My FNC attempt 22-07-2022

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nick468
Zone 1
Posts: 24
Joined: 08 Mar 2014, 20:30

My FNC attempt 22-07-2022

Post by nick468 »

Hi there,

Disappointed to report that I fell short in my attempt for a full network completion last Friday, July 22.

A mix of poor planning, and things just going wrong did for me ultimately.

For me, it's never about speed - just about getting on the board for a completion. And it can be hard when a combination of factors goes against you.

Using a slightly adapted version of The Orange One's lazy route, I started off at Heathrow Terminal 4 and planned to end at Amersham.

I managed to get to Kenny-O in time for the 6:15am departure, having hit West Kensington just after 6am. However, when trying to board the District Line train (at 6:13am), the doors would not open, and the service departed empty to Earls Court. It seemed to be a problem with the track, because the driver of the 6:25am service had to override something to allow access to the doors - the doors on this service did not open without his intervention.

Nevertheless, I made it onto that service, and fortunately, managed to make up the lost 10 minutes.

No issues with the new stations on the Northern Line, just made a quick change at Kennington, took them in, and doubled back on myself.

The second piece of poor luck (or perhaps lack of foresight in this case) occurred at Farringdon, when the Hammersmith and City line train to Barking did not turn up for 30 minutes. Rather than showing a bit of initiative, and going down to Tower Hill, then following the District Line along to Upminster, I froze, and waited on the platform. Probably not the greatest move, but severe delays were being reported on the District Line at the time, so perhaps I might not have made up too many minutes.

Third error - upon arrival in Barking, there was a C2C service direct to Upminster waiting. Rather than get that, I waited for the District Line, which would have left me facing a 20 minute wait for the C2C return train in Upminster, in which case, I would have returned via the same route. Fortunately, a Fenchurch Street service was around 30 seconds delayed upon arrival to Upminster so I was able dart over the bridge to catch that.

Had I not managed to get that return train, I would have been looking at going from being 15 minutes ahead of schedule at Farringdon to being 30 minutes behind schedule. However, getting the C2C put me a much more manageable five minutes behind schedule.

The biggest problem for me through the challenge was the Central Line which was experiencing "minor delays" all day. I suspect they were more than minor. As @Lunaticonthegrass noted, some services were being missed due to lack of driver availability.

The Hainault Loop was a total nightmare. I ended up getting three trains to get around it - Tottenham Court Road to Newbury Park, Newbury Park to Hainault, then a 17 minute wait for the shuttle service between Hainault and Woodford. Then another 14 minute wait for a connecting service to Epping. In hindsight, I should have kept a note of the shuttle times from both Woodford and Hainault and used that to dictate whether to go to Epping or do the loop first.

Problems abounded at the other end of the Central Line too. Upon arrival at North Acton, needing to go to Ealing Broadway, finding a train which wasn't bound for West Ruislip was literally a needle in a haystack job. One eventually came. Then, of course, when I returned to Acton, and wanted to go on to West Ruislip, every Central Line service was terminating at Ealing.

There were other little things - waiting for a bus at West Ruislip, rather than hotfooting it to Ickenham for one which would have saved me time.

Remarkably after that, things went relatively OK, and had I carried on, I would have just been one station short, either Chesham or Amersham. Instead, when I was on the Watford branch of the Met Line, I jumped off at Croxley and went back to Moor Park and up to Chalfont once it became clear I was not going to complete the network. As I wanted to get the last train to Aylesbury where I was staying.

Would have been happy to pay for a cab from Amersham to Aylesbury if I had completed the challenge. But I was not willing to cab it in the circumstance that I did not complete!

Despite everything that went wrong, it's remarkable I was only in essence one station short. A frustrating experience overall, but there are learnings for the next time. Anxious to try and put it right in the next month or so!

Anyway, sorry for the monologue - all feedback is more than welcome!

- Nick
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Iain
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Joined: 11 Nov 2011, 11:26
Location: Sutton

Re: My FNC attempt 22-07-2022

Post by Iain »

It sounds like you learned a lot.

It's great to have a plan, but for a completion it's important to be able to adapt on the fly. As you do more you'll start to learn common ways to re-route so it becomes easier. It gets harder further along as you've done lots of bits, but as you say you could have swapped round Epping and the loop, and the same for Ealing and West Ruislip.

I hope you're going to get out there again soon and give it another go? :D
Full Network: Three completions, Best time: 17:18:18 - thanks Glen, Andrew and Rhys!
Former DLR 45 station record holder (with Glen, Andi and Stevo) - 2h:08m:57s
All lines: 46:11 (6th equal)
Zone One 2:52:51 (thanks Glen)
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al
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Joined: 20 May 2007, 09:34
Location: Staffs

Re: My FNC attempt 22-07-2022

Post by al »

My personal Central Line bete noire is trains all terminating at Ruislip Gardens when you need West Ruislip!

As Iain said, it gets slightly easier as you become more confident in adapting your plan as circumstances arise
Held some Alternative Challenge records for a long time.
Doesn't any more.
nick468
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Posts: 24
Joined: 08 Mar 2014, 20:30

Re: My FNC attempt 22-07-2022

Post by nick468 »

Thanks for the encouraging words guys.

Yeah I'm itching to get on it again and put things right! I've targetted two potential dates in early September when I'm on annual leave.

Nick
andytube
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Posts: 93
Joined: 02 Jul 2012, 22:06
Location: Near Portsmouth

Re: My FNC attempt 22-07-2022

Post by andytube »

Good luck for the next attempt Nick and hope you get a completion. Look forward to reading about it.
Andy.
Current best: 19:51:10 (2014). Hopefully that will be broken in 2018 :-)
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