The Shortest Tube Journey that Ticks off the Alphabet 

ALTERNATIVE CHALLENGES: - So my route goes via 13 stations using 4 trains ... can it be done in a smaller number of stations? Or smaller number of trains? - Is there a faster time that it can done - even if it uses more trains or stations - What's the fewest number of tube stations required so that every letter of the alphabet appears at least once? (The stations don't have to be adjacent, they can be anywhere on the network)

A good challenge would be an alphabet challenge where you can only tick off one letter per station. So 26 stations need to be visited in the quickest order. Or do this as an actual A to Z starting off with A and finishing with a place with Z.

Start with the Z at Belsize Park then collect each letter in reverse alphabetical order (or do it the other way ending there), You can collect more than one letter per station, but they must be in order.

We have received a letter from a Mrs Trellis of North Wales. She writes: Dear Judith Chalmers, how you can invent a Tube game which doesn't finish at Mornington Crescent?

How to do this in Barcelona: Trams must be included. You have to connect these four letters, all the others can be obtained easily. K - Av. Tibidabo-Pl. John F. Kennedy Q - Roquetes or Urquinaona W - Walden or Wellington Z - Can Zam or Zona Universitària While the Y is relatively scarce (3 stations) two of them are central hubs (Catalunya and Espanya). You can get X for free while going to K (El Putxet). If and when the central branch of L9 finally opens, this will be much easier and faster. Currently, you can get all the letters except for S and Z on a relatively straight trip from Wellington to Av. Tibidabo, but must take a significant detour to go to Zona Universitària.

You'd have to cheat to do this here in Berlin: no letter "Q" on either U- or S-Bahn so you'd have to include one tram stop in the outskirts. (Stendaler Straße/Quedlinburger Straße, also the ONLY tram stop with a Q). Then onto the U5 all the way into the city center, which takes care of most of the alphabet before you reach the first interchange to another subway line at Alexanderplatz. Then via U8 to Kottbusser Tor on to the U1 via Möckernbrücke to catch the elusive "Ö". At Gleisdreieck change to the U2 to mop up the pesky "Y" at Mendelsohn-Batoldy-Park before finally catching the most central of our six "V"s at Hausvogteiplatz. Travel time: 1 hour 11 minutes.

This is taking nerdiness to a new level.

This reminds me of Tracey Ullman ... "you broke my heart in 17 places, Shepherds Bush was only one"

I have a fewer stations solution. Start at St. James’ Park, and get a westbound train to Victoria. Then get a northbound Victoria line train to Green Park. Change for the Piccadilly line to Leicester Square, the Northern line to Tottenham Court Road, and the Central line to Oxford Circus. Finally get the Victoria line again to Euston and change to the Northern line to Belsize Park. This route passes through 12 stations IF you get the Bank branch from Euston to Camden Town. However, this route is quite train intensive, with 7 trains used. Edit: this is a brute force method

Oh boy. We haven't seen this many train-spotters this excited for two years (myself included). Anoraks on, thermos filled, cameras ready, challange accepted... I'm too far away to join in. However I have a challenge to add. How many underground stations can you board/disembark at that are truly wheelchair friendly (as in no lip, step or drop), in one hour? Starting point anywhere in zone one and going no further than zone 2/3, underground only, and visiting every major landmark/museum.

This reminds me of how in the early 2000s I tried to sneakily extract New Johnston from a tube map PDF and found that, at that point at least, there was no lowercase J anywhere on the map!

For someone who has successfully completed the London Monopoly pub crawl twice and the (old/original) Circle Line pub crawl I salute you. Fab idea.

I feel like this has potential for a new leaderboard on the unofficial Tube Challenges

I’ll have to time this in practise but in theory you can do it quicker ⚫️ Belsize Park - Leicester Square - Hit Mornington Crescent for G (Side-note: when Geoff changed at Camden Town I went “GEOFF NO”) 🔵 Leicester Square - Piccadilly Circus - Gets Y 🟤 Piccadilly Circus - Oxford Circus 🔵 Oxford Circus - Victoria 🟡🟢 Victoria - St James’s Park More changes, haven’t tried it out yet, but I looked up and the times between each station beat 31 mins Edit: King's Cross St Pancras would've got G before Charing Cross so idk how necessary Charing Cross is in Geoff's route

Variation: you can only pick one letter from the station name

Mornington crescent... ops, wrong game.

I recommend including Knightsbridge as a possible inclusion as it ticks off 12 letters immediately. Merry Christmas.

3 letters spring to mind. . . .o c d 😁👍

I'm vaguely surprised there isn't a Tube stop somewhere in London called The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over the Lazy Dog, named after a much-loved neighborhood pub that was bombed in 1940 and never reopened after the war. Also, now I'm picturing a German equivalent, which would have to bag letters like ü and ß. That could be tricky, since I seem to recall from my long-ago semesters studying the language that the German government has been trying to get rid of ß on official signage for decades.

Hi Geoff, this challenge is a little too easy because the are not many different routes that can be taken. What would be more interesting and have many possibilities is to start at a station beginning with the letter 'A', then onto 'B' and 'C' etc. I think you get the idea. Finish at Belsize Park. There are no stations beginning with 'J' and 'Y' so simply travel through.

In Montreal you can get all except for F on just the Orange line, between Cremazie (for the Z) and Snowdon (one of two Ws). A one station detour at Jean-Talon on the Blue line to pick up Fabre gets you the whole alphabet. If you need the distinct accented vowels, then you have to stay all the way to Du Collège to pick up the one è station.

This seems like a classic computing problem. The tube map is already a graph with nodes and edges, so all you would need to do is add a few things like weights for journey times (or whichever version you're doing) then plug it into something like a shortest path algorithm and it should spit out various permutations for you.

Does Geoff wake up at 4am and have these random miscellaneous Eureka moments for obscure train ride challenges?

Let me know if I'm wrong but 12 stations could be: Belsize Park > Chalk Farm > Camden Town (Switch Branch here) > Euston > Warren Street > Oxford Circus > Tottenham Court Road > Liecester Square > Picaddily Circus > Green Park > Victoria > St James Park

I absolutely LOVE your videos, Geoff, as I've been a train fan myself ever since I was a little boy (and I'm 48 now!) Here in Toronto, we can't do that challenge. Out of 75 stations, none of them includes the letter Z. But in terms of first letters for every station, the alphabet is covered except for A, T, X, and Z. Not bad for a smaller system compared to yours. Keep up the great work!

I absolutely adore videos like this. Keep up the good work, Geoff.

Geoff, you're definitely bonkers!

I tried this on the New York City system. You can almost do it entirely within Queens. A great start with Jamaica-Van Wyck, then Van Wyck Blvd, Union Turnpike, Forest Hills-71 Ave, thence to Queens Plaza for the Q and Z. All,that's left is X. Unless you cheat and get that from 67, 63, 46, etc, you have to cross into Manhattan to Lexington Ave. Adding all ten digits would make it even more fun!

That's why there should be a station called Bazelgette. That, and because he saved thousands of lives.

Clearly one letter per station, and in alphabetical order, is the purest form of this particular challenge. Probably getting out and changing trains as well. Go on, Geoff - do it!

Challenge Accepted.... just need to plan it first and visit London. Great video Geoff.

Tried to see if this can be done in Texas, ironically their are no stations/streetcar stops of any sort with an X in the whole state

Santa needs to bring Geoff a clipboard 🎅🏻

Love watching you complete these challenges ! Thanks

I was hoping you'd find a way to finish your route at Mornington Crescent, but we can't have everything.

You should only be able to count ONE letter at each station. So you'd have to visit 26 stations...

I feel like "for ultimate nerdiness" would be a great subtitle for your channel, Geoff 😉 And I'm greatly enjoying it!

If you start from Sloane Square, you can get all the letters except Z in just two trains.

0:00 Belize Park enterence 1:01 Belsize Park Northern line platform 1:59 Chalk farm 2:06 Camden town (Northern line interchange) 2:23 euston (Northern to Victoria line interchange) 2:45 Oxford Circus (Victoria line to bakerloo line interchange) 2:57 Oxford circus bakerloo line platform 3:08 Charing Cross 3:28 embankment (bakerloo to district line interchange) 3:50 Embankment (district line) 4:03 Victoria 4:09 Sloane square sub surface platform 4:33 Sloane square enterence

This is classic Geoff :)

Interesting... think you could do a challenge on this one, like how you did the "what's the quickest route to Stratford?" challenge a few years ago :). Also, you could do a few different challenges, such as: shortest time, shortest distance, least number of stations, least number of interchanges, lowest price of the total route, etc. :)

I was looking at this for DC, but the only station with an "X" is Vienna/Fairfax-GMU at the end of the Orange Line, so I suppose you'd have to do the following: Start at Vienna/Fairfax-GMU (remaining letters: BCDHJKLMOPQSTWYZ) Pass through Dunn Loring-Merrifield (remaining letters: BCHJKPQSTWYZ) Pass through West Falls Church-VT/UVA (remaining letters: BCJKPQYZ) Pass through Ballston-MU (remaining letters: CJKPQYZ) Pass through Virginia Square-GMU (remaining letters: CJKPYZ) Pass through Clarendon (remaining letters: JKPYZ) Pass through McPherson Square (remaining letters: JKYZ) At L'Enfant Plaza, transfer to the Green/Yellow Lines northbound (remaining letters: JKY) At Gallery Place/Chinatown, transfer to the Red Line eastbound (remaining letters: JKY) Pass through Judiciary Square (remaining letter: K) Stop at Brookland-CUA 23 stations, 2 transfers, and knowing how far out Vienna/Fairfax-GMU is, probably a good hour and a half?

Here in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis & St Paul, Minnesota, US), it's not _quite_ possible on our two METRO light rail lines. You can get Z at Government Plaza (on both Green and Blue lines); X at Lexington Parkway (Green)*; V, W, J, Y, and F in multiple stations, and most of the rest in more still. But there's no Q or J anywhere! Nor will the Green Line extension (under construction now) add either letter. 🙁 The Blue Line extension is still under study -- but it's not likely to add a Q or a J either, however it turns out. In any case, this has been surprisingly interesting, Geoff! 😎 I'm tempted to try it for NYC or Chicago, but I'm afraid I'll end up even more nerd sniped! * and arguably another X at 46th Street (Blue) too, if you spell out "Forty-Sixth"

Watching Geoff with the "help" of automatically generated Dutch subtitles is...interesting (I can't speak any eating-while-speaking languages such as Dutch or Danish).

I don't know how this ended up in my feed but kudos for such a fun idea. I won't be trying it as I avoid London as much as possible. I blame the Whitewicks for bringing me this!

"I will tick off every letter"... promptly followed by him crossing them out instead. Confusion follows.. 😆

LONG CHALLENGE: Complete the alphabet BUT you are only allowed to use one letter from the station name. eg Belsize Park, you can only tick off the Z, you have to go to another station to, for example, tick off the B. etc. Basically, you will have to visit 26 stations, but how fast can it be done? How many trains does it take and how many changes?

Hi Geoff, still watching from new Zealand ,great videos love watching them,a merry Christmas to you and all your supporters

The fewest number of stations is 6. The minimal number of letters in them 42. These would be Belsize Park, Chalk Farm, St. John's Wood, Uxbridge, Queensway, and Oval.

I've got my own tube challenge. I call it "the zone 1 challenge" Aim of the game: Travel to all tube stations in zone 1 with the shortest time possible. You must return to the station you started at. Try and use the minimum number of lines as possible.

Before watching the entire video, I paused at 0:38 and devised a route that should work. I figured X and Q would probably be troublesome letters, so I tried to figure out a way of getting those checked off. The route I came up with used three lines, not entirely sure about the number of transfers needed since I'm not quite sure how the Northern Line works (not a Londoner, forgive me), but depending on that, it might be possible on three trains. Anyway, start at Belsize Park. That checks off A, B, E, I, K, L, P, R, S and Z. Go southbound. Chalk Farm ticks off C, F and M. Camden Town ticks off D, N, O, T and W. Here's possibly where you might have to change, just to make sure you're on the Charing Cross branch (though we're not going that far on the Northern). You can tick off G at Mornington Crescent, though you don't have to. Alternatively, you could change at Euston (again, if you need to) and tick off U while you're there. Now that you're unambiguously on the Charing Cross branch, check off W at Warren Street, then G at Goodge Street if you skipped Mornington Crescent. Then conclude your trip on the Northern Line at Tottenham Court Road, tick off H, and transfer to the westbound Central line. One line down, and you should still have J, K, Q, V, X and Y left. From Tottenham Court Road, the first stop is Oxford Circus, letting you tick off X. Go through Queensway for Q and Y, then transfer to the anti-clockwise(?) Circle Line at Notting Hill Gate. Bless the Central Line for taking care of what I thought would be the two most troublesome letters after Z! Now we're on the Circle Line, we just have J, K and V left. The first stop is High Street Kensington for K, then you just stay on it through Victoria for V and finally, St James's Park for J. First attempt, more stations than it says in the description, but potentially one train fewer if the Northern Line works the way I hope it does. At worst, it's still the same number of trains which for someone not from London, I'm pretty pleased with. Intrigued to see the "actual" solution.

You can *almost* play this in Toronto. . . No Z in any station name. Start on Line 2 at Coxwell (only X), westbound to St. George, southbound on Line 1 two stops to Queen's Park, back north to St. George, westbound on Line 2 again to Jane (only J). Done! you can do it in about 40 minutes using two lines and four trains.

I have enjoyed watching many of Geoff's videos and, despite living in the UK all my life, I have never lived in London or really understood the London mindset. This must have been the video whose reason for being made was most beyond me! That having been said, it was easy to go with the flow. I await the next video in the series.

I think you should try a similar challenge but you can only tick off one letter for each station you visit, for example Belsize Park station would only count for the ‘Z’ then if you went to Chalk Farm next that would only count for the ‘K’ and so on and so on. Hope that makes sense. Could be a fun challenge.

I have tried it in Hamburg and it actually works: In short: Start in Buxtehude (S3), change in Elbbrücken to U4 and change in Jungfernstieg to U1. Arrive in Stephanzplatz. 15 Stations, 3 trains. In long: 1. Start in Buxtehude (S3), because it´s the only station with X. Missing letters: ACFGIJKLMNOPQRSVWYZ 2. Pass through Neu Wulmstorf. Missing letters: ACGIJKPQVYZ 3. Pass through Fischbek. Missing letters: AGJPQVYZ 4. Pass through Neugraben. Missing letters: JPQVYZ 5. Pass through Neuwiedenthal, Heimfeld, Harburg Rathaus, Harburg und Wilhelmsburg. No new letters ticked 6. Pass through Veddel. Missing letters: JPQYZ 7. Arrive in Elbbrücken. No new letters ticked. 8. Change to U4, because on there is the only Q in Hamburg (not counting the AKN). 9. Pass through HafenCity Universität. Missing letters: JPQZ 10. Pass through Überseequartier. Missing letters: JPZ 11. Arrive in Jungfernstieg. Missing letters: PZ 12. Change to U1, because there´s the nearest station with P and Z. 13. Arrive in Stephansplatz. No more missing letters! If you wan´t to check all German letters and not just English ones (most of the additional letters are already included in the way above): 1. take the route until step 12. Missing letters: PZÖß 2. walk the pedestrian-tunnel from Jungfernstieg to Rathaus (U3). No new letters ticked 3. Pass through Rödingsmarkt. Missing letters: PZß 4. Pass through Baumwalland Landungsbrücken. No new letters ticked 5. Pass through St. Pauli. Missing letters: Zß 6. Pass through Feldstraße. Missing letters: Z 7. Arrive in Sternschanze. No more missing letters! New stats: 21 stations, 3 trains

There was a challenge in the past to visit stations with the first letter in alphabetical order; it took about 5 hours. Ickenham has to be included as it's the only station beginning with I; some letters such as J, X, Y and Z are missing. A variant could have been to do them in any order. Likewise Geoff's challenge could be changed to collecting the letters alphabetically, obviously finishing with Belsize Park.

Bakerloo line has 25 letters except Z. Thats the most of any line

My mind is now blown away at what idea's you have! but really great to watch. On another note what is the deepest London underground line/station? Love your channel

Fabulous video Geoff!! Thanks so much!! I enjoyed it so much!! Cheers!! :-)

Hi Geoff, I used 22 stations and 2 lines. I've only consulted the map at the moment so have not tried the timing out. I used Northern and Bakerloo Starting at Belsize Park finishing at Willesden Junction. Belsize Park, Chalk Farm, Camden Town, Mornington Crescent Euston, Leicester Square, Piccadilly Circus, Oxford Circus Maida Vale, Willesden Junction.

I’ve also planned a route doing this using mainl8ne stations ‘round my way’. Regardless of where you live in the UK the letter J is likely to be the spanner in the works! If you can find a Z somewhere near your J then you are very privileged!

Even more difficult would be getting all the letters in order -- so you'd have to start at a station that has an A in it, then a station that has a B. They can have multiple consecutive letters, but you can't skip ahead. So, Belize Park would get you A and B. You'd have to really carefully think about station order.

Love al the history of the tube u do ,&over ground since i been waching i been lerning so much . Love the one on queensbury &stanmore &bellmont.

Sadly there is a way to do a similar challenge in Toronto as we don't have any sations with a "z" in them.

Heh, I just checked, and if you take out K, W and Y (which are foreign letters by our standards, anyway), you can actually do this in Lisbon Metro. Much like in London we have a grand total of: • 1 (one!) station with an F in its name (Alfornelos, and I totally did not expect that letter to be that hard to find, but that’s what you get from them renaming adjacent Falagueira to Amadora Este right before its grand opening); • 2 with an X (surprisingly common, yes, except Ameixoeira and Baixa-Chiado sit at opposite ends of the network, but fortunately the latter is a busy interchange - its name means, quite literally, “Downtown-Chiado” - which you’d likely stop at anyway during such a challenge); • 3 with a Z (even more surprisingly common, namely the obvious Jardim Zoológico - the stop at, it should go without saying, the Lisbon Zoo - and the stealthier Martim Moniz and Colégio Militar/Luz); • 4 with a Q (the adjacent Parque and Marquês de Pombal, along with Campo Pequeno and the farther Quinta das Conchas); • 9 with the comparatively rarer U vowel (the latter four, because Qs and Us go hand-in-hand in Romance languages, plus the aforementioned Colégio Militar/Luz, Restauradores, Lumiar, Cidade Universitária and Cabo Ruivo); • And finally, considering it’s a somewhat rarer consonant, a staggering 8 (!!) with a V (the latter two, plus nearby Moscavide, Olivais, Bela Vista, Alvalade, Odivelas and Avenida). From then on, all other letters become prevalent enough for finding them to not be an issue at all, but I’ll give a honourable mention to stations with a (sadly but predictably incomplete) set of letters including diacritics on their names, namely: • 1 with Á (Cidade Universitária); • 1 with Ê (Marquês de Pombal); • 2 with É (Cais do Sodré and Colégio Militar/Luz); • 2 with Ó (Santa Apolónia and Jardim Zoológico); • 2 with Ã, for a grand total of 3 of those (São Sebastião, which counts two for good measure, and Encarnação); • And finally, 3 with Ç (the latter, plus Praça de Espanha and Terreiro do Paço). None of the latter count as letters in their own right, unlike other diacritics and digraphs such as the Spanish Ñ and LL, or the Dutch IJ, but you can always add them to an advanced version of the challenge. With only four lines and 50 stations, of which 6 are simple, two-line interchanges, there aren’t that many different path combinations you could come up with, but it should still be interesting to give it a try. Also, seeing how the urban area of the yellow line will be merged with the green line to form a circle, it should be interesting to do this challenge before and after those works are completed, because they are certain to mess up with the service patterns and interchange dynamics (that will also be a big, daily issue over here, but it’s a can of worms I’m not opening and getting into now… Maybe some other day, at the comment section from that video by RM Transit on circles, which I’ve been meaning to watch 😅).

Sounds like a fun game! Gonna try that when I’m back on the tube.

Great challenge 👌 And I am happy with new underground videos 🤗

Love this idea - I’ve just worked out that this actually wouldn’t be possible within Sydney as no train stations run by Sydney trains contain X or Z, you’d have to go into regional NSW!

Hi Geoff, in a previous video I think you asked for ideas for future projects. Now that you've done "all the request stops", would you consider doing one for "all the staggered stations". Not sure how many there are UK wide but it would be interesting to find out.

Another interesting challenge to do might be; using all underground lines in the quickest time, but you can’t change lines at a station at which you’ve already changed lines at

I can do in 12 stations. BELSIZe PARK - CHalk FarM - camDeN TOWn - eUston - warren street - oXford circus - piccadillY circus - Green park - westminster - st James's park - Victoria - sloane sQuare For least number of trains, 2 trains: Train 1: BELSIZe PARK - CHalk FarM - camDeN TOWn - morninGton crescent - eUston - warren street - goodge street - tottenham court road - leicester sQuare - charing cross Train 2: charing cross - piccadillY circus - oXford circus - regent's park - baker street - marylebone - edgware road - paddington - warwick aVenue - maida vale - kilburn park - queen's park - kensal green - willesden Junction

Looks great Geoff 👏🏻

You can get 25/26 by remaining on a Northern Line train from Edgware to Tooting Broadway, and changing to the Victoria Line at Stockwell for a one stop hop to Brixton to collect the X!

This is one of the reasons I love being British! No other nationality would be interested in wonderful things like this !!!!!

209 steps from street level going down, and 189 steps to street level going up. A slight space-time anomaly there

Very creative on this one Geoff.

I know that doing it in the TTC in Toronto is impossible because no station has the letter Z unless you count the Brampton Transit ZÜM bus connection at Vaughan Metropolitan Centre station

Wonderfully nerdy - gets my like!

The Z was my fave bit of trivia, now thousands know it!

the story is very interesting. 🦋🦋🦋 thans for sharing 🦋🦋🦋

Fantastic video, the challenge seems fun!

I thought the same thing as others have mentioned, about doing them in Alphabetical order forward and backwards, including your option (i.e. least stations, trains, shortest time, etc).

I feel like a great game of scrabble could be played here, not sure of the rules but something like seeing who could get the highest score in a certain time

Pity the old platform bar at Sloane Sq was removed - you could have had a celebratory shandy.

Interesting video but what about a mainline station variation? EDIT so I dont post too many times. Which tube stations include non alphabetical symbols in their name? A quick search shows places as examples like St.John's Wood with its apostrophe, Harrow-on-the-Hill with hyphens , Kensington (Olympia) with its brackets, Heathrow Terminal 4 with its digit, Totteridge & Whetstone with its ampersand. You could have a challenge to visit stations to collect 1 of each non-letter symbol

Even better - a challenge where you can only take one letter of the alphabet, and run it in order starting or finishing on A, where Belsize Park is the first or last stop!! BUT - you have to get off at stations where you use on of the letters! And no using a station twice, ie Vauxhall!!

Awsome video love it

Merry Christmas 🌲🌲 thanks for being you

Am I the only one who has a peurile giggle at the name "Belsize"...? 😄

Very ingenious!

Love the challenges. I lived in Upminster so that's a good starter lol

How about this for an ultimate extreme alternate version. You can only use one letter from each station to check off from the alphabet and do them in alphabetical order? So you end at Belsize Park to check off the Z.

Should start at Waterloo, then change at Charing Cross and head to Picaddilt Circus, where you change and head towards Leicester Square. Change there and go to Belsize Park. Alo g the way you would have titles every letter.

One station one letter

who else loves that camera rotate transition at 2:56

I don't have the skills to figure any of this out myself but someone in the comments might find this an interesting puzzle: With the "fastest journey time" challenge, is there anywhere where an Out of Station Interchange helps decrease the overall time?

3:50 makes it look like the train is already moving as he gets inside

I see Belsize Park has 209 steps down to platform level. What would that be in storeys?

Can you do a video about Grange Hill Station? It was one of my favourite TV shows in the 80's and I always wonder if there is anything interesting about the station or the area around it. 👍

Kind of sad it can't be done in Washington DC. No "x" stations. Otherwise with the long compound stations it can be done in about 5 stations all within about a mile of each other.