Tubefest 07 Thursday night challenge - May 17th

[tubeguru]

I catch the train to work from Kentish Town every morning - all you had to do was ask

[tpfkar]

I catch the train to work from Kentish Town every morning - all you had to do was ask

The winning team were shrewd enough to ring the national rail helpline to figure out when the trains were in advance - as I should have done!

[Going Underground]

Well the first event of "Tubefest 07" was great fun even if our team did head of in completely the wrong direction.......

For some reason we decided to go West and without time to think about over half the stations Soup Dragon had us running from Temple to Covent Garden.....
Through Russell Square changing at King Cross and doubling back at Barbican to Euston Square we had pretty much worked our entire route out by now.......
The run from Euston Sq to Euston up to Tufnell Park and back down to Kentish Town for the First Captial Connect to Luton (we got off at West Hamsptead.... A quick check at West Hamsptead NLL to see if we could get to Kilburn and back in time for a train to Willesden Junction (Our knowledge now greater we understand that Kilburn is close to Brondesbury )..

So it was Jubilee down to Baker Street, Bakerloo line to Maida Vale double back to Oxford Circus, Victoria line through Green Park into Victoria and a Circle LIne into H.S.K.

Via Earls Court to Barons Court and back again and nothing is moving in any direction at Earls Court... Trains can be seen outside the platforms in both directions...... We run to Brompton Road and try and get a bus to Putney Bridge....we don't see a bus and continue to run to West Brompton and notice a southbound District line arriving.... One of the others teams are on this train cool and calm and we are hot and bothered....

Down to Wimbledon (having discussed the East Putney Putney BR run on the way through)....

SWT to Waterloo, Jubilee to Southwark and finally ELL to Wapping.....


Ric I would definitely like to do something similiar again, this was a great test of quick thinking and planning....
15 stations within Z1 - Z2 was perfect for an evening challenge, if held during the day with an earlier start good be expanded to 20-25 stations and maybe even into Z3

[MJ]

Myself and my teammate Antony also enjoyed this challenge, despite our poor time.

For some strange reason we thought that we had to visit Warren Street which cost us several minutes.

Overall it was an interesting challenge though, many thanks to tpfkar for organising it.

[hwolge]

And here are the results of the Swedish computer vote:

Mansion House
Wapping
Southwark
Southwark
Barbican
Russell Square
Covent Garden
Green Park
Oxford Circus
Tufnell Park
Kilburn
Maida Vale
High Street Kensington
Barons Court
Putney Bridge

Details:

Mansion House
->(Dis,EB)->Whitechapel->(ELL,SB)->Wapping
->(ELL,SB)->Canada Water->(Jub,WB)->Southwark
->(Jub,WB)->Waterloo->(Jub,EB)->Southwark
->(Jub,EB)->London Bridge->(Nor,NB)->Moorgate->(Cir,CC)->Barbican
->(Met,NB)->King´s Cross St. Pancras->(Pic,WB)->Russell Square
->(Pic,WB)->Covent Garden
->(Pic,WB)->Green Park
->(Vic,NB)->Oxford Circus
->(Vic,NB)->Warren Street->(Nor,NB)->Tufnell Park
->(Nor,SB)->Kentish Town->(RW,)->West Hampstead->(Jub,WB)->Kilburn
->(Jub,EB)->Baker Street->(Bak,NB)->Maida Vale
->(Bak,SB)->Paddington->(Dis,WB)->High Street Kensington
->(Dis,WB)->Earl´s Court->(Pic,WB)->Barons Court
->(Pic,EB)->Earl´s Court->(Dis,WB)->Putney Bridge


=03:02:08

Would that have been a winner Ric?

[gasman]

And here are the results of the Swedish computer vote:

Mansion House
Wapping
Southwark
Southwark
Barbican
...
->(ELL,SB)->Canada Water->(Jub,WB)->Southwark
->(Jub,WB)->Waterloo->(Jub,EB)->Southwark

Well, I suppose that's one way of making absolutely sure Southwark doesn't get missed out

[hwolge]

Oops, Southwark got in there twice, sorry!

Correct list is:
Mansion House
Wapping
Southwark
Green Park
Oxford Circus
Tufnell Park
Barbican
Russell Square
Covent Garden
Barons Court
Putney Bridge
High Street Kensington
Maida Vale
Kilburn

->(Dis,EB)->Whitechapel->(ELL,SB)->Wapping
->(ELL,SB)->Canada Water->(Jub,WB)->Southwark
->(Jub,WB)->Green Park
->(Vic,NB)->Oxford Circus
->(Vic,NB)->Warren Street->(Nor,NB)->Tufnell Park
->(Nor,SB)->King´s Cross St. Pancras->(Met,SB)->Barbican
->(Met,NB)->King´s Cross St. Pancras->(Pic,WB)->Russell Square
->(Pic,WB)->Covent Garden
->(Pic,WB)->Barons Court
->(Pic,EB)->Earl´s Court->(Dis,WB)->Putney Bridge
->(Dis,EB)->High Street Kensington
->(Dis,EB)->Paddington->(Bak,NB)->Maida Vale
->(Bak,SB)->Baker Street->(Jub,WB)->Kilburn

=02:54:22

How about that then?

I find it quite interesting that the Rail connection was no longer optimum...

I'll add the Blackfriars-Southwark run and see what happens...

Ok, if you do the Blackfriars-Southwark run in around 4 minutes (barrier to barrier) the result would be:

Mansion House
Southwark
Wapping
Barbican
Russell Square
Covent Garden
Green Park
Oxford Circus
Tufnell Park
Kilburn
Maida Vale
High Street Kensington
Barons Court
Putney Bridge

->(Cir,CW)->Blackfriars->(W,)->Southwark
->(Jub,EB)->Canada Water->(ELL,NB)->Wapping
->(ELL,NB)->Whitechapel->(H&C,WB)->Barbican
->(Met,NB)->King´s Cross St. Pancras->(Pic,WB)->Russell Square
->(Pic,WB)->Covent Garden
->(Pic,WB)->Green Park
->(Vic,NB)->Oxford Circus
->(Vic,NB)->Warren Street->(Nor,NB)->Tufnell Park
->(Nor,SB)->Kentish Town->(RW,)->West Hampstead->(Jub,WB)->Kilburn
->(Jub,EB)->Baker Street->(Bak,NB)->Maida Vale
->(Bak,SB)->Paddington->(Dis,WB)->High Street Kensington
->(Dis,WB)->Earl´s Court->(Pic,WB)->Barons Court
->(Pic,EB)->Earl´s Court->(Dis,WB)->Putney Bridge

=02:54:00

and National Rail is again in vogue...

[Soup Dragon]

And here are the results of the Swedish computer vote:

Mansion House
Wapping
Southwark
Southwark

Hakan, you do seem to have a problem with Southwark

[tubeguru]

Yeah, he can't say it properly

[tpfkar]

And here are the results of the Swedish computer vote:

....

=03:02:08

Would that have been a winner Ric?

It would certainly have been better than my attempt - I got hopelessly tied when I headed down from Kilburn to Southwark without ticking off Maida Vale. I think it would have all come down to a good BR connection at Kentish Town, but it would certainly have been stronger than what I actually did.

Out of interest, do you think there is an 'optimal' Z1 route? I imagine that Vauxhall is one end, but I wonder where the other is. I'll understand if you don't want to say on thread however!

[Starkey7]

I think that my route was optimal.

[Soup Dragon]

I think that my route was optimal.

Optimal for Starkey maybe, but for mortals unable to do the Goodge Street to Russell Square run it would be a bit more tricky.

I do have one route which only involves visiting just 66 stations, the only doubles being Waterloo (difficult to avoid in most routes) and Victoria (double back from Sloane Square). However this route does involve 17 changes so is perhaps not optimal. You could of course run from Sloane Square to Pimlico if you wanted to reduce to 65 stations.

[Starkey7]

Actually, I think that by doing the Russell Square double-back instead of the Goodge Street run, you get just as good a route as mine. It might even be quicker.

[hwolge]

I'd say (without knowing your exact route Starkey), if you don't have Farringdon-Chancery Lane in there (either way), then by including that one, you'd get rid of the Russell Square double back again. I think Russel Square-Goodge Street might invalidate the usefulness of Farringdon-Chancery Lane...

On a more general route, I think that "the optimum" route is decided from your ability to run (speed/stamina combination). For me/us, I'm also convinced that we had an optimum route (from Southwark and on), but we had an uphill battle on connections this time. The expected planned time from Southwark would be 2h50m with our lower (compared to Starkey) running speed and agility. Given that on our previous attempts we've been within minutes of our expected time, I think this was the one off. (In fact, even this time, we were more or less spot on plan after 2 hours and then lost some 8 minutes during the last hour).

Anyway, I think Starkey performed excellently and really deserved the win! Congrats again!

[Going Underground]

I think that my route was optimal.

Optimal for Starkey maybe, but for mortals unable to do the Goodge Street to Russell Square run it would be a bit more tricky.

Indeed as John only made the connection by 5 seconds I don't believe anyone else at Z1 on Friday could have done Goodge Russell and made that same train....

I believe that an optimal route needs to finish at Vauxhall rather than starting there....