Have You Seen This? Racing against the London Underground

(Epic Challenges/YouTube)


Save Story
Leer en español

Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

LONDON — A man takes the insane challenge of racing a London Underground train between two stops.

In the challenge the man must be on the Circle Line train and exit when the doors open at the Mansion House stop. He must then run like mad to the next stop, Cannon Street, and enter the train in the same doors that he exited approximately 1 minute and 20 seconds earlier.

Let’s break it down. According to Google Maps, the overground distance between the two stops is .2 miles, which would take about 4 minutes when walking. It’s safe to assume that this distance only includes the mileage between the entrances of the two stops, and not to the train doors themselves. The video into breaks the distance down between the train doors to 380 meters (about .24 miles).

Remember that this distance includes the obstacles of 75 stair steps, two ticket booths to pass legally and any random citizen that the runner must avoid.

According to the Underground timetables, the estimated time between the two stops is 1 minute, but they don’t break down their timetables into tenths of a second. The video intro says the actual time he has to make the sprint is about 1:20.

Have You Seen This? Racing against the London Underground
Photo: Epic Challenge/YouTube

The man takes off like a shot when the train doors open, and the video switches back between a view from a camera strapped to the runner’s head and his partner filming from the train car.

It’s an intense moment when you see the runner, from the view of the train, lurch into the bottom of the stairwell after the train doors open. I didn’t quite believe he could get back into motion in time before the train doors closed. But he made it with what seems to be about 1.5 seconds to spare.

The tube riders cheer as the runner collapses then rises to give his filming partner a congratulatory hug. But he deserves more than a hug, because he can now claim that he is faster than a speeding train.

Related links

Related stories

Most recent Have You Seen This? stories

Related topics

Have You Seen This?
Martha Ostergar

    STAY IN THE KNOW

    Get informative articles and interesting stories delivered to your inbox weekly. Subscribe to the KSL.com Trending 5.
    By subscribing, you acknowledge and agree to KSL.com's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

    KSL Weather Forecast