All Lines Challenge, 17 December 2011
The All Lines Challenge is a strange one, and possibly one of the more pointless challenges out there. As the name suggests, the idea is to use all the lines of the London Underground in the shortest possible time. (This doesn’t include the London Overground or the DLR even though they appear on the Tube Map.)
On the Tube Challenge forum, one member has, for whatever reason, taken this particular challenge as the one to master. They have been working on a route for ages, and going out and taken several attempts. As of 17 December 2011, their fastest time was just under 54 minutes. The ‘record’ time for this challenge is 33 minutes 37 seconds (as of 2 January 2012).
Heading up to London for the Tube Challenger’s Darts finals day, Andi James and myself found ourselves waiting for ages at Osterley station (where the car was parked) to head into the City for darts. We were quite early, so decided that we should just for the fun of it do an All Lines Challenge. Stood in the waiting room at Osterley, we observed the map, worked out a route, and headed into the City to do it. The only preperation we did was a quick reccy at Green Park to work out which of the lines was easiest to change between (the answer: none of them), and headed up to start at King’s Cross St Pancras.
It should be said that we put absoutely no effort into this challenge, aside from one run to change to the Bakerloo Line by me because I lost Andi, and in the process I almost lost my shoe jumping onto the train as the doors closed. Our finishing location was either Piccadilly Circus or Oxford Street (can’t remember which) at a time of 53 minutes 10 seconds.
We weren’t the only people to go out that day before the darts… at 44 minutes 18 seconds, another forum member jumped straight into 4th place on the listings.
Perhaps, if either of us can be bothered, we’ll do it again, and this time actually make an effort… perhaps.
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