tubechallenge.com

Yes, yet another silly idea for an Alternative Tube Challenge.

We all know about the Bottle (well, you should, it's been talked about on these forums enough!) - every station on and inside the Circle line. However, the Circle line is not the only line to have track completely surrounding and encapsulating an area.

There is the Heathrow loop and the Hainault loop, but neither of those areas contain any other stations not on their respective lines. Which leaves us with...

The Mouse! Also known as the Northern Line between Camden Town and Kennington.

Why have I given it such a silly name? Well, turn your Underground maps 90 degrees anti-clockwise and look at the shape of the aforementioned track. Camden Town is the tail, and Kennington is the tip of the nose! Just like the Bottle only looks like a Bottle on the map, this Mouse looks absolutely nothing like a Mouse geographically, but in continuing with tradition the name (and rules - see below) is inspired by the map.

As I'm sure you've worked out by now, the aim is to visit every station on and within the two central Northern Line branches - Bank and Charing Cross. Here's the full list:

Angel
Bank
Barbican
Blackfriars
Borough
Camden Town
Cannon Street
Chancery Lane
Charing Cross
Covent Garden
Elephant & Castle
Embankment
Euston
Euston Square
Farringdon
Goodge Street
Holborn
Kennington
King's Cross St. Pancras
Lambeth North
Leicester Square
London Bridge
Mansion House
Moorgate
Mornington Crescent
Old Street
Russell Square
Southwark
St. Paul's
Temple
Tottenham Court Road
Warren Street
Waterloo

You may notice that Monument isn't in this list - going by the London Underground Map, the Northern Line passes through the Circle and District lines to the West of Monument station, therefore it is outside of the Mouse.

You may also notice that Lambeth North isn't geographically inside the Mouse (yes, that name is sticking - I invented this and I say so!), but again, we'll go by the Underground Map to avoid argument, so it's in. Anyone else noticed that the Bakerloo line is horribly inaccurate? Marylebone, Edgware Road, Regent's Park, AND Lambeth North!

This is only 33 stations, so it's quite a short challenge - it should take less than 90 minutes.

What do you think?

I disagree with the name of this challenge, given the shape I think it should be called the "Renault Espace with towbar" challenge.

Hi Ollie, I hope you don't mind but I was bored so I wasted a couple of hours doing a map for "The Mouse" challenge. The map looks quite strange turned through 90 degrees.

http://www.piczo.com/tubedragon?g=19368260&cr=5

That's wonderful. If you turn that upside down, it kind of looks like a frying pan, too.

Just a pedantic comment, though that is good!
The mouse doesn't travel further south than Kennington so the northern line shouldn't continue from the interchange to the join.
Well done though.

jonny wrote:Just a pedantic comment, though that is good!
The mouse doesn't travel further south than Kennington so the northern line shouldn't continue from the interchange to the join.
Well done though.

Well spotted, have amended the map as suggested, it looks more mouselike now...

Is there a bonus, like a piece of cheese or something for finishing at Mornington Crescent

How about a nice bit of "Lymeswold", surely the king of all cheeses and enough to tempt any mouse.

Actually I just spotted something really spooky.
The challenge is called the Mouse, and one of the stations has all the letters in the correct order!

M(ansion h)OUSE

What are the chances of that?

35 in 7,776.

About 1 in 222.17 then

So you're saying it's only a 0.45% chance?

I reckon it's about time somebody went out and set a time for the Mouse.... I have a few days off in August and top of my agenda is the "desktop challenge 129 snake" after that who knows, I would like to break the 3 hour barrier on Z1

So you say that someone should set a time, then go on to talk about your forthcoming attempts at lots of OTHER challenges...

Root wrote:So you say that someone should set a time, then go on to talk about your forthcoming attempts at lots of OTHER challenges...

Yeah just general chit - chat, will post in the appropriate topic's nearer the time....

We also seem to be talking about "bottle" routes and times in the Z1 Challenge 28th July topic....