What a long, tiring but ultimately, fun day!
Mine started at 06:40, leaving at 07:30 and driving the 52 miles to Tamworth Station so I can ride the 08:38 Virgin Pendolino to Euston; I love these trains! I arrived at 09:50 and after a wee break, I decided to knock off some more stations that I've never actually entered/exited; been through but never visited 'properly'. I knocked off Angel, Old St, Moorgate and finally Russell Square, via Liverpool St & Holborn. At Russell Sq, I used the lift on the way up but took (very long!) spiral stairs down. After this I made my way to Westminster and walked over the bridge to Waterloo. Why? because after what happened last week I wanted to as an 'Up Yours' to those that want to bring our society down. Anyway, into Waterloo (remembering the scenes from one of the Bourne movies) and got the Northern Line to meet up with you guys at
Kennington, ticking off another station!
I didn't have a mini map when the stations started to be read out so had to nip into the station to get one
and to make matters worse I'm such a novice that I don't know the locations of all the stations, particularly those in Zone 2. I marked off what I could, started my stopwatch and headed off with the rest of you. I'll be perfectly honest and admit I didn't know which way I was going to go but I knew I needed to go north. I figured I'd get Blackfriars out of the way so at Elephant & Castle, I jumped off and headed to a Bakerloo train ... which sat in the station for AGES!. This however, gave me a chance to find the stations I didn't know (Bow Road, Parsons Green, Hampstead) and added them to the map.
Changed at Embankment to the District and ticked off
Blackfriars, staying onto head out to
Bow Road. Whilst sitting on this train I was still trying to work out a route and what door I needed to get off this S8 train at Bow Road. Realizing I needed to be further forward, I walked through the train and encountered Kev & Nozza. Because we were talking, I stopped walking forward so when we got off, we were too far away from the exit to get over and catch the return train! Oh well! All of us went back to Mile End and we changed to a Central Line but this was held for about 5 mins due to an issue at Bank. Got to Liverpool St and all of us changed to the H&C and up to
Barbican. I left them here and doubled back to Moorgate and then went down to get a Northern City Line train. Luckily, it was only a 3 min wait for one to leave and this took me out to
Finsbury Park. I had looked at the Overground options from Highbury & Islington to get to the Northern Line stops but wasn't confident enough. Onto the Victoria Line and changed at Euston, heading out to tick off
Tuffnell Park before doubling back to Camden Town. Much like Xcooler, I found Camden Town to be a pain! The tunnel I needed to get to the Edgeware Branch was teeming with a zombie horde of hipsters. Arrrrgh! Fought my way through and onto a train to do
Belsize Park and
Hampstead.
Back down to Camden Town to change onto the NL Bank Branch to get to KXSP, onto the Piccadilly to go through
Russell Square and down to
Earls Court, where I managed to jump straight onto an Olympia train ... and RJSRdg came from one way, with TOO and xcooler coming from the other.
We discussed what we had left to do and xcooler suggested catching the overground to West Brompton and then down to Parsons Green. I decided to do that so I wasn't following Richard around! So that was
Olympia done, (almost) straight onto an Overground for West Brompton and then a long wait for the 3 of us to get to
Parsons Green - where Too and Xcooler were finishing their challenge. I went down and back up to get a train straight back to Earls Court and a District train to Hammersmith. Straight off and over the road to get on to a H&C at
Hammersmith ... where I bumped into Tangy who also had the same two stations to complete. We changed at
Wood Lane onto the Central Line and both of us hopped off the the train at
Holland Park to stop the watches.
After a (needed!) break at the pub, I visited Temple, Blackfriars (again!) and Mansion House before heading back to Euston and the 20:31 back up north. Of all the Zone 1 stations, the only ones I need to enter/exit from are Lancaster Gate (closed), Lambeth North (only just re-opened) and Southwark.
Thanks for letting me join in with the fun; it's an enjoyable, tiring and brain taxing challenge! I do have to get myself a cheap IOS device for this so I can use the Station Master app on the move, it has the best exit door positions. Some of the Android ones put me at the wrong end of the platform!
I'm knackered!