We awoke at 4am on Saturday morning and to our surprise the weather was clear and still. In the night it had been wet and windy and we fully expected the morning to be the same. We left Lightwater at 4:20am for the drive to Amersham and I made my first error of the day when I missed the Amersham turn on the M40 and had to go to the High Wycombe junction. We arrived at Amersham at around 5am parked up the car and headed to the station. I purchased the tickets, 2 adults & 1 child, £18.20??? I thought that I must have asked for the wrong travelcard, so I cancelled the order and tried again.... then it dawned on me, it was Saturday so the off-peak fares apply! What a bargain.
The weather was almost sub-tropical at +6 degrees (compared to -6 when we made our last attempt in November). Amesham was virtually deserted with only one other passenger on our train, we set off at 05:28:12 so technically already 12 seconds up on schedule! The first problem that we encountered was at Moor Park, we arrived over 2 minutes behind schedule but the Watford train arrived 6 minutes late so we made the connection OK, however we then lost 10 minutes at Watford because our scheduled train departed just as we approached the station.
The day continued with the usual mixture of highs and lows and without giving too much away these were as follows:
The Low Points
Missing the connection at Watford and being 10 minutes down early in the day.
Waiting for a U1 at West Ruislip, the bus never showed up and according to our support team the previous 3 buses had arrived 1 minute ahead of schedule.
Missing our Piccadilly connection at Uxbridge by a couple of minutes which put us another 10 minutes down on schedule.
Cocking-up the Hainault loop, when by mistake we got on an Epping train first rather than Woodford and we ended up waiting 14 minutes at Woodford for the next loop train.
Having to make a couple of extra runs to knock-off Cannon Street earlier in the day before it closed.
A 12 minute wait for the Circle line and an 8 minute wait for the H&C.
Arrival High Barnet to departure Cockfosters took almost 30 minutes.
The High Points
A very sexy 7 second change, cross-platform at Stockwell (NOR SB to VIC SB). In fact all the cross platforms on the Vickie went very well throughout the day.
Good turnarounds at Harrow & Wealdstone (2:02), Richmond (1:57), Upminster (53s) & Ealing Broadway (2:59), Stanmore (28s), Brixton (11s)
The best ever connection to Mill Hill East with a wait of just 32 seconds at Finchley Central.
A fantastic Wimbledon to Morden connection, which included a very quick departure by Tram from Wimbledon followed by a brisk run to Morden, from Arrival to Departure only took 11m48s! Amazingly the tram stopped at Merton Park for nearly two minutes whilst the driver walked the length of the tram to collect a bag from the cab at the back and hand to a female passenger!
A great connection at Edgware, the 79 bus came within a few minutes and from arrival Edgware to departure Canons Park took only 8m30s.
Heading up to Finchley Central on a Northern Line service to Edgware, we were just getting ready for a change at Camden town (Edgware branch to High Barnet branch). The driver then announced that due to a one-under on the Edgware branch his train was being diverted to terminate at Archway. This saved us a lot of messing around at Camden Town and probably saved us a couple of minutes (good for us but not so good for the one-under)
Heading down from Ken Oly we made a 40 second connection at Earls Court.
Overall I think we had more good luck than bad luck, it was a really enjoyable day and at times if seemed like we had the network to ourselves. The only busy trains were those heading through Central London around 18:00.
One of the highlights of the day was meeting a really nice Asian family who were going for a day out at the Natural History Museum. They showed huge interest in what we were doing and when we mentioned that we had the current GWR they wanted to have their pictures taken with us. What it is to be famous!