How long would it take to ride all the Overground lines?
That's all six of them, for at least one stop, as quickly as possible.
I gave it a go, and I started in the obvious place.
Of the six lines the Liberty line is both the most remote and has the least frequent trains. Best start on the line with the half-hourly frequency rather than end up there and unintentionally have to wait 29 minutes. And best start in the middle of the line rather than at a terminus, because then you only have to go one stop before escaping. So any Overground challenge is going to have to begin at Emerson Park.
Intermission
Emerson Park is a strange place, a single platform halt in the suburban wilds of Havering, also the least used station on the whole of the Overground network. So it was a surprise to find two members of staff on duty, one sweeping the platforms and the other holed up in his kiosk in case any situation transpired that required his involvement. This seemed ridiculously unlikely. But perhaps the most surprising thing about Emerson Park is that it has no Liberty line signage because TfL's Overground rebranding team have completely forgotten it exists.
The enamel line diagrams across the Overground network were replaced last year and covered with a sheet of vinyl so they could all be revealed simultaneously on launch day. This reveal happened everywhere else but failed to happen at Emerson Park which means the orange vinyl sticker is still on display, not the proper grey sign underneath. If you wander over to the panel between the Oyster pad and the Help Point you can see a thin grey strip poking above the top of the orange sticker, as yet unrevealed. And if you look closer at the bumps in the vinyl you can clearly see the raised letters L i b e r t y underneath the phrase 'Trains to Romford and Upminster'.
I know Emerson Park is remote but it's ridiculous that nobody official has yet spotted the lack of visible signage. They peeled off the vinyls at Romford which now has several grey signs, ditto at Upminster on the way to platform 6. But somehow the instruction never made it to Emerson Park, so here we are SIX MONTHS LATER with the signage still in its pre-launch state. It's not even an unstaffed station. Those responsible for Overground rebranding should be mighty embarrassed, as should whoever's responsible for managing this station for failing to notice the non-reveal on any of the last 180 days. I hope to see the proper grey sign next time I go back.
OK, here comes my first train, start the stopwatch.
Liberty line: Emerson Park to Upminster (00:00-00:04)
The train's not busy, indeed two of us have the entire front half to ourselves, i.e. one carriage each. I've had to do some proper timetable-digging to decide whether to go to Romford or to Upminster first. Romford looked most promising, allowing a rapid Crossrail whizz into town, but the switch to the Suffragette line would have required a street level bolt from Forest Gate to Wanstead Park in four minutes flat which I deemed undoable. Instead I chose to use c2c from Upminster to Barking, the Fenchurch Street train being ten minutes faster than the tube, and attempted the nigh impossible connection there instead.
Suffragette line: Barking to Walthamstow Queen's Road (00:23-00:36)
So this proved tough. My c2c train was scheduled to arrive on platform 5 at the same time as the Suffragette train arrived on platform 8. Thankfully we were a minute early which gave me a chance to bolt down the ramp into the subway, then bolt back up again just in time to see the Overground train preparing to depart. My thanks to the driver who hung on an extra few seconds to allow three of us to pant aboard, otherwise that would have set my challenge back by fifteen minutes. And then to make sure I could switch easily to the Weaver line I stayed on for five stops, heading all the way out to Walthamstow.
Weaver line: Walthamstow Central to Hackney Downs (00:48-00:57)
I had ten minutes to walk between the two stations in Walthamstow, a comfortable margin. I did worry I was spending too much time changing between trains and standing waiting but that's the nature of this challenge, it's all about how the respective timetables mesh together. There followed a spin across the sunny Walthamstow Marshes, sharing the carriage with a babyfaced banker with pink bikes on his tie and a smart lady with a cartoon teddy on her handbag. On reaching Hackney Downs I shot off down the lengthy connecting passage to Hackney Central, arriving just in time to see a Richmond train departing from the opposite platform. I consoled myself that even if I'd run very very fast I'd never have caught it.
Mildmay line: Hackney Central to Canonbury (01:06-01:10)
I'd now been travelling for over an hour and was only just ticking off the fourth line in my challenge. I got lucky here though, the next train behind mine was cancelled so I could have had a considerable wait, whereas instead I reached Canonbury just four minutes later. Nobody sensible changes trains here when travelling west, hence it's a bit of a hike, hence I missed yet another train departing from the platform as I yomped down the stairs. And that was an extra eight minutes to wait as I had my second bit of narrow bad luck.
Windrush line: Canonbury to Highbury and Islington (01:20-01:21)
And after all that I spent just one minute on the Windrush line, cunningly riding its northern tip rather than having to deviate south of the river. I now had just one line left to ride, the elusive Lioness, which I could have done by getting back on the Mildmay line and riding all the way to Willesden Junction. But far better, I deduced, to hop on the Victoria line and zip down to Euston to catch it there. It was certainly fast, and it would have been even better if I'd arrived at Euston with an orange train already in the platform. Unfortunately I'd just missed one, again, meaning a 12 minute wait for a train with a 15 minute frequency.
Lioness line: Euston to South Hampstead (01:44-01:48)
And finally the train to Watford, although I only needed to go one stop to South Hampstead. Along the way we passed the empty gash where HS2 will one day go, possibly after I'm dead, plus a couple of West Midlands trains parked in a siding. I finally reached my destination 1 hour and 48 minutes after setting out, annoyed that it could have been 1 hour 33 minutes if only I'd caught the train before the one I did. I blame getting unlucky at Hackney Central and Canonbury, although I was also ridiculously lucky at Barking so maybe I did better than I thought. According to the Tube Challenge online forum the record is 1 hour and 34 minutes, although only one person's ever tried it before which to be perfectly fair isn't exactly surprising.
I'd therefore like to claim to be the second fastest person ever to ride all six Overground lines. I particularly like how my optimum route started at the least used Overground station, which is Emerson Park, and ended at the second least used Overground station, which is South Hampstead. And it may have been a stupid thing to do but I'd never have noticed the unrevealed Liberty line panel at Emerson Park otherwise, something TfL have yet to do themselves.
