Royal Challenge

[RJSRdg]

Having attended a training course in London this morning, I found myself with a few hours to spare and, knowing that the Royal Challenge has been unclaimed since Seven Kings and Barking Riverside opened, I thought I'd have a go.
As Victoria was the nearest "Royal" station to my training course, I opted to start there and travelled down to Stockwell and Clapham North. Round to Clapham High Street only to find all trains cancelled for the foreseeable future. Back up to Oval and onto a very slow 436 to Queens Road Peckham. By the time I had boarded the first available train (Southern to London Bridge, as the Overground was still not running), over an hour and a quarter had elapsed, which is perhaps a record for the longest time between the first two stations on any Challenge! Therefore I reset the watch with the idea of picking up Victoria again later. Up to London Bridge, then got lost trying to find the Tube station but round to Canning Town and down the Woolwich branch to King George V. Four minute wait for a bus round to Gallions Reach, where I just missed a westbound train and had to wait for the next one via Prince Regent, Royal Albert and Victoria Dock. Up the Jubilee to West Ham and on the H&C to Barking. Up to now I had visited 6 stations in a respectable 90 minutes but here things fell apart, as First Off the Tube had led me to believe that the train to Barking Riverside would be going from Platform 1 (reinforced by the presence of a Goblin timetable at the top of the stairs). 12 minute wait here anyway so I must have just missed the previous train (owing to havign missed the westbound DLR at Gallions). No sign of the Overground train at the booked time until I glanced across the station and saw it departing from Platform 7! The temperature had dropped considerably by then and faced with a 15 minute wait for the next one followed by a 15 minute wait at BKR and more messing around on the GOBLIN to come, I opted to call it a day, but a useful fact-finding mission for a future attempt!

[al]

Weirdly I was looking at that challenge last night thinking mmmm maybe! Lots of bad luck there though.