Second FNC attempt and completion (25/07/25) 17:24:44

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TheEdgington
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Second FNC attempt and completion (25/07/25) 17:24:44

Post by TheEdgington »

Hello again (since its been so long since I last posted!),
Below is a description of the second time I attempted the Full Network Challenge, with the same two friends, on 25th July. We planned to follow the same route as previously, as we felt with more luck we could easily have made up time. The route we followed didn't use any particularly novel methods (deviating little from the Labyrinth), so I have no problems sharing the gist of it below.

Chesham start at 05:16 (again)
Heathrow terminal 5 finish at 22:40
272 official stations
Time of 17 hours, 24 minutes, 44 seconds

Brief chronology
- 11 minute expected wait at Amersham, at which the nice lady at the kiosk informed us that several people had been at the start of a tube challenge there in the last week
- Delays on the District line meant that we were in the same position as last time at Ealing Common, although this time we decided to wait, and ended up less than half an hour behind by the time we were going south on the Metropolitan line, although we missed White City in the process. This was annoying, as the train advertised to West Ruislip ended up terminating at Northolt, so we could have done White City without losing time here.
- We made the connection from Northwick park to Kenton in 2 minutes, including holding a door at the latter.
- We made a good bus to Battersea Power Station, which saved us about six minutes. We promptly lost this at Battersea Power Station when we just missed a train due in part to overzealous gateline staff.
- At Earls' Court for Notting Hill Gate we opted to go via Gloucester Road, as we felt this would be more reliable than waiting for a train not shown on the platform indicators. This was a mistake, but probably cost us about 5 mins.
- We were on what the timetable advertised as the last Epping train to turn back in time for a Hainault shuttle from Woodford. This train turned around at Debden, and we were confident that we would miss the shuttle, however we pulled into Woodford having visited Epping just before it (the exact same thing happened on our last attempt, which makes me wonder if they are always delayed leaving Woodford?)
- We stopped at Roding Valley travelling east, as westbound trains were not stopping there at the time
- A kind gentleman at Leytonstone High Road was able to fill up bottles for us, which was much needed, as we had no outside support
- The bus from Edgware to Canons Park was very slow for the first part of its journey, so we would have done better to just start walking. All told this probably didn't cost us more than 15 minutes.
- We were one train behind what we needed to be on for Mill Hill East at Moorgate, so we had a considerable wait at Finchley Central (although the 15 mins we were expecting ended up being less than 10, so not terrible, and we were able to use the toilets to fill out bottles).
- The bus from High Barnet to Oakwood roundabout followed by a run worked out much better than the direct one to Cockfosters we took last time, and we got to Cockfosters at 19:07 (anyone who has done a similar route with an evening Olympia will recognise the importance of the 19:07:15 from Cockfosters platform 1).
- We made the first evening Olympia train from Earl's Court; this was the first time we began to be quietly confident of finishing.
- The run to Shepherd's bush and double back to finally collect White City were uneventful, although we were flagging by this point. There was a long wait for a train at Notting Hill Gate, no wait at Hammersmith and a short wait at West Kensington.
- We'd just missed the District back out of Richmond, so we took the Overground to Gunnersbury and ran to Chiswick Park, missing a District line train by less than 30 seconds (it appeared on the viaduct as we could see the station). Another lovely gentleman at the ticket barriers took pity on our water bottles, for which we were most grateful.
- Nothing extraordinary remaining - the first Piccadilly line train went to Terminal 4 and had been delayed so only waited for around 3 minutes, we had a couple of minutes at terminals 2 and 3, and got into Terminal 5 at 22:40.
- There was nowhere in Terminal 5 to fill up water. This is probably intentional design, however having the taps in the bathroom dispense only a trickle of hot water and no cold seems simply spiteful.
- The last train of the night to Cambridge had been cancelled, so for a bonus tight connection I made it from the Heathrow Express at Paddington to Kings Cross in just over 20 minutes.

Overall a fun experience. We didn't have anyone meeting us at either end (unless Guinness would accept an Uber driver as independent adjudicator?), so we didn't gather enough evidence to submit this as a world record to them. My apologies for the delay in posting (July is some time ago now), I may have had some difficulty in creating an account (no hard feelings at all, I understand the necessity of reducing all robotic activity on the forum).

Hope someone finds this helpful.
David Edgington
Last edited by TheEdgington on 06 Oct 2025, 20:04, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Second FNC attempt and completion (25/07/25) 17:24:44

Post by tubeguru »

Do you want me to add this to the Top Times list thingy? I mean, you did go 20 minutes faster than the current fastest unofficial time ...
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TheEdgington
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Re: Second FNC attempt and completion (25/07/25) 17:24:44

Post by TheEdgington »

tubeguru wrote: 06 Oct 2025, 18:59 Do you want me to add this to the Top Times list thingy? I mean, you did go 20 minutes faster than the current fastest unofficial time ...
That would be great, thank you. The names are David Edgington, Gabriel Ferris, and Milo Lennon
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Re: Second FNC attempt and completion (25/07/25) 17:24:44

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Done.
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Re: Second FNC attempt and completion (25/07/25) 17:24:44

Post by Going Underground »

2 minutes Northwick Park to Kenton :shock: :shock:
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