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Hi. Please would you all collectively provide clarity and consensus on the status of the Richmond LO platforms and the LO route between Richmond and Kew Gardens as far as our various challenges are concerned. Basically it's a series of yes/no scope questions. I am particularly interested in FNC, SLAM and South London, but I would welcome any other specific or generic clarifications (eg Alphabet). I'm a bit worried that there is a grey area. For example, rule 8 of South London seems outdated based on my recent personal experience of standard platform allocations (and thus track usage) at Richmond: "Even though this is a London Underground based challenge, you may use trains run by other operators that run on the SAME tracks as those used by Underground trains and calling at the SAME stations. For example, it permitted to visit Kew Gardens- Richmond on an Overground train.". Similarly, for SLAM does Richmond require two visits (LU and LO), or would one visit by either suffice, or would even one visit by whatever-SWT-is-now-called suffice for ticking off the "station"?

Thanks,
David

I am the best one to answer this, as I am the main adjudicator for the alternative challenges (and whose rules you are citing).

In writing the rules for each of the alternative challenges, I have based them upon the official Guinness World Records rules for the Full Network (obviously suitably adapted to suit the various challenges).

The terminal platforms at Richmond are regarded as "common user" despite Overground trains generally using platforms 3 and 4, whilst the District uses 5,6 and 7. Although this is normally the case, I have departed from Richmond on an Overground train from platform 5 before. Therefore use of ANY of the Richmond terminal platforms is valid, even if an Overground train is due out first.
This is very similar to the platforms at Amersham, indeed have even ended a challenge on a Chiltern train from Rickmansworth.

SLAM is South London All Modes- all TfL modes that is, so excludes National Rail. Therefore a visit of Ricmond solely using SWR trains via platforms 1 and 2 would NOT be valid. You will need to arrive or depart from the terminal platforms as described above and you would miss out Kew Gardens!

If you were being very pedantic, you could argue that as platform 3 cannot be used by LU (due to no fourth rail), any visit to Richmond that used platform 3 was invalid. However I do not think it is sensible to go into that level of detail, for a start if you were to get on a train at Kew Gardens, there is no way to know for certain what platform at Richmond it will be using.

I think it is better just to concentrate on the "same tracks" rather than the "same platform", as long as the trains share the same track at some point between A and B it is valid, regardless of what platforms it uses.

That's great - thank you

David