tubechallenge.com

Now it's official.

We'll kick off Zone 1 Challenge 2008 Cup with a warm up challenge in the evening of Thursday May 29:th (the night before the actual Z1C).

The warm up event will be, at the popular request, a so called R15. This is a challenge where 15 random London Underground stations in zones 1&2 (totally random distribution) must be visited. The first station is the start station and is published in advance. The rest of the list (in sufficient number of copies) is carried to the start station by the organisers. The event and the clocks start when the lists are handed over to the teams. The goal of the challenge is to visit all 15 stations on the list by starting with a London Underground train from the start station. The rest of the stations may be visited in any order. The unique part about this challenge is that all planning is done after the clock has started.

A reunion place to meet after the event is decided between the participants at the start of the event. The Earl´s Court McDonalds is a popular venue for the evening challenges...

"Normal" challenge rules apply. In particular applicable parts of this year's Z1C challenge apply.
The following specific rules have been decided upon by the organisers:

1) All 130 Z1&2 stations are in the (virtual) hat.
2) Should Cannon Street be drawn, it must be visited before it closes. This is in line with GWR rules.
3) Should Shepherd's Bush (Central Line) be drawn as start station, we'll make a complete redraw. However it may very well be among the other 14 stations and a pass through is then required. This is in line with GWR rules.
4) Any other early closures (non-time tabled) may be solved with a pass through (if possible), otherwise they must be visited prior to their closure. This is in line with GWR rules.

The start station will be published no later than Sunday May 25:th on this forum.

NEWS - NEWS - NEWS

The start station for this year's R15 warm up is - - - Embankment.

You will meet there, just outside the barriers, no later than 6.20pm for a tentative start at 6:30p. After finishing the event we/you rejoin at The King's Head, 17 Hogarth Pl, Earl's Court. You may pass Earl's Court McD on your way there! Most likely, some of the organisers (Patrick and Maria) will see you off properly. At the rejoin pub, hopefully, also I and Lars will be able to meet you all! The pub is real easy to find. When you exit Earl's Court tube station, just cross the street and slightly to the left is Hogarth Road which you follow some 80 yards and the pub will be on your left! In case Patrick and Maria don't make it to the start, Going Undergoround/Kevin has been fully briefed and has the envelope with the secret 15 (Embankment+14) stations...

I'm not sure if I'll be able to come to this, but if I am, then I will. I haven't done a R15 before, and I'm eager to try it.

This sounds absolutely awesome, like Tube orienteering or something. I would love to do one of these! Maybe before the Z1C 2009, eh, gentlemen?

If, like me, you haven't done a R15 before, or even if you have, you might want to practise planning a route against the clock. I've written a script to generate fifteen random stations and reveal only the starting station, saving the rest to a .txt file without me seeing it. I've uploaded a few of these files for you to play around with if you wish. Start a timer running when you open the file and see how long it takes you to come up with a good route. After you've come up with something, perhaps you could stop the timer and then analyse it more calmly/thoroughly to see how you did under 'pressure'.

1: Start from Vauxhall
2: Start from South Kensington
3: Start from Holloway Road
4: Start from Goldhawk Road
5: Start from St James's Park

Note: Isn't it interesting that, out of 130 (?) possible starting stations, two out of these five have been used at Zone 1 Days (Vauxhall and St James's Park), and another is very close to them (South Kensington)? There's something magnetic about that area...

I'm going to have a go myself now. Let me know if you want more.

scrxisi wrote:Shall we post our thoughts/routes?

How can u post a route when u dont know which stations will come up.?

What is the ruling if Cannon Street comes out

We don't normally worry too much about treating it as a pass through on evening Z1's if we are not through there by 21:00hrs.....

Obviously if any Victoria Line Stations that do not share an interchange come out they would have to be visited as a pass through would not be possible after early line closure.......

Going Underground wrote:Obviously if any Victoria Line Stations that do not share an interchange come out they would have to be visited as a pass through would not be possible after early line closure.......

You mean Pimlico?

Root wrote:
I'm going to have a go myself now. Let me know if you want more.

Some tough ones in there but as always most enjoyable trying to plot a quick route together......

Keep em coning if you have time, all good practice

jamesthegill wrote:

Going Underground wrote:Obviously if any Victoria Line Stations that do not share an interchange come out they would have to be visited as a pass through would not be possible after early line closure.......

You mean Pimlico?

Could also be Brixton, Vauxhall & Highbury & Islington.......

Going Underground wrote:

jamesthegill wrote:

Going Underground wrote:Obviously if any Victoria Line Stations that do not share an interchange come out they would have to be visited as a pass through would not be possible after early line closure.......

You mean Pimlico?

Could also be Brixton, Vauxhall & Highbury & Islington.......

Ah true, I'm used to Pimlico being the only notch on the line diagrams above the doors and assuming all the others were LU interchanges.

I think that if Cannon Street is selected a pass-through should be acceptable. Alternatively we could just not include in the station list.

I reckon it would make it more interesting if you had to get there before a certain time especially as previously people have been penalised for not visiting a station before it was closed before.

Interesting, I/we hadn't considered this... Off the top of my head I think GWR rules should apply as far as possible and the obvious conclusion would be that Cannon Street should be in there, and must be visited before it closes for the night. We, the organisers, will make a final ruling before we draw the stations.

On the same note, we have decided that Shepherd's Bush (Central Line) will be in the list, but if it comes up as start station, we'll regenerate. If it's among the other 14 stations, a pass-though will be permissible and the clock stopped at the next station if this is the last visit, as per usual.

EDIT
After discussing with Patrick, we have decided to go for the above rule amendments! See edited initial post in this thread.

The start station and timing is now official! See top of this thread!

I think now I'm just going to just throw caution to the wind and come along to this. I'll be spending far more time on South West Trains than i'd like in the space of 48 hours, but my revision demands won't be that great by Thursday so I'm going to give it a go! Definitely a bonus for me that Embankment is the start too, I might even have a nice walk over from Waterloo