Post
by hopeful traveller » 19 Sep 2019, 22:57
All in all not a bad challenge, although I did get rather unlucky and might well have won it on another day.
Start at Cannon Street, then the now-traditional “mad dash” at the first change. I resisted the temptation of the crowd and jumped onto the Northern line, looking back at the platform to realise no one had followed me! Up to Camden Town (and an explanation of “why are you in shorts”, where I get a zero minuter to go back down to Euston. Get out and run to Euston Square - I’d given myself seven minutes for this and given Euston’s new taxi rank I used up the vast majority of these leaving the vicinity of Euston. I made the train at Euston Square, and then I had a brilliant bit of fortune where the train somehow left 1 minute late but arrived at Moorgate 2 minutes early. Knowing that I had an opportunity to get ahead of my schedule here (on paper, I would get a train leaving at 7:17, but the early arrival into Moorgate gave me a chance of the 7:15). I made the 7:15, but that was running a minute late anyway, hence I ended up waiting for a long time at Moorgate anyway. At which point, Kevin, who must have been on the Met train behind mine, turned up as it was pulling in. And lo and behold, Tangy was on the train pulling in. The usual mind games ensued and I realised that I was effectively ahead of him.
King’s Cross offered up a 2-minute wait, although I’m sure there’s a Northern -> Piccadilly shortcut I’m not aware of, followed by a 30-seconder at Covent Garden, before a long change at Holborn. I realised this may be where I lose that “train up”, which is only worth 2 minutes at that time of day anyway. I got a 0-minuter at Holborn (Woodford via Hainault) and I suddenly had a chance of getting in under 90 minutes, as I knew I had a slow connection at Bank coming up on paper and could potentially get two trains ahead. As it was, I had to wait 3 minutes, so I was “only” the one train up anyway. Kennington was kind to me, up, across, and down, 2 minutes, I’ll take that, then back to Elephant & Castle, and stop.
No trains on either platform. And the next one was ARRIVING - not departing - in 3 minutes. Oh dear.
As it was, after spending 6 minutes at E&C, the cleaner ended up having to ride up to Lambeth North (where an abnormally large crowd confirmed the diagnosis that the Bakerloo Line is terrible), then to Waterloo. At which point, I came across a broken travelator, but the appearance of Kev coming up behind me spurred me on to the finish line. As it was, we needn’t have bothered - 3 minute wait for the final ‘op to South Walk The Plank.
Then McDonalds, where a flooded toilet flushed us out of the downstairs section. No team names this year, sadly, so my team name of “In Soviet Russia, Plank Walk You” will have to be used next year instead...
1 FNC Completion (PB: 17:18:18 with G Bryant, A Chilcraft, I MacNaughton)
4 Zone Ones (PB: 03:00:35 with G Bryant)
15 R15s (PB: 01:55:48 with T Cooling and R Jackson)
11 All Lines (PB: 00:44:03)
Winner of the 2014 Formula 1 Side Competition