Cannon Street Run III - R15 Challenge - Saturday 20th Sept.

[jamesthegill]

I'm surprised Matt, Matt and Jack didn't finish at Mornington Crescent...I wonder how much it took to convince Jack not to finish there?

[Starkey7]

...to visit Fulham Broadway. We had a six minute wait for a train back up Earls Court but opted instead to go outside for a bus. This was our only error of the day as the 295 bus we caught took us almost 20 minutes to get to Hammersmith.

That probably only wasted a couple of minutes in the end; doesn't it take a quarter of an hour to get from Fulham Broadway to Hammersmith by train anyway?

And why did you take the Circle at the start; why not wait for the Wimbledon train?

[tangy]

The winning route is as follows:

From CANNON STREET got on a District almost immediately to WHITECHAPEL, but then had a 12 (twelve) minute wait for one coming back westbound to Monument. Here I exited the station and ran over London Bridge (the road) and into the namesake station on the other side. Eastbound train waiting in the platform to BERMONDSEY,1 minute double back via SOUTHWARK to Waterloo.

With the Northern non-stopping I had to take the southbound Bakerloo instead. I would of missed the train already sitting in the platform, if it wasn't for the doors having to be be re-opened which enabled me to keep running down the passage and straight onto the train. Got a bit bogged own at Elephant with a resulting 3 minute wait for a southbound train to Balham via KENNINGTON and CLAPHAM SOUTH.

Lovely connection onto a SN train up to Clapham Junction (a 377 too), where it was decision time. Do I wait 21 minutes for the WLL or take a bus to Fulham? I chose the latter and thus proceeded out of the station and saw a C3 approaching which I took to Wandsworth Bridge and changed to a route 28 to FULHAM BROADWAY. A City bound train was the first out (the one I wanted), incidentally at West Brompton I noted the WLL train just dissapearing into the tunnel (thus gained time by not waiting for it at Clapham J).

Continued through to Embankment via SOUTH KEN, VICTORIA and ST JAMES PARK. Changed to the Northern line where I proceeded via LEICS. SQ to MORN CRES where I did a double back to Euston to change to the Bank branch. A fair 3 minute wait and it was time to visit OLD ST and a lengthy double back to King's Cross.

Here I was at the totally wrong end of the train (unusual for me) thus had a real battle to try and get through the crowds onto the Circle line. Thankfully the Circle line was just pulling in as I arrived and proceeded to Edgware Road. There was a H&C train in the adjacent platform but pulled away as soon as the Circle train came to a stop!

Eight minute wait at Edgware Road for the next H&C (which spoilt a sub 3 hour time) onwards to ROYAL OAK and LATIMER ROAd to finish in just over 3 hours at 03:01:24.

[jbom1]

Since I tried to fit Clapham South into a Tube Olympic route ending at Whitechapel, and paid for it with a four hour plus time and the lanterne rouge, it was somewhat ironic to see both stations drawn again. At least our choice of finishing station was instantaneous. So Clapham South will be 15, and as there’s no way I’m going to try getting to Clapham South from the south again, Kennington will be 14. Even before Zoe had fought her way into the envelope, we could hear that other teams were talking about going east to Whitechapel, and once we’d seen the list this looked like a pretty good call, as we couldn’t see that we’d get a better opportunity to tick off Whitechapel (no ELL, of course, and no JLE east of Canary Wharf). So onto the Eastbound platform at Cannon Street, where we too just missed the District. We waited out the supposed 1 minute for the indicated “Barking” train, as Kevin correctly described. Only trouble was, at Tower Hill we hear “This is a Circle Line train”, so a quick bale out and onto the real Barking train, which crawls up to Whitechapel (20 minutes in). Was that Matt, Matt and Jack sneaking into the front carriage as we’re held in yet another platform?

We’re too far back for the steps and are still only half way across the bridge when the Richmond train arrives - we can do no better than jump into the back carriage. This leaves us at completely the wrong end of the train at Monument, and the next train is arriving before we’re off the platform. Although we’d done a dry run of the interchange that morning, this is the reverse direction and being at the back of the trainload plus contending with a non-functioning escalator combine to make it a long walk to the Northern Line. As with every Northern train we took on Saturday, it was completely packed. We’ve now got the 15 stations plotted on the map and, with only Leicester Square in the centre of the diagram, everything else seems to fit conveniently into one long anti-clockwise loop ending at Bermondsey, setting us up for Kennington and the Clapham South finish. Through Old Street (42 mins) to Euston, where it’s another longish trek to the CX branch. One stop to Mornington Crescent (59 mins).

Our loop would now head off to Paddington, but it is here that we decide to insert Leicester Square (1:09), that’s five stations done. Choosing to avoid CX and the “Strand-Trafalgar Square run”, we join half the train in decamping at Embankment, except that they’re all looking to go south to Waterloo and we’re off north to Paddington. There are plenty of seats on the Bakerloo, and Zoe finishes off her lunch before we pass the waiting 14:51 to Great Malvern and head for the H&C. For once, the wait here is reasonable and we chalk off Royal Oak (1:47) and Latimer Road (1:52). Now it’s simple enough: Hammersmith, Earl’s Court, Fulham Broadway (2:19) – our eighth station. Al is on the platform here, but he’s been in the south while we’ve been up north. Now we have three stations almost next to each other on the District, South Kensington (2:36), Victoria (2:42) and St. James’s Park (2:44) and immediately after this we’re heading off for the Jubilee at Westminster. We reach Southwark (2:53) and Bermondsey (2:58) to bring our tally up to thirteen. A quick double back here takes us to London Bridge for our final change and it takes me a while to realise that we need to go up the stairs for the Northern. Of course, Northern means sardine time again, but there’s enough space to record the times at Kennington (3:15) and finally Clapham South (3:27:15).

In fact, the western part of our route (Embankment-Paddington-Hammersmith-Earl’s Ct-Fulham Broadway-Earl’s Ct-Westminster) seems to be the same as Soup Dragon’s, but going in the opposite direction and with no bus.

[jbom1]

If anyone's still interested, the map of this is at

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jbo.mitche ... 200908.jpg

[Going Underground]

Its talk like a pirate day this Saturday

We need to arrange a "Cannon Street IV" challenge

[Soup Dragon]

Its talk like a pirate day this Saturday

We need to arrange a "Cannon Street IV" challenge

You beat me to it Kev, I just remembered it should be the Cannon Street run this weekend. I reckon we could do a Mouse but I would need to start at 10am
I will post a seperate topic to see what interest there is.

[Starkey7]

Flaming Nora, that's one heck of a BUMP GU!