The Argus - News, Sport, Brighton and Hove Albion and Entertainment for Brighton, Hove and Sussex

Friends’ 18 hours on the Tube in record bid

From the The Argus, first published Monday 20th Nov 2006.

SPENDING a whole day on the Tube would be most commuters' nightmare.

But Anthony Brown and his friends did just that in a bid to smash the world record for visiting each of the 275 London Underground stations in one day.

Anthony, a former councillor of Salvington, Worthing, was joined by his brother Kevin, nephew Jamie and their friend John Stark on the adventure on Friday, which raised more than £2,000 for Children in Need.

The team set off from Amersham station on the 5.25am train and finally arrived at Heathrow airport at 1.17am the next day, just minutes from breaking the world record of 18 hours and 25 minutes held by Swede Hakan Wolge.

Dodging miserable commuters and camera-wielding tourists, the team repeatedly swapped lines and trains in a bid to get the edge and shave vital seconds off their time.

Anthony Brown said: "Obviously there aren't brilliant links between every station so at times we ended up on foot running from one station to the next, as it is the quickest way. The criteria is that you have to visit every station, so as long as you are on the train and the doors open and shut, that counts as a visit.

"We were delighted with the time we made. You need a lot of luck on the day to get near the record and we did really well, although we were all shattered by the end of it."

For the effort to be recognised by the Guinness Book of World Records, the team had to note down the departure and arrival time of each Tube train and its number.

But the bid narrowly failed because of delays caused by torrential rain.

Mr Brown added: "As well as keeping a log of which trains we have been on, we had to get a witness statement every hour from a passenger on the Tube.

"You meet all sorts of different people and one was a woman from New York over on business. They have to sign the statement and give a phone number or email address so Guinness could validate the entry if we had broken the record.

"It was fantastic and we will be trying again next year, possibly in April."

For more information on the challenge, or to donate funds to Children in Need, log on to www.tubechallenge.com

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