Two FNC bids - one successful, one unsuccessful

[nick468]

TWO full network completion attempts made last week (on Tuesday 31/8 and Thursday 1/9).

One unsuccessful. But hallelujah! One successful!

Shall start with my first attempt where I fell short - a terrible mix of red lights, fire alerts and climbing under the disabled gates in an effort to get a train on time!

Having set off on Tuesday morning from Heathrow Terminal 4 as per normal, my change at Barons Court/West Kensington proved difficult, with the early morning District Line services running behind the clock. As a result, I missed a bus connection down to Kensington Olympia from West Kensington, thus losing out on the chance of getting the 6:15am District back to Earls Court. I power-walked down North End Road and Hammersmith Road (sorry, running is not possible for me right now). Upon arrival in Kenny O, circa 6.20am, I was met with all the ticket barriers operating only outward, as opposed to inward into the station. Aware that a District train was waiting on the platform and not wanting to wait another 20 minutes, I crawled under the disabled barriers. At which stage, a slightly perplexed TfL staff member found me. I showed her my all day ticket, and managed to catch the train.

Rest of the morning went swimmingly - until I hit the Barking to Upminster section. I decided to take a C2C train from Barking to Upminster, and a District Line back, rather than the other way around. I was aware a small bit of redoing would have been needed between Barking and West Ham en route back. But I figured, quite reasonably I felt, so long as you are in motion, you are making progress. At this stage, I was motoring along nicely, running 10-15 minutes ahead of schedule.

Then the District Line back was held at a red signal around Upney for what felt like an eternity, but was perhaps just four or five minutes. If only that was the worst thing to happen that day!

Upon my arrival into West Ham to change onto the Jubilee, we were told that a fire alert in Stratford had seen services between North Greenwich and Stratford suspended. Not wanting to wait around for a wait of "between three minutes and three hours", according to a TfL staffer, I decided to get the DLR to Canary Wharf, and complete the Jubilee from there. En route to Epping/Haunault later, I jumped off at Stratford and completed the remaining four stations on the Jubilee. But the redoing, and the roundabout trip to Canary turned a small time advantage into a significant deficit.

Learning from my last failed attempt, I made a journey time calculation when I rejoined the Central Line at Stratford as to what end I should get the Hainault to Woodford shuttle from. I decided to make the journey into Hainault. But red signals (the plague of the day overall) played a huge part, and saw the shuttle pull out just as my train pulled in. Another 20 minutes lost.

Red light delay after red light delay saw me ultimately run out of time. I decided to cut my losses and get the final train to Aylesbury from Harrow-on-the-Hill. As before, I'd have paid for a cab from Amersham or Chesham up to Aylesbury if I had recorded a FNC. But I was not going to miss my last train for nothing!

Two days later, things ran a lot better,. From the doors closing at 5.02am at Heathrow T4 to the doors opening at Amersham, around 1am, my time covering all 272 stations was 19:54:26:05, along with a great sense of relief. Not a great time, but good to get on the board with the extra two stations.

- Nick

[al]

Well done Nick! Sadly, I found most of my attempts were like your first day rather than your second. It's good to get a completion though