Random 15 Championship 2013/14: Round 6

[Going Underground]

Picc Circus is almost certainly one of the best possible Z1 starting stations this year.. Fingers crossed it's a double delight start

[DrainBrain]

Those are some pretty annoying station/line closures.

Attending:

A2
Nozzacook
GU (and pre parkrunning)
palkanetoijala31 +1
The Orange One
DrainBrain

[The Orange One]

Imagine not thinking things through and doing this:

Notting Hill Gate HSK (District) Gloucester Road (Circle) South Kensington (District) Knightsbridge (Piccadilly).

[palkanetoijala31]

I WILL NO LONGER HAVE A PLUS ONE THOUGH

[The Orange One]

Oh, and Farringdon will be closed. I mean, let's just mess up as many Zone 1 Stations as possible. I shall add it to the closure lists.

Actually, these are ridiculous closures. Bond Street closed to Central, Embankment only available through Bakerloo/Northern pass-through (and thus almost certainly unavailable), Covent Garden exit only with only eastbound trains stopping, Gloucester Road not available to Piccadilly and no Eastbound Circles either, South Kensington as a District terminator (albeit with Piccadilly Line service), no trains stopping at Farringdon (although pass-through may be allowed)...

[tangy]

Firstly I must apologise for actually missing the start and not being there for the draw of the stations. Stoooopid left luggage office at Victoria...

The draw was conducted in my absence by tossing pennies at a large print Tube map on the Piccadilly Circus concourse! The start time was therefore pushed back to 13:00 hours I arrived just as the others were dashing off to get their first trains.

Anyway, this was a bog standard "normal" round and the stations that formed this challenge were:
--Piccadilly Circus [start]
--East Putney
--King's Cross St. Pancras
--Willesden Junction (low level)
--Angel
--Waterloo
--Canada Water
--Bank
--East Acton
--Hammersmith H&C
--Pimlico
--Westminster
--South Kensington
--Oxford Circus
--Barbican

We had 10 challengers in eight teams:

8th: Kevin Brown and Damian Cook finishing at Southfields in a time of 03:05:28 (3 points)
6th=: Steve Wilson and Andrew Baker finishing at Barbican in a time of 02:59:53 (5 points)
6th=: Nick Gardner finishing at Barbican in a time of 02:59:53 (5 points)
5th: Peter Smyth finishing at Barbican in a time of 02:36:03 (6 points)
4th: Glen Bryant finishing at Putney Bridge in a time of 02:32:55 (7 points)
1st=: A three way tie between myself, Andrew Chilcraft and The Orange One who all finished at Kensal Green in a time 0f 02:30:16 (12 points each). We all had slightly different routes to each other and my time was adjusted accordingly to start from 13:00.

The final leader board (having double and triple checked the scores gained from each round) is as follows:

1st: Peter Smyth: 52 points (worst score of 6 deducted)
2nd: Kevin Brown: 44 points (worst score of 3 deducted)
3rd=: Tangy: 41 points (worst score of 3 deducted)
3rd=: Andrew Chilcraft: 41 points
5th: Damian Cook: 37 points
6th: Glen Bryant: 34 points
7th=: Nick Gardner: 32 points (worst score of 3 deducted)
7th=: Andrew Baker: 32 points
9th: The Orange One: 30 points
10th: Rhys Benjamin: 23 points
11th: Andi James: 17 points
12th: Rhys Jackson: 15 points
13th: Tom Cooling: 6 points
14th: Steve Wilson: 5 points
15th: Ashley Moore: 4 points
16th: Simon Gardner: 3 points

Therefore I owe Andrew Chilcraft a prize, having incorrectly read out his score as 39 in the announcement at the pub.

Thanks to everyone who has attended the challenges for this season (albeit one or all six). I sincerely hope you have enjoyed yourselves, especially the new twists introduced during the season, some of which will be carried forward to future Random 15 Championship events. I have enjoyed my first full season as official BERC and of course like to continue in the position.

The doors are now closing on the 2013/14 Random 15 Championship but they will re-open for a new season in September (hopefully with a working generator)!

Tangy
BERC.

[tractakid]

Hugo and I visited the same stations in the same order for the entire route. The only differences were Hugo changing from Victoria to Northern at Kings Cross St. Pancras rather than Euston, and getting ahead of me at London Bridge.

[The Orange One]

My route:

Piccadilly Circus Oxford Circus King's Cross St Pancras Moorgate Barbican Moorgate London Bridge Canada Water Green Park Vauxhall Putney (SWT) East Putney (run) South Kensington Hammersmith (Piccadilly) Hammersmith (H&C, run) Wood Lane White City (run) North Acton Willesden Junction (266 bus) Kensal Green

After waiting ages for Tangy to show, we then decided to draw the stations by tossing pennies at a large print Tube map. When I say pennies, I mean a 5p coin, a 20p coin and two pens (we used the tip). The system took a while to perfect, and had we just taken the first 15 stations that came out we would have ended up with such delights as West Finchley, Crossharbour, Carpenders Park, Brighton, Calais and Tower Hill (which was closed) three times in a row.

As tractakid said, we ended up travelling together for almost the entire route. I might have got a train up at the very start, had I not completely lost my head while heading to the Bakerloo Line and believed Oxford Circus to be south of Piccadilly Circus, causing me to miss the train.

Summary:
- 30 second dash across to the Victoria Line at Oxford Circus
- I went a pretty long way to the Northern Line at KCSP, but it probably wouldn't have made a difference
- About 40 seconds reversal at Barbican, this was ruined by a 4 minute wait for the southbound Northern Line at Moorgate
- Lost tractakid at London Bridge by diving through the closing doors of an eastbound Jubilee that he missed
- Tractakid caught up at Vauxhall (NR) when I let a train packed with rugby fans leave for one that was supposed to be faster, but made an unscheduled stop at Wandsworth Town
- Putney run was shorter than I thought it would be
- Missed the Central Line at White City, which is pretty much business as usual for me catching trains there
- Chose not to run to Willesden Junction, though I would have made it before the bus, which took about 7 minutes to turn up although advertised as just 5, and there was a driver change as well
- I would have liked to finish at Harlesden, but the southbound came first