Going Underground
In September, reader and would-be Tube driver Henry Fell and his dad Dean undertook a Tube-a-thon in a bid to cover as much of the Underground network as possible to raise money for charity. Words and pictures by the author.
ISAW on YouTube people trying to visit all the Underground stations in under 19 hours, as part of a tube marathon to beat a record. I was interested in doing something similar but for fun, and with no time restraint and I also wanted to make it charitable rather than for my own personal gain.
My dad had his cancer right before I was born but he told me about the support Macmillan gave him. They sent him a cheque for £250 while he was ill and their nurses also visited him to provide support. That is why I wanted to raise at least £500 so they could use the money to help two people with cancer.
I can’t believe I have actually raised over £1200 so far, and I am really surprised and happy that it has generated so much support.
My dad and I chose the weekend of September 3/4 to do our Tube-a-thon. However, my first challenge happened before I even started, when I found out that both the Piccadilly and District
Lines were going to be closed for maintenance from Hammersmith station that weekend. This meant in the few days before setting off I had to fully redesign the route plan I had designed over the past month.
It was too expensive to book a hotel in London the night before we started, so we were up at 3am to catch a train from St Neots to London King’s Cross to arrive in time to catch the first tube train of the day at 5am. This was not helped by the trains from St Neots being cancelled and heavily delayed that morning, so we didn’t get into London until after 6am in the end.
It took us 33 hours of travelling over the two days to complete the route. I never knew how exhausting travelling could be until I travelled for 19 hours straight on the first day. We stopped for lunch on both days but only got a 20 minute break each time.
In the end we travelled on 11 Tube lines, one Chatham main line train, one c2c and two Overground trains, covering 236 Tube stations (not counting Overground stations). Apparently, my dad has told my mum that next time I have a transport-related challenge I want to do, it’s her turn to do it with me!