A group of eight teenagers have broken a Guinness World Record after completing the London Tube Challenge nearly two hours quicker than the previous best.
The friends, aged 16 to 17, visited all 272 stations on the London Underground in 18 hours, 8 minutes and 13 seconds.
Self-named “The Amersham Ambushers”, the team officially completed the challenge in the fastest time, beating the previous title holders’ time by 1 hour and 56 minutes to spare.
They decided on the name after beginning their journey at Heathrow Terminal 5 and ending it at Amersham station.
It follows their two previous attempts to break the world record.
Despite not having to travel across the Elizabeth Line and the DLR (as they are not classified as part of the Underground network), and not needing to exit the train when it stopped at stations, the team did have to arrive to new stations added to the required list.
These included Battersea Power Station and Nine Elms, which opened in 2021.
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.”
He added: “We spent over 18 hours sitting on trains, running between stations and stressing out.”
Heathrow had been the team’s final stop on its first two attempts, but they decided to flip the route, and it worked in their favour.
But they also faced several other unexpected setbacks throughout the day, including having their first train at Heathrow lose power, having a further 10-stops delayed by red signals and getting delayed on numerous others.
One team member also lost their wallet.Arthur said it was difficult to make last-minute route changes due to delays, and that the team felt especially challenged when having to sprint down some of the capital’s busiest streets.
He said: “We wanted to complete this record for two reasons. 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.”
