Fred and Charlie’s tube challenge

By John Lawrence
Two 14-year-old schoolboys took on one of the world’s hardest transport challenges by attempting to visit every station on the London Underground network in one day.

Fred Isaac, who lives in Huntingdon Road, and Charlie Gould, from Hampstead Garden Suburb, started at 5.10am at Cockfosters tube station and finished a bottom-numbing 18 hours and 35 minutes later at Edgware.

They were trying to beat the record set by two Swedes in 2006 who visited 275 stops in 18 hours and 25 minutes. Unfortunately, Fred and Charlie just missed that total but did manage an amazing 251 stops out of an available 268.

Fund-raising and fun
The boys’ attempt was to raise money for charity as part of the community action programme at University College School in Hampstead. Their history teacher Andrew Wilkes bravely accompanied them on their mammoth journey.
A weary Charlie said: “It was completely exhausting but was actually great fun and a fantastic way to raise money. We had a few delays on the day and they really counted against us.”

Fred said: “It was fascinating to be part of both the morning and evening rush hour and all the hours in between. We’ll have to have another go at breaking the record, now that we’ve picked up some useful hints.”
They spent the day chatting to each other, doing crosswords and Sudokus, reading, dozing and eating. To qualify for the record, the boys’ trains had to stop at each station although they didn’t need to get out.

So far, Charlie and Fred have raised over £2,000 for Great Ormond Street Hospital, the Umbrella Mental Health charity, The Meningitis Trust, The National Hospital for Neurology, the male cancer charity Everyman and a school in Uganda.

The Archer

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