Teenagers smash London Tube Challenge record with nearly two hours to spare

A group of eight friends aged 16-17 have completed the London Tube Challenge in record time.

They visited all 272 stations in 18 hr 8 min 13 sec – officially the fastest time to travel to all London Underground stations.

After failing twice before, on their third attempt they incredibly beat the previous record by 1 hr 56 min.

Team member Arthur Phillips said: “A mixture of arguably luck and also a much-improved route allowed us to beat the record by such a margin.”

Arthur Philipps, Ruairí O'Grady, John Mawdsley, Alex Rennie, Tim Livant, Joseph Solomon, Alex Sinclair, Yipeng Xu all came together to form The Amersham Ambushers

The group of self-described train nerds named themselves “The Amersham Ambushers”, as they began their record attempt at Heathrow Terminal 5 and ended at Amersham station.

Heathrow had originally been their final stop during their first two attempts, but after those ended in failure, they decided to completely flip their route.

To achieve the record, they were required to visit every single London Underground stop, including Battersea Power Station and Nine Elms which both opened in 2021. Prior to the addition of these new stations, the old record stood at 15 hr 45 min.

The Elizabeth Line and the DLR are not classified as part of the Underground network thus are not included in this challenge.

It is necessary for the train to stop at a station for the visit to count, but challengers do not need to exit the train.

And of course, no form of private transport can be used at any point during the attempt.

“We spent 18+ hours sitting on trains, running between stations and stressing out,” Arthur recalled.

Despite months of extensive planning, the group faced several unexpected setbacks throughout the day: their first train at Heathrow lost power, 10 of their trains were stopped by red signals, numerous others were delayed, and one team member lost their wallet.

Arthur said the hardest aspect of the challenge was either having to make last-minute route changes due to delays, or the physical exertion of sprinting down some of London’s busiest streets.

“We wanted to complete this record for two reasons,” he revealed. “It was a fun puzzle planning the route as some of us are quite mathematically inclined, and additionally it allowed us to explore parts of London that we hadn’t ever had reason to go to before.

“The feeling is incredible, obviously. We had a little party to celebrate where we drank some Guinness very appropriately, and we are meeting with the previous record holder for lunch.”

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