Alright, looks like we're going for the Dutch angle
on this one for the intro.
Hello YouTube, good afternoon.
It's a lovely, sunny, blue sky kind of day, I like that.
It might be the last one of 2021 though.
If you're anything like me you've got some tube maps
at home though which you've probably looked at recently
and thought you know what since TFL went out west,
there are now seven stations on the tube map
with the word Acton in the title.
And I just really want to know
how quickly can I get round all seven?
What is the fastest time I can do all seven Acton stations?
So there's a map here.
So you've got East Acton,
North Acton and West Acton on the Central Line.
You have Acton Main Line and TFL Rail,
Acton Central,
which is where I am now,
and South Acton on the overground,
and over here on the District and Piccadilly,
we've got Acton Town.
But it wouldn't be a Geoff video
without a map that I've drawn and narrated myself,
like this.
Yes, here's an accurate geographical map
showing where the seven
Acton stations are
in relation to each other.
There's two on the overground.
There's Acton Town on the District and Piccadilly.
Three on the Central Line.
And then the awkward outlier that is Acton Main Line,
currently part of TFL rail,
that would eventually be part of the purple train.
And I've set myself some rules to abide by
as to how I should tick off these stations.
So the rule quite simply is,
if you want to try this challenge yourself,
which I suggest you do,
you must arrive or depart at all seven stations on a train.
So I'm going to depart here,
at Acton Central,
and I'll finish, I suspect somewhere on the Central Line
by arriving on a train
and I'll tick off the other five in between.
Do all seven, seven.
And I reckon if I start on this one, the 15:32,
I can do it in just under an hour.
So that's two, or is it three minutes in, easy.
First one done Acton Central.
It's literally a 90 second journey down
to South Acton from here.
Gonna walk to the Piccadilly Line
slash District Line station Acton Town,
which is about a 10-15 minute walk in that direction,
and I do want to pick up a District Line train,
that'll take me down to Ealing Broadway.
Now, at this point,
I was keeping an eye out for the 440 bus,
that I know runs along here, but alas, nothing.
There was no bus coming.
So no bus for me,
even though it just would have been one stop,
that would've saved me a couple of minutes,
but ironically, obviously,
there's one going in the other direction,
not helpful, but I can see the underground ahead.
So we are close.
We will board the train in four minutes,
four minutes, which is good.
That should put me on time for a swift connection on to
TFL rail purple train to take me to Acton Main Line
where I will then do another bit of walking.
Good so far.
Checking the live time of trains,
my planning has meant that I've timed this right
to pick up a train,
to Acton Main Line with a minimal connection time.
It is so sunny, here comes my train.
I've timed this well,
the 16:01 is coming in,
because Acton Main Line
only gets an every half an hour stopping pattern.
When I was planning this through,
I did actually think I would have to start or finish
at Acton Main Line as it's like the oddity.
It's the one out by itself.
But then I realised that you can walk between here
down to West Acton.
I might even get a little sneaky bus as well.
I just remembered,
I don't know the exit positions
'cause it used to be at that end,
and now there's the new exit entrance.
Oh, I think it's about halfway down.
Also, I don't know if it's a seven or nine car.
Oh, I can see it's a nine car,
nine car, purple train.
Gonna go one stop to Acton Main Line.
And the trick then is to walk down the road,
down Knoll Road,
and get to the Central Line that way.
And again, it's about a 10-15 minute walk,
but there might be a bus I can take it for one stop.
So, we'll see how it goes.
I should have been further down the train,
That's fine, that's fine, we'll make it.
Alright, out of Acton Main Line station.
Google Maps saying is an 18 minute walk,
18 down to,
to West Acton.
I reckon I could walk it in 15.
I was going to say, lets get a 440 bus,
but I've checked,
and the 440 bus has changed into the 218.
Bus people?
When did they split the 440,
so it became the 218?
I was not aware of this.
It's the 218 bus stop, 218,
that used to be the 440,
but it's in eight minutes.
I might as well just walk it.
I could even do a little,
you're allowed to run by the way.
The rule is obviously,
any form of scheduled public transport,
train, bus, and your own feet,
but whether that's at walking speed or at jogging speed
is up to you.
I'm thinking of having a little,
a little, small run.
It's 16:17, exactly 45 minutes in.
Approaching West Acton now.
So it's just a matter of
how long I have to wait for a train
and tick off the last three.
This will be, this will be
under an hour.
Can't see that in the bright sunshine.
Okay, yes, okay.
You can't see it, but that does say four minutes.
Check this out,
Eastbound trains not stopping at East Acton between August
and hang on.
No.
(laughs)
No, that's me now.
Oh no.
I did not know.
Oh, you're kidding me.
Oh no.
Well that's annoying.
I genuinely didn't know that was a thing
my train's about to not stop.
It'll stop at North Acton.
And then it'll get to East Acton
and presumably it'll slow down and not stop.
So I will make a note of the time then,
but then to actually do it properly
and get out at East Acton,
I'll have to go to White City and reverse.
And that will add,
10 minutes to my time.
Do you remember a few minutes ago
when I was being all cocky?
This will be, this will be,
under an hour.
(laughs)
That's, that's now not going to happen, but it depends.
It depends upon the rules.
Oh man.
(laughs)
That makes for a fun video.
For goodness sake.
And so, the train didn't stop at East Acton.
It went along through North Acton just fine,
tick that one off, but on approaching East Acton,
it slowed down.
It didn't stop.
I've got a great view of all the building works,
where they're rebuilding the platform
on the eastbound side.
And then I had to carry on to White City.
So, that's East Acton at 16:29,
which would have been at 57 minutes.
So it is possible in 56-57 minutes,
but it slowed down a bit,
but now I have to reverse at White City.
(giggles)
That's so unfair.
And that will take me over an hour.
Great.
Fortunately, another one just pulled in,
it's a West Ruislip stopper,
in two minutes or one minute,
so that will leave in one minute
and I'll get there in about an hour and five minutes.
So as my train departs,
I just arrived on, I've checked my watch, it's 16:36,
including the double back at White City
that took me one hour and four minutes.
Trains, not stopping on the eastbound platform here
at East Acton, which I had no idea,
Was a thing.
So there we go.
Injected a little bit of fun, a little bit of drama.
So if you want to do this,
maybe wait until the works here are finished.
The other obvious way to do it would be
to start your journey here,
do the same route that I've just done,
but do it in reverse
and time it so that it hooks up with a purple train
at Acton Main Line.
So maybe start your journey at East Acton,
head west and do the whole thing in reverse.
And you can definitely do it in under an hour.
If you have a go,
send me a tweet @geofftech, let me know.
Otherwise I would have gone under an hour.
(laughs)
Argh.