2 Americans Seek Zone 1 Challengers in March

[jamesthegill]

Just don't run about too much...our police don't tend to take too kindly to tourists running through Victoria line stations south of the river

Have fun tonight, guys

[Soup Dragon]

An eventful evening, myself and Matt Scrivin met up with Dave & Evan for an Anglo-American challenge. As there was just the four of us we split into two teams.
We headed out of Vauxhall at 19:05 for our first change at Victoria with myself and Matt in carriage 4 and Dave & Evan in the carriage behind. Team UK had the door position dead right and sprinted off at Victoria for a rapid 47 second change, team USA just made the connection with half a second to spare (I think they were surprised at the speed we dashed off). Unfortunately due to the speed of the change we did not have time to get into the correct carriage for the Sloane Square double back, so had to run the full length of the platform. I don't think that this cost us anything though.
We waited for a minute and a District line train for Mansion House arrived, Dave & Evan went as far as Westminster whereas myself and Matt continued on to change at Blackfriars for an Upminster train a couple of minutes behind. Our route continued more or less to plan with some good connections and also some very average connections. We eventually completed the challenge at Russell Square in a very reasonable 2h55m37s, which was a PB for Matt and my 3rd best time, and just outside the top 10 times.

We headed off to McDonalds at Earls Court and waited for around an hour (until 23:30) but unfortunately Team USA did not appear, so at this stage I don't know what time the guys achieved or if they actually finished. Matt checked train times from Vauxhall to Feltham and we headed off to make our way home. When we arrived at Victoria we have forgotten that the Victoria line was closed so decided to go to Westminster instead and get the Jubilee to Waterloo, however, when we arrived on the Eastbound platform we were advised that the next service would be 20 minutes due to problems on the Jubilee line. So a quick dash back upstairs for the next train to Embankment for either Northern or Bakerloo to Waterloo. Northern southbound was showing 8 minute wait so we zipped across to the Bakerloo 5 minutes.
By the time we got to Waterloo it was around midnite and the last train to Feltham left at 23:58, so I caught the 00:18 to Teddington and then a 285 from there , eventually getting back to Feltham at 01:25.

The evening was very good fun and two very nice ladies paid great interest in what we were doing. One of these was on the Circle line out of Moorgate and the other when we had finished at Russell Square. It's always nice when people show genuine interest.

[thornski]

Hey everyone,

First off, thanks to you two for meeting up with us, we really appreciated it, and hope you guys had a good time. Unfortunately we weren't really much competition for you guys after all. Maybe we should just stick to the alphabet challenge?

And congrats on a great time for you guys. I figured anything sub-3 hours would be real great, especially on a night like last night when it seemed there were several delays on several spots of the network. Let's just say that our night did not go quite as well -- and by not quite as well I mean completely disastrous.

Probably had several causes. First off, admittedly our route was fairly hastily put together earlier in the day, and we obviously have to do a lot more research on things such as door positions, etc. Then there were a few other stumbling blocks. Early on when we tried to tackle some of the 'South of the River' Zone 1 spots, there was a 'passenger emergency' on the Jubilee train ahead of us when we were sitting in Waterloo. Rather than risk sitting on that train for 10-15 minutes, we exited and tried an alternate route for those stops, which probably hurt our time by a decent amount. Second, although we looked at several maps, we definitely messed up the walk/run from Aldgate East to Aldgate - not at all familiar with the area and made an initial wrong turn which obviously hurt our time even more. Throw in a few barely missed changes and that lead to a pretty rough night.

Anyway I guess the good news is there's always room for improvement, and I'm sure we'll definitely be trying this again the next time we're both in London. Unfortunately will miss the Zone 1 Challenge this year, but really would like to try that one of these times if I end up in London around May. The other good news is that we probably will improve our next time by default. haha

And obviously very sorry for not making it to Earls Court to see you guys. Given where we ended, we had to take the Edgware Road branch of the District Line to Earls Court but there were huge delays on that part of the train. We had to wait a long long while to find ANY train, and so once a Circle Line train finally came, we just ended up taking that back to the hotel since we were so tired. If we did end up waiting for an Earls Court train, we probably would've barely seen you guys anyway (which gives you an approximate idea of what our time was, which I'm too embarassed to post...yikes it was bad!)

Anyway thanks again and congrats on a great time!

[Root]

Soup and scrxsi, you just wrote pretty much exactly the same thing...?

It must have been a good route to get a sub-three hour time with poor connections. I'm beginning to wonder if everyone has worked out the same "optimum" route.

Sounds like a good time anyway.

[Soup Dragon]

Soup and scrxsi, you just wrote pretty much exactly the same thing...?

It must have been a good route to get a sub-three hour time with poor connections. I'm beginning to wonder if everyone has worked out the same "optimum" route.

Sounds like a good time anyway.

I must have started writting my bit just before Matt posted. Oh well at least our accounts of the evening agree

[Soup Dragon]

(which gives you an approximate idea of what our time was, which I'm too embarassed to post...yikes it was bad!)

Come on guys, spill the beans! Your time needs to be added to the ALL TIME list, which now has over 100 times ranging from 2:43:50 to 4:07:38, unofficially though I believe that 4:11:00 is the slowest ever time.

[Root]

The connections weren't dreadful ... there was definite wind-in-the-platform at Bond Street

Not the route I had in mind then

[jbom1]

So far as getting from Victoria to Feltham w/o the Vic line is concerned, might it be easier to go directly from Victoria to Clapham Junction?

The timetable suggests that a train as late as the 23.51 Southern service to Sutton would make the required connection at Clapham Junc, with arrival at Feltham at 00:29

[Soup Dragon]

So far as getting from Victoria to Feltham w/o the Vic line is concerned, might it be easier to go directly from Victoria to Clapham Junction?

The timetable suggests that a train as late as the 23.51 Southern service to Sutton would make the required connection at Clapham Junc, with arrival at Feltham at 00:29

National Rail is not my strong point. At that stage it still looked like I had a good chance to get the Jubilee from Westminster to Waterloo in time for the 23:58, and had it not been for the problems on the Jubilee I would have more than likely made the connection. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

[jbom1]

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

As, of course, is access to timetables and journey planners on the Internet.

Anyway, I only thought of the more direct route two days after reading the post.