Nigel's Tube 5 28/6/12

[perkyperky]

I arrived at Paddington NR yesterday at 0541, needing to catch H&C to Kings X St Pancras. Ist train terminated at Edgware Road, spoke to station staff; they had no idea why either(they said "that never happens!"). Next train to arrive broke down. Not connected to this thread, but I agree with Geoff re reliability. It simply isn't reliable at the mo.

[hopeful traveller]

Erm... have you seen the stats? Dec 2011 had the least delays since 2003...

[tubeguru]

Erm... have you seen the stats? Dec 2011 had the least delays since 2003...

The FEWEST delays.

[kateyay]

I think there may be a little difference between how individuals see the service - and what the "service Level" is!

[tractakid]

Congrats Nigel on a completion in a very respectable time!

[perkyperky]

I think what happened to me probably showed up as no delays, using tfl criteria.

[moley]

We actually couldn’t complete (would have missed T4) and would have got caught by not just the broken District/circle later in the day but also the out-flow from Wimbledon.

For me yesterday was the most frustrating of the 13 attempts that I’ve been involved in. Because TfL keep saying “Good Service” when I personally witnessed 3 different 15 minute delays to the service.

[Nigel]

I'm back home now - so I can share an account of my day. For those who don't know from Twitter I completed in a time of 17h 23ms 36s, which ranks as the second fastest of my three completions.

This was only ever going to be an attempt at completion, not for a fast time, and in the end I think it was the most enjoyable of my 5 attempts. In comparison, to my other two completions, when everything started unravelling in the last few hours, this time luck was with me in the last few hours, so actually managed to gain time towards the end. (The final bonus was picking up a late running Terminal 4 train, which I wouldn't have caught if it had been on time, which consequently only stopped at T4 for 3 minutes rather than the usual 7 or 8 minutes.) On my second completion I lost about 40 minutes from being on a sub-record time until late evening which was galling, and on my first as well as battling the trains I was also fighting my unruly bowels (not a problem this time).

I was determined to try to enjoy the day, as with the Olympia changes and my advancing years, this may be my last ever full network. By starting on the first train of the day, in the first few changes you lose about 25 minutes compared to the best possible combination. Also, I was lazily using my tried and tested plan from last year, which now loses further time with some not so slick connections later on.

If evidence was needed that TfL are not serious about the Olympia Exhibition Service then it was provided at Earl's Court yesterday. There was supposed to be a train to Olympia at 44 & 14 minutes past the hour, not that there was any information about that at Earl's Court - in fact all the signs suggested that you get there by Overground from West Brompton, no posters to say that an Exhibition service running today. I was pleased that I had managed to tee up a perfect connection by catching a train due in at 43, which in fact arrived two minutes early. Except that there was no Olympia service at 44, or for the next 15 minutes. I was just about to give up, when the arrow came up showing an Olympia train, which left at 59, exactly 15 minutes late. (I was surprised to find Geoff on it as well.) In my plan, I have four different ways (and times of day) for doing Olympia; which I choose depends on how timings are up until then. Each of these options is supposed to tee up favourable connections for one of the other two of the difficult three (i.e. Loop or MHE). So being committed to taking the Olympia train 15 minutes late also messed up these.

I was lucky that I managed to avoid most of the serious problems on the Met, Victoria, District and Circle reported at various times. That said, the Circle did me no favours when it was still supposed running a good service - one timetabled train simply did not run, and another crawled along so slowly it managed to lose about 6 minutes in the short time I was on it.

I had a bit of a scare when choosing how to do the Loop. It looked like I was aiming for a particular Loop train from Leytonstone round to Woodford, when at the last minute I managed to catch a late running connection I wasn't expecting to. So I now calculated that I was marginally better off going up to Epping, and catching the Loop on the way back at Woodford. But the Epping train crawled all the way up to Epping arriving about 5 minutes late, missing the return train I was expecting. This in itself shouldn't have been a major problem, since if the train I was on returned on time I should have just caught the Loop at Woodford. Except that the female driver stayed at the rear of the platform at Epping picking flowers from a very colourful bush which overhangs the station. So we left over three minutes late, which should have meant that I would have missed the Loop at Woodford - fortunately it too left a couple of minutes late, so I just caught it.

Highlights of today:
- Catching the fabled U1 bus (for the first time ever on a challenge) just after I came out of the station which enabled me to get a train ahead later on.
- All the runs were done in daylight, which was reassuring, given I had a nasty knife incident in a dark alley on my first ever full network.
- Even though I was only going to jog the runs yesterday, I did so even when in theory there was no need, which paid off by enabling me to catch late running trains I wasn't expecting. (In fact on a couple of occasions had I run hard, I may have gained a couple more, as I saw trains I wasn't expecting leaving as I approached the station. I suppose if I were tech savvy and using a smart phone I might have had foreknowledge of these?)

So overall I really enjoyed it yesterday - maybe because I wasn't feeling pressured about doing a fast time. But it shows how much luck plays a part - Geoff has reported elsewhere the disasters he encountered.

[Cheshire Cat]

Hearty congrats Nigel and bad luck Geoff.

HT,when London is jammed full of visitors from around the world next month (some of them from cities with world-class metro services) and they are stranded in or on hot and overcrowded trains/platforms, which are they going to be interested in: the statistics or their personal experience?

[Sam]

I don't care what you say, if TfL say there's a good service then there is a GOOD SERVICE

[Nigel]

I was looking through my log book for Thursday's attempt (Tube 5), when I noticed that coincidentally I had visited all the stations in the same order as I had on my first attempt (Tube 1), which I didn't do on my other three goes. Both of these attempts started on the first train of the day (so not favourable early connections) and neither had any really fast transfers between ends of lines that I managed on Tube 3.

I thought it might be illuminating to see how my fortunes fluctuated throughout the day on both attempts to see what might have been possible if I transferred periods of good luck from one attempt to the other.

The overall statistics were that on Tube 5 I started 4 minutes earlier than on Tube 1 and finished 31 minutes earlier, hence posting a time which was 27 minutes quicker.

However, this hides some enormous fluctuations throughout the day:
- After 62 stations done, on Tube 5 I was 26 minutes ahead of the time on Tube 1.
- But after 172 stations done, on Tube 1 I was 23 minutes ahead of Tube 5.
- This means on Tube 1 I did the 110 stations from station 62 to station 172 an astonishing 49 minutes quicker than on Tube 5 (15 minutes of which were lost waiting for the Olympia train).

So if on Tube 5 I had managed to do these middle 110 stations in the same time as on Tube 1, but kept my rate of progress the same for the first 62 and last 98 stations I would have completed in 16h34m. This is not a record, but given the unfavourable start time and no really fast between end of line transfers, would have been quite astonishing. Obviously, the fine detail may not have worked with the timetable at a different time, but I think it does demonstrate what an enormous difference luck on the day can make, even when there are no major problems on particular lines.

[Cheshire Cat]

Interesting comparison, Nigel. Olympia apart, how much of the 49 minutes difference was due to Tube luck and how much was non-tube (buses, other rail, crossing roads &c)?

[Nigel]

Interesting comparison, Nigel. Olympia apart, how much of the 49 minutes difference was due to Tube luck and how much was non-tube (buses, other rail, crossing roads &c)?

I think it was all tube related. Buses and other runs turned out much the same in this section of the route. Of the 49 minutes I reckon it roughly breaks down as follows:
- 15 mins late running Olympia train;
- 10 mins no longer setting up good connection for one of MHE or Loop;
- 5 mins timetabled train which didn't show up ;
- 5 mins extra leg had to be done to compensate for the above missing train (so although all stations done in same order, I went through one twice on Tube 5, which didn't on Tube 1)
- 6 mins congestion causing slow running;
- 8 mins from some really slick changes on Tube1, which were replaced by succession of normal 2 -3 minute waits on Tube 5.

Of course, if I did a similar analysis on the early and late bits of the route the situation would be reversed.

[Nigel]

While I agree that network failures are all too common and that is a very unfortunate part of the difference between success and failure, I think even when a more or less genuinely 'good service' is encountered then small amounts of luck can still cumulatively make a very big difference. For me that is one of the real attractions of tube challenging (probably also why the Tour de France is my favourite sporting event). Yes - to be a great tube challenger you need real skill in route planning, a detailed on the ground knowledge and ability to use it under pressure, and a reasonable level of fitness. But on top of that a few tiny pieces of good or bad luck (i.e. trains running a little late or a little early) can as I've just shown catapult a challenge from being behind to being ahead (or vice versa).

On Thursday, from about 5.00pm onwards I just kept on stealing back little bits of time here and there, and never once slipped back from the most optimistic schedule (despite a few scares on the way). That's why I finished on a high, I didn't feel at all drained and exhausted, was really up to pushing it on my final two runs, and for once slept soundly that night.

For me the real shame is that the farce of the Olympia service makes it nearly impossible now to mount a serious assault on the record. And if you do, there is a not insignificant chance you will be completely scuppered by a network failure.

[Cheshire Cat]

sadly, (very sadly)they get their priorities all wrong, too. e.g. how is is that the H&C line between Paddington and Hammersmith has NO 'next train' indicators boards whatsoever, and yet there is money and time spent on replacing the perfectly functional ones at Stratford Jubilee with something inferior. a bit like what they've done with the entire Victoria Line DMI's. embarrassing ...

That was what I thought on my recent trip, too. It's nine years since I worked in London, so my memory of exactly what station had which type of PIS is a bit hazy, but it does seem that stations that had had first generation DMIs have had these replaced, whereas other stations have don't have any. Why hasn't somewhere Earl's Court (not exactly a quiet backwater) been given a proper, modern, user friendly PIS? Surely it's better to bring everywhere up to a decent standard rather than moving some stations onto their second generation DMIs when others are yet to get them. You would have thought decent PIS would be a priority with all those Olympic visitors coming, or is TfL hoping some of them will get on the wrong trains to try and distribute them more evenly over the system?