London Overground Challenge

[rhubarbrhubarb]

.... or even 5h 19m

[Sam]

Depends on if your ambitious runs are realistic. I've based my route on what I know I can achieve...

[rhubarbrhubarb]

Depends on if your ambitious runs are realistic....

You're right.

And I don't know.

I might well seek a view from Tangy!

[Sam]

Have you guys got nothing better to do with your lives?

I too have a 5hr 39min route.

Well, if you weren't so boring.... and I thought I may as well try and show you up

[Edgemaster]

Hmm... Must get a set of timetables to plan this...

[Sam]

LO timetables in paper format are available from all good LOROL stations and even some bad ones!!

[Starkey7]

However as you lot are rather getting a shift on, I can tell I'm going to have shove this up my list of priorities!

[Mitchell&BrownLook]

However as you lot are rather getting a shift on, I can tell I'm going to have shove this up my list of priorities!

Nothing like a bit of competition though is there?!!

[Sam]

Hmmm. Would turn out i've messed my calculations up and must have Scrxisi driving my trains with the speed they did one bit, so it's back to the drawing board for me

[palkanetoijala31]

Hmmm. Would turn out i've messed my calculations up and must have Scrxisi driving my trains with the speed they did one bit, so it's back to the drawing board for me

I can just see Matt driving his train now all passengers for Gospel Oak no actually we going round all the stations on the overground.

[Sam]

If Matt is driving anywhere near Gospel Oak then something is going massively wrong for a start!!

[Edgemaster]

Have a good enough run up at it and I'm sure you'll get around the Dalston curve - it looked pretty connected last time I had a look...

[rhubarbrhubarb]

Scrxisi - I think I read somewhere that ELL drivers are route-trained to East Croydon, in case West Croydon is unavailable, for some reason, and a train reversal is needed somewhere. I was wondering whether this is in fact true - ?

[Nigel]

While others are doing a full network challenge today, my nine year old son Sean, and I did a London Overground challenge using the route he had planned (which was better than mine).

Starting at Watfod Junction and finishing at Upper Holloway, we posted a time of 5h 54m 21s.

We had two pieces of bad luck and one good, otherwise it all ran almost like clockwork:
- There was a problem with a defective train on the Victoria Line when we tried to use it, so 3 mins originally shown to the next train turned out to be 10 mins.
- After thinking we had made our tight connection at Clapham Junction we arrived at the platform to see our intended train departing 30 seconds early.
- After making a tight run to Crystal Palace we were directed down to the wrong platform. By the time we we had got back up and down the fotbridge again, the doors had just closed on our intended train. However, a kind driver took pity on us and opened them up for us again to allow us to collapse in a heap in the final carriage.

I think that if the first two bits of bad luck had not happened each could have gained us 15 mins later, making a 5h 24m time theoretically possible (albeit with some tight connections). Conversely had the driver at Crystal Palace not shown us sympathy, we would have probably only achieved 6h 9m.

Anyway the gauntlet is thrown down a time of 5h 54m 21s is there to beat. Sean is keen to go out again and better it, but that will have to wait until the next school holidays.

[Sam]

National Rail trains are permitted to close their doors 30 seconds early, so the train actually left on time....