Yorkshire Challenge 19/02/2013

[gnolife]

Doncaster Box. That's all I've got to say for the time being. More detailed report to come later

 

[Lampshade]

Well this one was unprecedented, we'd never done a combined challenge before and we had no benchmarks with which to plan against. As such I was sensible with the planning, and it appeared 45 was certainly possible with 46 with a +4 off an unreliable service.

An 1100 start saw myself and Crossover catch the 1102 to Burley-in-Wharfedale with bb21 and gnolife. A quick change and 322485 pulled in heading for Bradford. After some confusion regarding gnolife's ticket, the Guard not liking the fact a WY Family Rover had been issued on common stock from Manchester Airport, we stopped at Menston - where the Guard spent around two minutes moving bikes around before opening the doors - we'd been sitting in the bicycle area, prompting me to say "yeah, what we've done now is delay the train". This delay meant we were 5 down at Shipley, okay for Crossover and I, who were continuing to Bradford, but not for the other two, who wanted a +3(?) at Frizinghall.

They bailed at Shipley, gnolife leaving his camera behind in the process. We continued to Bradford Forster Square; a quick saunter across to Interchange followed, 1214 and onto the Calder Valley. We were coming up to what was our riskiest connection, a +3 at Hebden Bridge, we arrived 2 early and our next connection was 2 down, simple enough.

142093 doing the honours, we bounce and clatter our way to Leeds via Dewsbury. Any time lost was made up by Dewsbury and we arrived into Leeds with plenty of time to catch the 1340 TPE to Huddersfield. We then had a +15 onto the Penistone line, which we figured would be essential to be able to challenge for the victory. Off at Meadowhall at 1520 and awaiting our penultimate connection, a +9 onto a Doncaster stopper.

1529 came and went, we were now eating into our 8 minute cushion at Doncaster. Some frantic checking revealed it was 'Delayed'. Now we had a problem, we couldn't get to Donny in time for our final train - the Leeds stopper - and going back via Penistone or Barnsley would be counterproductive. A Lincoln service was just pulling in, so we headed to Sheffield to consider our options.

At Sheffield we worked out that if we boarded the Leeds stopper via Moorthorpe, we could end up with a total of 44, so we boarded 144021 for the final leg. We'd worked out that bb21 and gnolife had encountered problems at Donny, I saw a 16:59 dash out to Headingley by yorkie's team as more desperation than strategy, we worked out that we were probably winning - I was even flicking through my phone trying to find "We are the Champions" to blast out at Leeds. All was good until we left Moorthorpe but then...

Disaster. We'd been held for a late running East Coast and ended up 3 down at Wakefield Westgate. We were due in to Leeds at 1733, so we were counting on recovery time which we were rapidly using up. If the signallers were on our side, we'd still make it to Leeds just before 1730. Checking my watch every 5 seconds, we edge closer to Leeds... then got held at Leeds West Junction, finally arriving into platform 3A at 17:30:32.

As it turns out, we did have the winning number of stations, but because we'd arrived later...

SECOND PLACE AGAIN

 

[Ivo]

Doncaster Box. That's all I've got to say for the time being. More detailed report to come later

Is this a new version of Coatbridge Rainyside?

 

[bb21]

Is this a new version of Coatbridge Rainyside?

Erm, in a word, no.

The blame lies with Doncaster Box rather than ourselves this time.

 

[Crossover]

Lampshade has made a pretty complete report, but I'll just add another couple of tidbits of information in.

Our Penistone Line working was in the hands of 150117, where someone had very kindly left a fairly full cup of hot chocolate on the floor which someone () didn't see and knocked over...cue a river of chocolate along the floor of one end of the coach (to be fair, it could have been worse than the smell of chocolate!)

Our Lincoln bound service, after a quick dash across from platform 2 to 1 at Meadowhall, transpired to be 142022, and proved to be dingier than most (see recent thread about UK worst current rolling stock) as the lights weren't on, which made the tunnels interesting

Arrival at Sheffield proved to be a rather interesting twist to the day as all hell seemed to be breaking loose! 150117 had arrived at platform 3b and mysteriously developed a fault, causing cancellation of the next Penistone line service (1536) and its mirror working from Huddersfield. Ordinarily it may not have been an issue, except the 158 to Bridlington was trapped at the "A" end of the platform! Many announcements ensued of delays to the Brid train - each delay soon surpassed by delay minutes and each announcement saying it was "due to congestion caused by a faulty train"...that would be the lump stuck in front of it then!

150117 eventually got on the move and sloped quietly (for a 150, anyway!) along a signal section before what must have been the longest end change in history before it came back and passed a through line between 1 and 2, next to a stabled 170, also on a passing line.

A little mild amusement for the day, anyway

Though, in a cruel twist of fate, 150117 being cancelled was the thorn in the side of another team...but I will leave them to fill in the details

Other units for the day were:
1102 Leeds - Burley-in-Wharfedale - 333003
1214 Bradford Interchange - Hebden Bridge - 158850
1340 Leeds - Huddersfield - 170306

Doncaster Box. That's all I've got to say for the time being. More detailed report to come later

Erm, in a word, no.

The blame lies with Doncaster Box rather than ourselves this time.

That's it...blame Doncaster Box (Ivo - what have you been teaching these two about signalling issues? :P)

 

[Ivo]

That's it...blame Doncaster Box (Ivo - what have you been teaching these two about signalling issues? :P)

Oi!

The last three Challenges that I took part in prior to Liverpool all fell away due to something out of my control. But only one of those was signalling! And given it was on LUL, it's almost to be expected (sorry LUL employees)!

Maybe gnolife decided he wanted to copy me? After all, I did win him Merseyside, and maybe he wanted to pay me back (by making bb21 lose )?

Still don't know who won...

 

[bb21]

Oscar and maniacmartin won with 45.

 

[maniacmartin]

Oscar and maniacmartin won with 45.

For the record we did no planning, started 15 minutes late and took a half hour lunch break at Hudderfield. The key thing though was a nice run on the stopper to Doncaster with very nice connections to Sheffield and then the Penistone stopper to Huddersfield

 

[bb21]

... which is what really annoyed me as we would have been comfortable winners had we not missed the 1436 via Penistone by a whisker (thanks to Donny box btw ) or the 1536 via Penistone not been cancelled as it broke down.

Thanks to local knowledge, we managed a -4 at Donny (and got told off by station staff for running as some of you would have guessed), only for everything to fall apart less than 5 minutes after that.

We had 48 in the plan so if we made that first train, we would have had an hour spare for another 4 as I make it, or just 48 with the fall-back plan. As it turned out, we lost 90 minutes and 11 stations straight away and ended up with 39.

Sometimes you can do everything right but it was just not meant to be. The title should have been ours. Tuesday was certainly one of them.

 

[Crossforth]

I'll give a full report later but I'll say it was a great day and we ended up with 41. I need to learn some little tricks for next time to try and maximise the number of stations. But even I saw bits of the area I'd never been before and I'm from Leeds!

Next time I'll have to make sure York IECC will cooperate and then I can delay you all.

 

[Ivo]

Sometimes you can do everything right but it was just not meant to be. The title should have been ours. Tuesday was certainly one of them.

These three sentences have made this thread worthwhile

Welcome to the Bigoted Society for People who Lost Challenges due to External Factors (BSPLCEF) - again

 

[Donny Dave]

Doncaster Box. That's all I've got to say for the time being. More detailed report to come later

I suppose it makes a change for Sheefield box not to be the culprit for once!