Route planning...

[Senji]

'cor, does it really take 71 minutes to do Amersham, Chesham and Watford...

[CrunchySaviour]

I tried a full challenge once and didn't get round to doing Amersham, Chesham and Watford. Thankfully.

[PFW]

On both my 1st and 2nd attempt I started at Amersham at 0528 and arrived at Watford at 0629, 3 minutes ahead of schedule. On the first attempt I made up time following a lucky change at Moor Park.

[G Force]

I tried a full challenge once and didn't get round to doing Amersham, Chesham and Watford. Thankfully.

It was a bit of a shame that Amersham was your starting station on that attempt

[Senji]

Geoff's Tube 3 writeup says to always go to Epping first (rather than round the loop) -- how does this work? (my notes currently say "get first northbound train" at Stratford).

[geofftech]

well there are more trains to Epping that Woodford via Hainault.

of course, if a woodford via hainault ones comes first, you take it!

i guess what i'm saying is "don't put yourself out trying to do Hainault first", and (also) in my experience, i find it more common that a Woodford -> Hainaault train carries on through rather than terminates, then does a train that says it's terminating at Hainault.

but it also depends on the time of day. there are only about 12 Woodford via Hainaults timetabled all day, about 6 in the morning and 6 in the evening.

When Neil & I got the record time, we were fcuking lucky to get one! that helped, big time ...

[Senji]

Thinking about through trains to places -- do all the Mill Hill East trains currently come from the Charing X branch, or is it actually worth getting on a High Barnet train at CX and changing at Finchley Central?

[moley]

Thinking about through trains to places -- do all the Mill Hill East trains currently come from the Charing X branch, or is it actually worth getting on a High Barnet train at CX and changing at Finchley Central?

Personally, I would not wait - I would get the first train and change.

According to LU - all Mill Hill East trains, off peak, should originate from the Charing Cross Branch - Kennington starters I believe - however in practice - that does not always work!

[Senji]

If I'm at least fairly sure about it then I'll probably plan to get on the first train and drop back at Goodge Street for a photo if it's not a Mill Hill East...

[Nutteronabus]

We don't double back at Goodge St, but we have a plan for getting that bench photo..

Just you wait and see..

[geofftech]

Glad to see you're all getting in the spirit of the Goodge Street Gallery! I will be making a point on the day that everyone tries to get their photo taken there on that bench.

Anyone like to admin that their route does double back at that point?

[PFW]

We will be exiting the system at Goodge Street and doing a surface level change.

[juggler]

I'm just writing up my route so its in a nice booklet format with maps etc - just looking at these different ideas I'm beginning to see how many different routes are actually doable... it's like playing a game of chess on a board with 270+ squares and hundreds of pawns - there must be thousands of permutations

[juggler]

On the subject of Mill Hill East, can I just comment that you can change at East Finchley or Finchley Central for the Mill Hill East service if you aren't on a through train.

The reason I suggest changing at East Finchley is because it has particularly interesting 1930s architecture (note the rounded skylights, wrap-around glass windows at the ends of the platforms and of course, if you have a little bit of time, a quick exit of the station to take a photo of the archer firing his arrows in the direction of Barnet - not to be missed!). More about him can be found here:

http://www.the-archer.co.uk/history/lonely_archer.htm

Probably my favourite station, closely followed by Oakwood which resembles a 1930s cinema and Bounds Green which really wanted to be a UFO woooh!

[tubeguru]

Changing somewhere for architectural reasons has to be one of the more bizarre suggestions we've had so far ...