Tube spotting

Just like trains have their anorak wearing, shoulder bag carrying, note taking friends; it seems the tube has its own breed of 'spotters'.

On a trip to Brixton a little while ago, I was joined in my Victoria Line carriage by a group for five quite sweaty men carrying tube maps. One of them was wearing a T shirt which read 'Tube Olympics 2008'. This caught my eye. I remember well the Beijing Olympics which were in 2008, but it seems the Tube Olympics passed me by somehow.

It quickly became apparent (through my blatant eavesdropping) that these men were carrying out some sort of underground race against time. It was a beautifully hot day above ground which meant the man in the T shirt spent a lot of the ride mopping his beaded bow as he regaled stories to a younger team member mostly starting 'this one time on the District Line....'

After calculating what exit to take in order to spend the least amount of time on the platform, the team sped off into the distance, maps frantically flapping and bright white trainers flashing.

All this carry-on tickled my intrigue so I found myself doing some research into just what these 'tube spotters' might be participating in. What I discovered was a rather long history of something called 'The Tube Challenge'.
The idea of this challenge is to visit all the tube stations in the fastest time possible. And it seems people have been trying this for sixty years now. The current official Guinness World Record stands at 16 hours, 44 minutes and 16 seconds.

Wikipedia tells me of Bob Robinson who is the most prolific Tube Challenger of all, having made 51 attempts between 1979 and 2000, completing 46 and setting the record time on 6 occasions. Bob obviously wasn't getting on the Northern Line at 8am. It can take what seems close to 16 hours just to get on a train that isn't packed like a cattle truck.

Of course as the London Underground network continues to expand, it becomes more and more difficult to beat records. Let's just hope they don't turn to performance-enhancing drugs and go the way of other endurance sports.