My First FNC Completion! 26/07/25
Posted: 28 Jul 2025, 10:04
After years of wanting to do an FNC on and off, on Saturday 26th July I finally completed my first Full Network Challenge. I started at Chesham at 0516 and finished at HT5 at 2340 with a final time of 18 hours 24 minutes and 19 seconds. When planning, I figured it would be easier to try and do this on a Saturday so I wasn't constrained to visiting Olympia at specific times and as it so turned out, one of the only engineering work free Saturdays this year I was off!
I had plenty thrown at me throughout the day, I was chasing my tail from early on as I was on a delayed inbound service to Watford meaning I missed my connection and was already 12 minutes down only an hour in. I watched the bus at High Barnet leave as I was pulling into the platform and then lost 17 minutes as the next 307 never showed up despite being advertised, the Olympia branch was suspended for a period of the day and by the time I arrived there just after 1710, there was a train in the platform 'Out Of Service', thankfully this left about 12 minutes late and went towards Tower Hill when I needed to head up to HSK, so again more time shed. A burst watermain outside Stanmore station was causing havoc with the buses when trying to head to Edgware, and the doors were shut in my face when I arrived in at Richmond. Despite what felt like 500 setbacks, I still managed to complete the FNC.
I feel absolutely amazing still knowing that I have finally gotten around to completing an FNC, this was for younger me that dreamt about doing it, and now I can say I've done it. I've officially joined the club!!
I had plenty thrown at me throughout the day, I was chasing my tail from early on as I was on a delayed inbound service to Watford meaning I missed my connection and was already 12 minutes down only an hour in. I watched the bus at High Barnet leave as I was pulling into the platform and then lost 17 minutes as the next 307 never showed up despite being advertised, the Olympia branch was suspended for a period of the day and by the time I arrived there just after 1710, there was a train in the platform 'Out Of Service', thankfully this left about 12 minutes late and went towards Tower Hill when I needed to head up to HSK, so again more time shed. A burst watermain outside Stanmore station was causing havoc with the buses when trying to head to Edgware, and the doors were shut in my face when I arrived in at Richmond. Despite what felt like 500 setbacks, I still managed to complete the FNC.
I feel absolutely amazing still knowing that I have finally gotten around to completing an FNC, this was for younger me that dreamt about doing it, and now I can say I've done it. I've officially joined the club!!