Lunaticonthegrass' Alternative Challenges 2020
Posted: 16 Aug 2020, 22:05
As a few others have done, I'm starting a thread where I'll keep record of my various attempts at various Alternative Challenges throughout the year. Then 2021 will see the long-awaited sequal!
With the slow relaxing of COVID-19 restrictions and a free week at the end of July (I had planned a week's camping but that was cancelled), I decided to have one day down in London doing Tube Challenge related activities. If the restrictions had been lifted more I might have gone for my first Zone 1 challenge, but I decided that that was not the best idea. Instead, I stuck to doing reconnaissance work, so that I wouldn't be running as much and if I missed a train or had to let one go because it was too busy it wouldn't matter as much. I also stuck to the Overground. I have a route for this and figured that larger, air-conditioned trains spending less time in tunnels was a better idea.
So I spent a good few hours testing out about half of my route. Currently it's looking good and everything has potential to work as I want it too. I also got to ride on the (fairly) new Class 710 trains. Normally I would have had lunch on the move, but with a facemask this was impossible. So instead I had an extended break at Upminster and did some exploring of the place as well.
The trains varied from being quiet to moderate in terms of usage levels. It was possible to keep 2 metres (or not far off) away from everybody else all the time and almost everybody was wearing a mask. (Which is more than can be said for the people on the train down from Birmingham!)
So not the most interesting of days on the network, but it was good to get back out there.
With the slow relaxing of COVID-19 restrictions and a free week at the end of July (I had planned a week's camping but that was cancelled), I decided to have one day down in London doing Tube Challenge related activities. If the restrictions had been lifted more I might have gone for my first Zone 1 challenge, but I decided that that was not the best idea. Instead, I stuck to doing reconnaissance work, so that I wouldn't be running as much and if I missed a train or had to let one go because it was too busy it wouldn't matter as much. I also stuck to the Overground. I have a route for this and figured that larger, air-conditioned trains spending less time in tunnels was a better idea.
So I spent a good few hours testing out about half of my route. Currently it's looking good and everything has potential to work as I want it too. I also got to ride on the (fairly) new Class 710 trains. Normally I would have had lunch on the move, but with a facemask this was impossible. So instead I had an extended break at Upminster and did some exploring of the place as well.
The trains varied from being quiet to moderate in terms of usage levels. It was possible to keep 2 metres (or not far off) away from everybody else all the time and almost everybody was wearing a mask. (Which is more than can be said for the people on the train down from Birmingham!)
So not the most interesting of days on the network, but it was good to get back out there.