their office. What a pain. Onto Shepherds Bush, to Lancaster Gate, run to Paddington, one stop to Warwick Avenue then the dash to Royal Oak. I'd been meticulously making sure throughout the whole event that the stopwatch on my phone stayed open. But guess what? As I was running the final run I must have accidentally closed the stopwatch app in my pocket. Nightmare. So, second best option, I timed my precise arrival into the final station (Ladbroke Grove) according to my phone's clock, then instead of heading straight to the pub, went instead via Liverpool Street to work out the difference between my phone's clock and the clock at LST used for the start. 53 seconds to add on, which made 4:00:09. Knew this wouldn't win due to the variousl long waits I had to endure, but was pleased to have beaten team Hopeless1995 after the Benjamin variety loudly exclaimed on my arrival at the pub 'you must have come last then!'.

Enjoyed the darts, and amazed that I managed my first two dart checkout (7) to win one of a couple of games I played in.

[The Raven]

Do you mean westbound?

Sorry yes I mean Westbound

[DrainBrain]

I had a lot of fun on my first ever R15.

Liverpool Street Upton Park West Ham Canning Town (Jub) London City Airport (Blackwall) Canary Wharf (Bermondsey, Southwark) Waterloo Clapham Junction (NR) (Imperial Wharf) West Brompton South Kensington Knightsbridge South Kensington (Paddington [Bak/Cir/Dis]) Edgware Road (Ladbroke Grove) Wood Lane White City (run) (Holland Park, Lancaster Gate) St Paul's Oxford Circus Highbury & Islington Caledonian Road & Barnsbury

I first set off to go westbound on the Central line, but there was a solid and stationary queue heading to the escalator. After several minutes standing still I decided to head in the completely opposite direction. A slightly delayed H&C train meant 15 minutes had passed and I had got as far as Aldgate East. I thought this might be some sort of record, but A2 knows better.

After doubling back from Upton Park to West Ham, I thoughtlessly went to the DLR platform, but it was 7 minutes for a train to Beckton so I headed for the Jubilee and this hooked me up for a quick change at Canning Town. Thence to the evil that is London City Airport, and a Lewisham bound DLR all the way to Canary Wharf. Super sexy change onto the Jubilee - I actually ran!

On to Waterloo, reasonably quick departure down to Clapham Junction, where finding the correct LO platform is more luck than judgement. Fortunately (or unfortunately) the LO train was going quite slowly and this gave me time to plan a route round the cluster of stations in the western part of zones 1 and 2. I don't know if I had the best route here, but I do know that from here on in every change was slick.

When I eventually got to the LO at Highbury & Islington there was a train in the lefthand platform heading to Clapham Junction so I got on it. However, another train heading to Richmond was just arriving at the righthand platform. I asked a staff member if this was "the right train for Caledonian Road?" [sic] and got the answer "Yeah, you'll be alright on this one," so naturally I decided to leg it across to the other train. Good decision, as that train left first and the board at Caledonian Road & Barnsbury showed the other train wasn't due for another 8 minutes.

I loitered at CR & B, taking a few photos to commemorate finishing my first R15, which is probably why I didn't see tangy, as it later turned out we'd finished on the same train.

I enjoyed the darts in the pub, though the less said about that the better.

Finally, I'd like to thank everyone who was there for the very warm welcome I received. "I'll be back."

[Going Underground]

I enjoyed the darts in the pub, though the less said about that the better.

Finally, I'd like to thank everyone who was there for the very warm welcome I received. "I'll be back."

Nice to hear that, not a bad bunch are we

[palkanetoijala31]

I cant wait for the team rhys write up!

[tangy]

When I eventually got to the LO at Highbury & Islington there was a train in the lefthand platform heading to Clapham Junction so I got on it. However, another train heading to Richmond was just arriving at the righthand platform. I asked a staff member if this was "the right train for Caledonian Road?" [sic] and got the answer "Yeah, you'll be alright on this one," so naturally I decided to leg it across to the other train. Good decision, as that train left first and the board at Caledonian Road & Barnsbury showed the other train wasn't due for another 8 minutes.

I loitered at CR & B, taking a few photos to commemorate finishing my first R15, which is probably why I didn't see tangy, as it later turned out we'd finished on the same train.

Good job you didn't remain on the train on the left hand platform (platform 2) as that would be an East London line train to Clapham Junction via Surrey Quays! I was at the front of the Richmond train (from platform 7) in the 1st coach, this train departed at 1609.

At Cally Road I exited the station to buy some supplies and went to the pub via a combination of buses.