Random 15 Championship 2015/16: Round 5

[DrainBrain]

They were a very interesting set of stations and caused drama-a-plenty

They looked fairly innocuous. They were actually hell!

[Tube Geek]

I'd have gone

Essex Road Moorgate London Bridge Canada Water Highbury & Islington Gospel Oak Kentish Town West Gospel Oak Willesden Junction Regent's Park Great Portland Street (run) Euston Square Warren Street (run) Embankment Ravenscourt Park South Ken Piccadilly Circus Baker Street Wood Lane White City (run) Notting Hill Gate West Brompton Clapham Junction

Off the top of my head, so wouldn't have been that good!

[nozzacook]

I'd have gone

Essex Road Moorgate London Bridge Canada Water Highbury & Islington Gospel Oak Kentish Town West Gospel Oak Willesden Junction Regent's Park Great Portland Street (run) Euston Square Warren Street (run) Embankment Ravenscourt Park South Ken Piccadilly Circus Baker Street Wood Lane White City (run) Notting Hill Gate West Brompton Clapham Junction

Off the top of my head, so wouldn't have been that good!

East London line was closed H&I to Shadwell hence why most people went bank, Shadwell, Canada Water.

[Tube Geek]

Damn! That's screwed that route up then!

[RJSRdg]

Apart from the barrier issue at Shadwell (which served to help split the group up a bit - I arrived on the platform to see Hugo make it on to the train and the doors close), I don't think I came across any issues anywhere.

For the record, my route was:

Essex Road
Old Street
Bank
Shadwell - where I lost most of the group due the barrier issues, apart from Glen and Eleanor
Rotherhithe
Canada Water Lost Glen and Eleanor here briefly
Westminster Caught up with Glen and Eleanor again going up the "secret" staircase (which I had never used before) from the Jubilee to District Lines.
Sid James's Park
Victoria Baled out on Glen and Eleanor here by catching a Southern service to
Clapham Junction followed by Overground to
West Brompton Quick change onto the District (using another staircase I hadn't used before) to
Earl's Court then Piccadilly to
Knightsbridge, where to my surprise I met up with Kev and Nozza, and Alex and Sam as I caught another Piccadilly train back to
Barons Court where I gave the others the slip briefly as I changed to a Richmond train (was really wanting an EB), only for them to rejoin me at Hammersmith for the ride to
Ravenscourt Park. We'd had a little discussion on the way as to whether it was better to carry on up to EB or double back via Hammersmith and White City/Wood Lane. Either way we all had to disembark from the Richmond train. An eastbound District was just arriving in the far platform so the others ran down the stairs and through the subway for it but I got separated from them by a couple carrying a pushchair down the stairs and having heard Kevin's(?) voice shouting "EB in 1 minute" and realising that being stuck behind the pushchair would probably prevent me from making it to the far platform in time for the eastbound train, I opted to stay put. As it turned out, the "1 minute" was a typical "TfL Minute" but at least the train pulled into the nearest platform at
Ealing Broadway, giving a quick change to the Central to
North Acton, where the debate as to which route from Ravenscourt was quicker was resolved when four familiar people boarded my carriage. At
White City, I attempted to give the others the slip by running/bussing to Willesden Junction(!) but Alex convinced me that wasn't the best idea so we all went to
Wood Lane for the Hydrochloric to
Royal Oak and the OSI (one I hadn't done before) to
Warwick Avenue then
Maida Vale
Regent's Park
Oxford Circus
Tottenham Court Road
Goodge Street. At
Camden Town, Alex, Sam and I hopped out and I pointed them in the right direction when they reached the North London Line viaduct with no sign of
Camden Road station. In actual fact, with a slight variation, this may have turned out to be a better route than the direct run up Camden Road as it was far less crowded.
Then simply
Kentish Town West where Kev and Nozza rejoined us having run from Kentish Town and
Gospel Oak for a joint winning time of 3:13:07, and where Hugo and his team mate rejoined us a few minutes later from the next westbound train as we waited for an eastbound to return us to Camden Road and thence to TCR.

[The Orange One]

Thanks, Overground. I like your colour, but not that much else. So, here was my route:

Essex Road Old Street Bank Shadwell Canada Water Westminster South Kensington Green Park Vauxhall Clapham Junction West Brompton Earl's Court Ravenscourt Park Hammersmith Wood Lane White City North Acton White City Wood Lane Royal Oak Warwick Avenue Maida Vale Oxford Circus Tottenham Court Road Camden Town Camden Road Gospel Oak

If you don't feel like reading an overly detailed report, stop now.

As Nick said, these were fairly innocuous but turned up to be quite challenging!! We started watches at Essex Road at the bottom of the lift shaft, then ran up to the platforms. The first train actually arrived 2 minutes late (as far as I am aware nobody noticed this - I only found out when I checked RTT when I got home). I made a split second decision to bail at Old Street for the southbound Northern Line, which turned out to be neither here nor there - it's a longer run but negates the waiting outside Moorgate for a platform! On the short ride down to Bank, I decided to team up with Sam (Inman) for the challenge - I should really have done more of these rounds solo!!

Charged down the stairs at Bank to find the DLR some distance back along the platform - luckily I made it right to the back carriage (with a number) with a few others; the rest of us got onto the front. As far as I was aware, we were all still together at this point (turned out later that some people had stayed on the Northern Line, A2 being one of them). After brief comments on the absurdity of ending up on the DLR at all, we got to Shadwell, where there was a disaster - there was only one barrier working and a huge crowd!! I pushed through some of the people then took to the stairs, arriving to see a train just opening up its doors. Waited by the doors to hold them in case it was needed, then once my teammate and what I assumed was the rest of the pack had arrived I let them close only to see Richard (and a very brief glimpse of Glen and Eleanor) arriving seconds too late!! And then we were nine, I think?

Bailed at Canada Water with Peter, Tangy and tractakid (the others remained on board) to miss a Jubilee by the skin of my teeth! Onwards to Waterloo, where tractakid bailed (which was the last I saw of him), and the rest of us took to the escalators at Westminster to find 3 minutes for the District Line. Of course, this was actually 6 minutes (TfL minutes, you know), so it was onwards to South Kensington (Tangy bailed at Victoria to get to Knightsbridge the other way). The three of us hurried down to the Piccadilly, where Peter went off to do his own door position (twas the last we saw of him), while we got ready for Green Park. At Knightsbridge, we rejoined with Tangy, and then the run to the Victoria Line at Green Park (it seems Tangy prefers the escalators - personally I'm a corridor man, so much flatter). Onto the Victoria Line down to Vauxhall (after a quick debate on the merits of Victoria and Southern), where after a brief kerfuffle with the platforms we took a South West Trains down to Clapham Junction - only to see both Overgrounds pulling out!! Met A2 on the bridge at Clapham, he was walking in the opposite direction, having just come from the Overground, then settled for the 13 minute wait to head up the West London Line.

...

...

...finally we left. Got to West Brompton for an all right connection onto the District Line up to Earl's Court, then a snappy platform switch onto an Ealing Broadway. Upon consultation with the online live departure boards at Ravenscourt Park, we discovered that while our train might be saying Ealing Broadway, it might end up going to Richmond - and anyway there was an eastbound District ready for us, so we took that. Back to Hammersmith, across the road (not held up for once) then an 8 minute wait to leave Hammersmith.

...

...which left bang on time 8 minutes after we arrived. We got to Wood Lane to see something that pretty much killed our spirits right then and there - Kevin, Nozza, Alex, Sam (Smith) and Richard were all waiting to board the H&C we had just left on, meaning they'd just done the North Acton doubleback and were 20 minutes ahead!! The three of us pelted down to White City, where the Central Line was doing a lot of waiting in the platform, then up to North Acton for a quick turnaround and back to White City. We encountered A2 on the way back to Wood Lane (and apparently Peter as well, but I didn't notice him) where sure enough, when the train arrived we were precisely 20 minutes behind. We had a lot of catching up to do.

Off to Royal Oak, where we encountered Andi and Das walking in the other direction. After crossing the road bridge over the canal, myself and Sam took the shortcut, whilst Tangy went the longer way - a decision that saw us finally lose Tangy!! There's some debate about the difference between road bridge and shortcut vs curly footbridge - I reckon they're exactly the same, except I prefer not to have to go in circles to get onto a footbridge. Anyway, up to Maida Vale, snappy doubleback and down to Oxford Circus on a 1972 stock that had the air vents working!! Two sexy changes onto the Central Line at Oxford Circus and then an Edgware branch train at TCR, then north towards Camden Town (being on an Edgware branch meant it was better to run the Camdens (they're closest anyway) than to either change branch and run the Kentish Towns or deal with the lift at Chalk Farm for the Chalk Farm - Kentish Town West run). At Camden Town, we figured we had about 5 minutes to get to Camden Road - which was down to 4 minutes by the time we'd got past the tourists and up the single working escalator. Straight up a reasonably crowded but not packed Camden Road saw us get to the Overground with about 1 minute to spare, and we came in with a final time of 03:20:55 to see Kevin, Nozza, Alex, Sam and Richard on the eastbound platform, having presumably finished shortly before us. So that was that.

[RJSRdg]

Somewhere you must have gained a bit on us at the end as we weren't waiting all that long at KTW before you turned up. I think you may have gained 5 minutes at Camden as I remember Alex saying we could slow down as we had 9 minutes to make the connection (that was just before we got to the wrong bridge!), but we didn't have any other delays elsewhere.

[RJSRdg]

Incidentally, there is a reason for curly footbridges over canals - in the case of horse-drawn boats, they allow the horse to cross the canal without getting the cable tangled up, though in the case of that particular bridge, it looks as if the spiral goes the wrong way!

[Going Underground]

Somewhere you must have gained a bit on us at the end as we weren't waiting all that long at KTW before you turned up. I think you may have gained 5 minutes at Camden as I remember Alex saying we could slow down as we had 9 minutes to make the connection (that was just before we got to the wrong bridge!), but we didn't have any other delays elsewhere.

Yes I can't recall any real delays on our route except the double back at St James's Park which seemed longer than the 2 mins showing.. 5 mins at KTW for the Overground as well so we took the run nice and leisurely from Kentish Town LU....
I did have to run the Wood Lane White City's (both ways) a little harder than I wanted to to either try and get a train up / not be a train down!
Seems into Ealing and out again would have saved on one of those runs....
I guessed we could do the Royal Oak Warwick Ave at a more sensible pace to suit myself as I figured out that Richard, Alex and Sam would be making their debut runs on this one.... I did try to make a last minute dash to get away from them and reached the platform ahead but was showing Queens Park in 3 mins, probably the only other slight delay we had from memory....

[tangy]

Here is the results of round 5 of the 2015/6 Random 15 Championship.

Due to a number of cancellations on the Northern City Line and the fact that all challengers that I was expecting were all present it was decided to start two minutes early so challengers could get the 1230 train towards Moorgate (the next scheduled train in either direction wasn't until 1254).

The random generator gave us the following stations:
--Essex Road (start/meet up)
--Regent's Park
--Goodge Street
--Maida Vale
--Clapham Junction
--St. James's Park
--Bank
--Rotherhithe
--Knightsbridge
--Gospel Oak
--Royal Oak
--North Acton
--Canada Water
--Kentish Town West
--Ravenscourt Park

There was a pleasing turnout, with 15 challengers taking part, which split up into 11 teams. The finishing positions were as follows:
--11th: Andrew Baker 04:31:08 at Gospel Oak
--10th: Nick Gardner 04:14:08 at Kentish Town West
--9th: Glen Bryant and Eleanor Spanjar 04:06:39 at Wandsworth Road
--8th: Andi James and Das Stevens 03:42:12 at Gospel Oak
--7th: Peter Smyth 03:37:36 at Clapham Junction
--6th: Tangy 03:31:12 at Gospel Oak
--5th: Andrew Chilcraft 03:21:50 at Maida Vale
--4th: The Orange One and Sam Inman 03:20:55 at Gospel Oak
--=1st: Sam Smith and Alex Kneller 03:13:07 at Gospel Oak
--=1st: Richard Standing 03:13:07 at Gospel Oak
--=1st: Kevin Brown and Damian Cook 03:13:07 at Gospel Oak

The leaderboard (after 5 rounds) now looks like this:

=1st: The Orange One: 44 points [5 rounds attended]
=1st: Andrew Chilcraft: 42 points [5]
3rd: Tangy: 39 points [5]
=4th: Steve McSherry: 36 points [4]
=4th: Kevin Brown: 36 points [4]
6th: Andrew Baker: 33 points [5]
7th: Peter Smyth: 29 points [5]
8th: Sam Smith: 27 points [4]
=9th: Josh Ageros: 20 points [3]
=9th: Glen Bryant: 20 points [4]
11th: Richard Standing: 18 points [2]
12th: Damian Cook: 17 points [2]
=13th: Nick Gardner: 15 points [4]
=13th: Harry Ageros: 15 points [2]
=15th: Alex Kneller: 12 points [2]
=15th: Rhys Benjamin: 12 points [1]
=17th: James Ross: 10 points [2]
=17th: Leam Farrar: 10 points [1]
19th: Sam Inman: 7 points [2]
20th: Richard Martin: 6 points [1]
=21st: Tom Wood: 3 points [1]
=21st: Andi James: 3 points [1]
=21st: Das Stevens: 3 points [1]
24th: Eleanor Spanjar: 2 points [1]
25th: Aaron Dadd: 0 points [1]

Thankyou all for attending and the next (and final) round of this season will be held on Saturday 23rd July 2016. Who will be crowned Random 15 Champion for this season?

Tangy
The BERC

[The Orange One]

I think your maths is wrong - it's 7 points to the 4th place and 5 points to the 6th place, not the other way around!! (which means Sam Inman's on 0+7=7, I'm on 37+7=44 and you're on 34+5=39)

[tangy]

I think your maths is wrong - it's 7 points to the 4th place and 5 points to the 6th place, not the other way around!! (which means Sam Inman's on 0+7=7, I'm on 37+7=44 and you're on 34+5=39)

Thanks for spotting this, I wrote the results out exactly from my results sheet yesterday (so were not in order of rank). Scores now amended.

[The Orange One]

Right, I'm not around for Round 6. So putting in the maths, assuming that Andrew Chilcraft and Steve McSherry will be a team, there are five teams (or six people) who could take the championship - Andrew Chilcraft, Steve McSherry, Kevin Brown, Tangy, myself and Andrew Baker. And here's the maths:

1) If Kevin wins (or jointly wins), he takes the championship.

2) If Andrew C/Steve win (and Kevin doesn't), they take the championship.

3) If Kevin comes second (and none of the above occurs), Kevin takes the championship.

4) If Andrew C/Steve come second (and none of the above occurs), Andrew C/Steve take the championship.

5) If Tangy wins (and none of the above occurs), he takes the championship.

6) If Andrew Baker wins (and none of the above occurs), he takes the championship.

7) If Kevin places 3rd (and none of the above occurs), he takes the championship.

8 ) In all other cases (so Kevin places 4th or lower, Andrew C/Steve place 3rd or lower, Tangy and Andrew B do not win), I win.

[palkanetoijala31]

Personally I like to see five people going for the championship so split the team up would be interesting.

[Sarnian]

Essex Road Old Street Bank Shadwell Clapham Junction Victoria (on a 377) St James's Park South Kensington Knightsbridge Hammersmith Ravenscourt Park Hammersmith Wood Lane White City North Acton White City Wood Lane Royal Oak Warwick Avenue Maida Vale Oxford Circus Tottenham Court Road Camden Town Camden Road Gospel Oak.

Everyone left on the 1230, and I had my route planned out before I got off the 313. I teamed up with Alex, who hadn't brought a map.

At Shadwell I just saw a train in the platform and jumped on, and didn't realise where it was going until it reached Surrey Quays, and even then it was from a random passenger and not from the announcements. Thankfully it was a Clapham Junction train, so a scenic trundle around South London ensued. I passed the Millwall ground, who I'd been to see beaten by Barnsley at Wembley a week ago.

A run from platform 2 to platform 14 at Clapham, then up to Victoria on a mainline train, where I board a westbound District and find that none of the group I was with (Kev, Nozza, Andi and Das) had done so, and neither had my teammate Alex. But I'd have gone the wrong way on the concourse at Victoria had he not corrected me, so I didn't mind having to wait. Andi and Das carried on eastbound and we didn't see them again.

At Knightsbridge we met Richard, who we shared a train with up to Hammersmith. When changing platforms at Ravenscourt Park Kev nearly used his cunning mind-games to get Alex to miss the train back to Hammersmith, by shouting "Ealing Broadway, one minute!". On leaving on an H&C Richard was nowhere to be seen, but he turned up again at North Acton.

The Royal Oak - Warwick Avenue run was half-jogged and half-walked but the five of us still ended up on the same train.

We finally managed to shake Kev and Nozza off at Camden Town, where we got a bit lost because we ran down the wrong road, but they knew they could have a leisurely walk from Kentish Town to KTW, and the three teams all finished at Gospel Oak on the same train.

Good luck to those competing in the last round; I don't expect to see you again for the last round or indeed until mid-2017, as I'm hoping to be off to Singapore at the end of July for a year.