Children in Need - 17th November - Live Updates

[Soup Dragon]

They wern't the only people out there for children in Need I was with then for the first part of the run to the Bakerloo line and was surprised at the number of people waiting at west harrow.

It was not a good day to ttry for the record but we all had fun I think and raised a nice sum of money for children in need.

I didnt exactly count but I reckon there were at least 30-40 people?
Can anyone else remember? I seem to remember a few pictures being taken, so perhaps you can see the hoards of people in the background.
The only evidence I have is a picture of Starkey and myself with the time stamp of 06:57, and this was taken at least two minutes after we arrived

[Soup Dragon]

Our team managed to complete 273 of 275 stations in 19h42m19s.

The two stations missed, Shoreditch (we had planned to run from Liverpool St, to bus stop SA on Brick Lane/Bethnal Green Road, and then take the bus to Whitchapel. However we arrived at Liverpool St at 17:55 over 1 hour behind schedule so had no choice but to ditch Shoreditch).

and Heathrow T4, obviously getting to Heathrow after 1am meant there was no longer any service to T4. Given the conditons experienced, the team were happy that we gave it everything we could to do as many stations as possible.

Ric, you wanted to know how many stations we would complete within Hakan's time, well the answer was 252. Our 252nd station was South Kensington, which was reached in 18h23m33s.

Thats all for now... cheers Soupie

[Going Underground]

Good evening one and all........

Yes quite a time was had by us and when I can get my head back together I will try and piece together the details of a pretty eventful day.....

Just to clarify a couple of things.......

North - West Harrow, we ALL made the run in time to meet the 0656. This included our team (albeit at different speeds) , Nozzacook and nephew and Zeibura.....

It was quite apparent that we hadn't missed the train as I would estimate there was around 40 people spread out along the platform.....
We do have a photo that shows at least a few people at the end of West Harrow platform and will try and post a link to this later.......
The train actually departed West Harrow at 0707 hrs and our pictures when we arrived show the sky as being dark and it is almost light when we left


This delay or cancellation, whatever it was put paid to or plans of catching the Woodford loop via Hainhault at the right time and from there on with several other delays and problems we fell too far behind schedule to make the time up....

With regard to our message about unusually slow train on the Upminster section and Steeevooo comment about this being the definition of a District Line train, it doesn't actually state that we were on a District Line train at the time

Hopefully Starkey, Soup Dragon, Dr Who who and I will be able to piece the day together in a bit more detail.....

As mentioned we did manage 273 stations, which wasn't bad considering the weather, service delays and the fact 3 of us were "275" virgins

[Steeevooo]

A ha, the great c2c train was running slow then eh Going Underground? Having used that train quite a few times in the past, I would never trust it to go too quickly between about Dagenham and Upminster
Glad that you all enjoyed yourself though, and raised plenty of money for a good cause, and welcome to the 275 Challenge Attempts Club

[Going Underground]

A ha, the great c2c train was running slow then eh Going Underground? Having used that train quite a few times in the past, I would never trust it to go too quickly between about Dagenham and Upminster
Glad that you all enjoyed yourself though, and raised plenty of money for a good cause, and welcome to the 275 Challenge Attempts Club

Cheers Steve....

Yes you rumbled me
We did actually have a pretty good run on the District line itself on that stretch but lots of problems elsewhere.....
I think our route could be quite close to GWR with a couple of minor adjustments and we are going to put it into hibernation now for the Winter and wake it up to try again in the Spring...

I think between the 4 of us we should raise around £2000 and I feel more a part of the tubechallenge family now we have made our first full attempt.......

Do you and Sam have any plans to try and reclaim your crown next year?

[Steeevooo]

To be fair, as long as you are using the District Line at the right time of day, the trains, though they may be slow, are generally quite frequent and fairly reliable. The problem is that when you are spending a whole day on the network, there is a good chance that a delay somewhere will affect you at some point during the course of the attempt. It's mainly a matter of how severe the problem is and how easy it is to adapt around it (ie. A signal failure at Woodford whilst you are at Epping is probably a worst case scenario).

I think that it is probably best that hibernation is employed, I wouldn't fancy racing around trying to get a GWR in the foreseeable future!

To be honest, Sam and myself have been so snowed under with Uni work (Don't be too shocked!!), that we haven't even thought about going out there and doing a challenge. If we were to try and regain our crown, it would have to be with a completely new route as I think the route we used last time, barring a couple of better bits of fortune, gave us, on reflection, probably a near optimal time for it. And as route planning etc is time consuming, there are absolutely no plans for the forseeable future!

That is quite a large sum that you have managed to raise, so well done! It's good to feel part of TC community, shame that you had to miss those two stations, but as they say, better luck next time!

All the best

[moley]

North - West Harrow, we ALL made the run in time to meet the 0656.... The train actually departed West Harrow at 0707 hrs...

Hate to break this too you, The 0656 can and does leave EARLY, and indeed you may have missed it.

The next train is due to depart at 0707.

[Starkey7]

I doubt it. I arrived on the scene at 6:55'30"am, and there were about thirty people just standing around on the platform. We even had an announcement apologising for the delay/cancellation.

[londongirl]

I love how a lot of people are very insistent that the team had to have missed the run. Sometimes a train is just a cancelled train. Bad luck happens, we all know how unpredictable the LU can be, or rather predictably bad just not when or where. Luck of the draw.

[Going Underground]

Do you know if they've done Brixton?

We hadn't done Brixton when this was posted but had a good turn around,
arriving at 20:48:34 and departing at 20:49:59

[Going Underground]

North - West Harrow, we ALL made the run in time to meet the 0656.... The train actually departed West Harrow at 0707 hrs...

Hate to break this too you, The 0656 can and does leave EARLY, and indeed you may have missed it.

The next train is due to depart at 0707.

Just to confirm that due to the amount of people on the platform and the announcement on the tannoy there is absoslutely no doubt that we hadn't missed the 0656......

We were there in time maybe it was cancelled, if it did come early then it must have been by at least 10-15 mins due to the volume of passengers at a normally fairly quiet station.....

[zeibura]

Hate to break this too you, The 0656 can and does leave EARLY, and indeed you may have missed it.

The next train is due to depart at 0707.

not only were there far too many people on the platform to have just arrived and (also) missed the train, we also saw no trains going over the bridge when we were anywhere near the station on the run, and they made an announcement about it. if it was "early" then it was a considerable time early, like 2 or 3 minutes, even longer considering the number of people on the platform and how it didn't increase that much over the 7 minutes we had to wait.

[moley]

Having spoken to people who use that train to commute to work, it has been known to leave up to 5 minutes early. It is then held at Harrow-on-the-Hill.

There are not that many people who get on at West Harrow around that time of day. When I did my research for one of Geoff's attempts, it turns out that the train can do Uxbridge-HotH very comfortably.

I'm not saying that you did miss it - just that it is not the worlds most reliable train.

[Going Underground]

Having spoken to people who use that train to commute to work, it has been known to leave up to 5 minutes early. It is then held at Harrow-on-the-Hill.

There are not that many people who get on at West Harrow around that time of day. When I did my research for one of Geoff's attempts, it turns out that the train can do Uxbridge-HotH very comfortably.

I'm not saying that you did miss it - just that it is not the worlds most reliable train.

Very annoying and frustrating having spent 2 months training and timing runs over the same distance to make the run in time to find out it can leave that early

[Sam]

Just to confirm why I asked about Brixton is because at the time when I looked on The Tube website, the Victoria line was suspended between Victoria and Brixton!