Where fingers meet.
That'll work.
Shall we start?
Let's go.
Good morning. Good morning.
I'm Geoff. I'm Andy.
This is Andy, "Calling All Stations."
Just Geoff here.
Last time, we did-
Kentish Town to-
Northern Line versus Thameslink.
Yes.
Who won?
You won, quite considerably.
Even though I brought along a friend
and we tried to beat you twice.
Today, Kings Cross is behind me,
but we're right by St. Pancras.
We realised that we're gonna highlight the lesser used,
well, I think, the Southeastern High Speed service,
10 years of high speed this year, by the way,
to go from Kings Cross/St. Pancras to-
Stratford.
And you're gonna?
We're gonna go by various tube routes.
Do you wanna?
And I'm gonna take the high-speed train.
And when you say we- Yeah.
'cause Andy's brought some friends again.
Do you wanna? (Geoff chuckles)
Come here friends.
Hello.
Say hello.
Hello.
Hello. Hello.
So I'm gonna go high speed,
St. Pancras to Stratford International.
Yeah. You're gonna?
You come over to my channel to find out
which routes we're doing.
We're taking the tube. Click here for that.
You will go one way.
Victoria, you're gonna go another way.
David?
I'm not 100% sure, but I'll find some way of doing it.
So what's faster, high-speed
or the three alternative ways.
Yes. Yeah.
This is so exciting.
Shall we do it? Yep.
Let's do it. Let's go.
We're having a decision about
where we should meet at Stratford.
So I actually come out of the Tube and turn right?
So there?
So it's the Northern entrance, before you go into Westfield.
And there's a upper and lower bit, for the lower bit.
And there's like a totem pole with all the round balls on.
You've got it on your, and then we'll meet,
so I'll meet you by the totem pole of transport.
So it's 12:03 now.
We're gonna go at 12:05?
12:05. 12:05.
12:05. Can we synchronise things.
Synchronise watches.
And we've worked out actually
that there's six different ways to do this
and we're only covering four of them today.
We need six people.
Shoulda had six people doing it.
I've run out of friends.
(David laughs)
Now, I will draw a comprehensive map, diagram, animated
and we can all use.
12:04 and a few seconds.
Should we just go down then?
Shall we just do it? Yeah.
Just do it, right.
So see you at Stratford.
Three, two, one, go, bye.
See you later.
And we're off.
So we've given them a helping hand
'cause we've started near the Tube gate line, all of them.
I've gotta walk along here,
along through all the shops, past the piano.
Nice tune, mate.
St. Pancras heading for the high speed,
heading to the high-speed gate line.
It's already 12:07.
It's taken me two minutes to walk down
and you have to go up some escalators
to get to the high-speed platforms here at St. Pancras.
I'm getting the 12:12.
12:08 now.
12:12 on platform 12.
All the 12s.
Platform 12 for the 12:12
Southeastern service to Margate.
So the journey, I haven't got a lot of time,
is literally, I think it's either timetabled
at six or seven minutes.
One thing to point out is that where the high speed,
I feel it's a bit confusing,
it's not at set minutes past the hour.
It's not like they're like every 10 minutes
or every, like at 00:00, 00:15, 00:30.
I was looking at the train times this morning
and it was like 12 minutes past, then 27 minutes past,
37 minutes past, and then 52 minutes past,
and then there's a 55 minutes past in the next hour.
So you do have to check the timetable for Southeastern
as to when the high-speed train's gonna leave.
Whereas the Tube you know they're gonna be
every two minutes.
The second thing that's really important to point out,
and I've drawn a little diagram, diagram,
to sketch like prices up.
Instead of this shoddy piece of paperwork,
on the screen now will be appearing what I've drawn here
in a nice graphical format.
And then it's basically when a high-speed first launched
10 years ago, it's having its 10-year birthday this year.
Congratulations Southeastern.
You couldn't use the Oyster or contactless.
I believe Oyster contactless only came to being allowed
for this one stop between Stratford International
and St. Pancras in 2015.
And it costs more.
So, off peak this journey on high-speed cost four pounds.
If you buy a paper ticket it's ever more expensive.
It's six pounds 60.
If you use the tube, that's the most equitable way to go,
it's two pounds 40.
Now, I've touched in using a contactless
to get my four pounds.
You can use Railcard discount.
I didn't use my Oyster,
I wanted to be charged the four pounds,
'cause I'm weird like that.
Andy, I believe, is using his Railcard
discounted Oyster card, so he'll get his two pounds 40,
reduced to what, one pound 60.
During the peak it's more expensive
five pounds 70 for Oyster, contactless on high-speed.
Six pounds 60, which is the same as the off-peak price,
intriguingly enough for the paper ticket.
And then the Tube actually costs two pounds 90,
because it's still the cheapest, but it's more expensive.
And the other important thing to note
is if you use your Oyster or contactless
on the high-speed, it does not, does not,
count towards your daily cap.
It's like a separate fee, like a separate charge,
like going on the cable car, same thing.
It doesn't count towards your daily cap.
It's there just for the convenience.
And it is convenient, just gotta go bip
and go Oyster, contactless onto high-speed.
Are we there already.
We'll shortly be arriving
at Stratford International.
It's that quick.
It's only 12:17 and we're arriving already.
That's how fast it is.
Right. (door beeps)
Right, we've arrived.
That's Aaron.
It's 12:19.
I'm at the front 'cause I'm coming to use this exit
at Stratford International.
Trains leaving this station can be very busy,
especially during the rush hour.
When Stratford International first opened,
that was before Westfield the shopping centre was open.
And it was like this strange ghost station.
Since the shopping centre, oh my, that's a long escalator.
It's obviously become a lot more busy.
But you know, the fact that we can't help not but mention
is the fact that no Eurostar trains,
so no international trains,
actually stop at Stratford International.
(ticket barrier beeps)
So what I've done is that not a lot of people
know about this entrance to Stratford International.
I'm wasting time though standing still.
The main way in now is down there.
And that leads to sort of like the far end
of the shopping centre.
This one sort of comes out halfway down.
I just don't feel like a lotta people ever use
this entrance or exit.
It's like the sneaky way in and out
of Stratford International station.
You then walk along sort of the service road here,
down alongside Westfield.
And it takes you 'round to the front,
where we're gonna meet.
And we've been going, what's that,
16 minutes, I should win.
Just approaching the 19 minute mark.
I think they should do it in like 22,
three, four minutes.
So, I think I'll beat them by about a minute or two.
I can see the totem pole there already there.
There it is.
Yeah, that's, I'm there in 20 minutes.
Hang on, let's get my stopwatch out.
I'm gonna take that now.
19 minutes and 56 seconds.
Stratford Tube is over there.
Yeah, I'm first here.
That was very fast.
Hang on, what time you got?
12:28, so 24 minutes, bang on, almost exactly.
Yeah, I was 19:55.
Oh, my God. Yeah.
So, beat you by a whole clear four minutes.
You outta breath?
Yeah, I am.
I had a great connection King's Cross,
straight onto a train.
Right. And then-
Did you take TFL Rail or Central?
I took TFL Rail.
I actually took Greater Anglia.
It left the same time as the TFL Rail,
so it was stressing, I lost a minute.
So at one point, were you on like Tube wifi
looking at the timetables?
Yeah.
At what point did you make the call
to take National Rail?
I made the call at Barbican 'cause I figured,
I thought I had about four minutes to make the connection.
Okay. And I knew the exact time
of the TFL Rail, Greater Anglia service.
And I knew if I missed that,
there was a TFL Rail in two minutes,
whereas I didn't know the times of the Central line.
Were you in the right carriage on the Tube?
And so you dashed up to the concourse.
Yeah. What platform
out of Liverpool Street?
14. 14.
The Clapton service. The Clapton service.
And then you whizzed here.
I whizzed through here.
Even if I got the doors right here.
I didn't quite get the doors right here.
Even if I'd done that, I still wouldn't have beat him.
Where do you think the others are?
God knows. (Andy chuckles)
Hang on a second.
She hasn't lost.
She's come third.
There's a surprise.
You haven't come last.
I'm not last.
You've come third.
Where's your watch?
Where's me watch?
Oh, hold on.
Oh, it's one of those that switches off.
There we are, 29:20.
And you took what route?
Just reconfirm your route.
Victoria line, change at Highbury and Islington.
Had to wait six minutes.
Six minutes.
For an overground train.
Just got here. Oh my God, the overground trains are slow.
Are you able to check your Oyster balance
and see how much it cost you.
It shoulda cost you 2.40, railcard reduced to 1.60.
I've just checked my, I did it on the contactless
and it is as I expect, cost me four pounds.
So you pay, I mean it's almost double.
You pay the premium travelling high-speed.
So all three of you then.
How did that happen?
What was your route, David?
Bank, Northern line to Bank.
Run like hell, Central line to here.
Were you in the right carriage position-
Yes! When you had to change?
I had to wait a few minutes
for the first train King's Cross
and that was probably my undoing.
What did we learn?
I'm really slow.
(people laugh)
If you like the scenic route go by Overground.
I saw a lot of London I hadn't seen before.
I think overall I learned, or we learned,
the lesson is the same as it is for Kentish Town,
Northern line, that being if you just miss a Thameslink
the Northern line will win.
If you catch one within a few minutes, you tended to win.
So exactly the same for high-speed.
If there's one within a few minutes you'll get there fast.
The pattern is like you might miss one.
Then it's like another 10, 15, or sometimes 17-minute wait.
If I'd have just missed one and had to wait 17 minutes,
I think all of you guys would have won.
And so, check the times of high-speed trains.
And on my part of the race as well,
there was a 10-minute gap after the Shenfield
that I was pondering getting.
So, if I'd missed that Shenfield at 20 past 12,
you might as well get the Central line.
There's no point going up to Liverpool Street
and doing the change.
So I was lucky that that kind of worked for me
and then I was straight to Stratford.
But still didn't make it in time.
And high-speed you're paying a premium.
It's like almost double the price.
And it doesn't count towards your daily cap.
But if you walk it's free.
(Geoff chuckles)
Yeah, you'd still be alive.
So we'll see you in another.
You'll see me soon.
You've got more videos coming.
There's some more stuff coming.
This is the bit where you go, hit subscribe.
Smash the bell.
Hit the thing up there and then smash the bell down there.
Turn all the notifications on.
Make a really good thumbnail. (Andy chuckles)
In the year of our Lord 2019, that is us.
Signing off at Stratford.
See you at the next stop.
We'll get a tea, bye.
Bye.
Wonderful.
Right, tea's on me.
Brilliant.
Tea's on the winner.