Crossrail and LHR T5
 

In days of yore I would have, of course, posted this in the British Railways forum aka bmi. At the going down of the sun, and in the morning etc etc

In five years time or so, we are meant to be able to get from the West End to LHR in 30 minutes in spiffy new trains on Crossrail.

Whilst doing some light d!cking around on the modern internet, I discover that there will be no direct Crossrail services to T5. Have I this right? BA pax will have to take a train to Heathrow Central and then transfer, presumably to either the HEX or the Tube.

This seems absolutely daft to me. Have we discussed this before?

Yes.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...w-express.html

Did you intend that T5 be the only terminal to be favoured with a Crossrail stop? Or T5 and "Heathrow Central"?

Surely "Heathrow Central" is the clearly obvious choice....if you go with the one-stop solution, then this clearly is the best place to stop.

Agreed, although Heathrow Central will shortly be down to only two terminals each of which is smaller than T5. Now if there is a third or fourth runway, and T1 is built and pigs start flying, then it would be a different matter.

All correct, stations at LHR will be Heathrow Central (1,2,3) - i.e. I think the current HEX station, and also T4. There is some talk of possibly extending the LHR branch to Staines in the future. You could also take the tube from T5 - T1,2,3 and then walk from the tube station to the rail station to get crossrail.

If went to T5 instead of T4 I would imagine everyone who flies from T4 would then complain. The fact is it will serve 4 out of 5 terminals directly, and the remaining 1 is only 1 stop away.

There is also no stop at LCY although it passes quite close. It will stop at Customs House which is on the wrong DLR branch for LCY.

Only in England do we find solutions that minimise the impact at the expense of the flag carrier.

Do you really think this would happen in Germany, France or Italy? BA should have invested in some lobbyists...

My feelings were along the lines of Gold77's.

Also, if they can have stops for 123, 4 and 5 for the other lines it seems awkward to have it for Crossrail, given how it's always been touted as the panacea for the world's ills.

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"Flag carrier" whilst a nice thought, hasn't had any real meaning since privatisation.

That notwithstanding, I find the whole Crossrail/HEX plan symptomatic of everything that's wrong with the rail system.

There is no one transit system that stops at all the stops. HEX is 123 & 5, Heathrow Connect is 123 & 4, the tube is either 123 & 5, or 123 & 4 depending on which one you get. No one train/tube does 123 & 4 & 5 in one go.

Technically correct but if you are in Piccadilly you can get a train (not the same train) to all terminals, and if you are in Paddington, same. But from Farringdon you won't be able to go to T5. Bit annoying.

The Heathrow Connect only serves T4 on extreme early/late services and Sundays. Most of the day the Heathrow Connect runs to T123 and then runs empty and waits on the opposite platform in T5 (it annoys me that they don't allow passengers on this if it's going to T5 anyway, but then it'd lower the appeal of the Express).

Usually T4 is only served by a shuttle between T123 and 4, with the only no change option into London being the tube.

Crossrail is replacing the Connect (as in it stops at all stations to Paddington) but every 15 minutes rather than 30, it's currently planned to run to run all services to terminate at T4.

All I can say is that if an alien life form read through this thread, they would simply wonder how on earth the whole thing could be so badly screwed up. The main airport linking to the main city with a myriad of different trains and terminals - quite dramatically messy!

I didn't know that. Sounds like Heathrow Connect is even more rubbish than I thought. I have had to use HEX & shuttle to T4 a few times and every time I wished I had used the tube instead. The T4 shuttle seems to be deliberatly timed to not connect with the HEX services so you end up waiting for 20 mins at 123 for a shuttle.

Ironically enough the reason they replaced the Connect to T4 with a shuttle was to supposedly improve the connection times with the Express.

https://www.heathrowconnect.com/stat...ort/terminal-4

The shuttles themselves are usually the same trains as the connect but painted in a HEX livery, although a Connect branded train may be used or even a real HEX train.

It does seem daft, but it's about fighting the battles worth fighting at the time. On Crossrail that's historically engineering of the central tunnel, rather than operational and edge engineering - that's why for simplicity the western end was always publicly Maidenhead when everybody connected with the project knew it would end up being Reading.

The challenge for serving T5 would be the Heathrow Express agreement (it is, after all, a HAL operation over HAL infrastructure, earning money for HAL), that TfL would presumably have to pay compensation to end - and it's reasonable that this falls into the "too hard" category right now when the engineering is still in flow, the trains are not yet built, the service models are still under discussion, etc.

I'd expect one of the following will happen in the end:

1. Approaching go-live, an agreement will be reached for Crossrail to serve T5.
2. After go-live, the volumes of connection at T123 will incentivise an agreement to be reached for Crossrail to serve T5.

There is the extra complexity that the HEX's fast train paths to Paddington may prove to be valuable and their transfer to - say - create a Reading-Paddington fast shuttle could help everyone come to agreement...

Thanks for that! I had no idea the schedule/route structure was quite so extraordinarily complicated.

I've usually muddled through, occasionally relying on the patience of staff to direct me to the best option: but there have been a couple of screw-ups :eek:

Although if they're wearing purple and have a ticket machine in their hand they'll probably tell you that the best option is always the HEX and then tube to continue their onward journey, even if the destination is Hounslow West.

The Mayor's Infrastructure Plan 2050, published this week, states that Crossrail 1 merger with HEx is a 2030 deliverable. Although I agree with henners that some deal will likely be done before Crossrail opens.

Crossrail 1 - HEx merger and serves T5
Timescale 2030
Affects 5m passengers
Qualitative benefits: Improves connectivity of Crossrail network and access to Heathrow. Could enable 6tph semi-fast service to T5, 50 per cent more on this route.
Capital cost: £20 million to upgrade relief lines. Assume 5 extra rolling stock required, £65m.
Priority 1
Case based on maximising benefits of the Crossrail infrastructure

https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/defa...%20Paper_2.pdf

^:D:D How true !

So just go from Farringdon to Paddington first.... @:-)

Will Heathrow Express trains start stopping at the Old Oak station once that is built? Could be the easiest transfer from Crossrail.

What upgrades are required to these relief lines? Aren't Crossrail going to be making them as quick and well-signalled as possible anyway? Seems odd, but am no rail expert...

Apparently Old Oak (or whatever they end up calling it) won't be in service until 2026 at the earliest. However, I would anticipate it being later than that especially with HS2 being an integral part of the new station.

The HEX license runs out in 2023.

Yes, but that's just for the rights to access the NR metals to Paddington. HAL owns the service and all of the Heathrow infrastructure...

Surely there will be a solution for this before Crossrail opens. I can't believe BA will tolerate T5 not being served by Crossrail and there would also be a lot of controversy if the trains turn back at Central

Did anyone else watch the BBC2 documentary series about Crossrail and finished last night?

Much better than another recent one. No mention of lip stick or snapshots or premium language just lots of hard work and huge machines !

What will BA do? Threaten to move airports? :D

They will go to T4 from 123. Not sure why you think BA can demand to crossrail where they run their trains. Crossrail is a£15bn project and will be serving some o pf the busiest stations in London, whereas IAG is one airline at LHR, and it's parent IAG has a total market cap of less than £7bn so which side do you think has more say? The other issue is that HAL may specifically prohibit crossrail from going to T5 since it will screw HEX (owned by HAL) completely - why would anyone pay twenty odd pounds to get in to central London if Crossrail was a fraction of the cost and not much slower.

Wrong end of the stick I'm afraid - this is not intended to protect the interest of foreign airlines, but rather that of one of the private train operators. The only reason why this is happening in Britain and not elsewhere is because whether this is a good or bad thing, elsewhere, the state would have insisted that it was a matter of public interest that the new train line stopped at T5 and ensured that HAL got compensation but faced the competition. It is not the way things are done in the UK, and the interest of the passengers is frankly not nearly the main priority of those in a position to decide.

Looks like the deal has been done, and there will be 4tph on Crossrail to T5. Haven't seen this reported elsewhere, but this was retweeted by London Reconnections, who normally know what they're talking about.

http://www.metro-report.com/news/new...w-airport.html

Spotted on my twitter stream this morning as it was announced by HAL. An improvement on the original plan of crossrail only serving T23 and T4, but in the new plan out of the 6ph to LHR only 2 will go to T5.

https://your.heathrow.com/elizabeth-...sted-services/

Still not ideal, but a significant improvement, particularly for departing passengers. ^

For example from my perspective, I'll be able to pick a particular train from Farringdon to T5 without the need to change. On arrival, I guess I will often end up changing at T2/3 to avoid a long wait.

Error in the quoted article:
4 + 4 = 8 not 6 :eek:

I think that article is wrong. According to the LHR press release linked about it will be 4 + 2 = 6.

However they say they hope to add an extra 2 sometime in the future to make 8 total.

Does anyone know if there will be an easy interchange for T5 passengers between HEX and Liz Line at T2/3, as there is now for T4?

I was under the impression that the crossrail trains will use the HEX platforms at the T2/3 station.

Yup same tracks and stations - the station at T5 has unused extra platforms ready for the western rail link

or to put in another way, per hour

Terminal 5
4x HEX
2x Crossrail
6x Piccadilly

Terminal 4
4x Crossrail
6x Piccadilly

Terminal 2/3
6x Crossrail
4x HEX
12x Piccadilly

It's the western access from Reading that I'd be most happy to see. Sadly unlikely in my flying lifetime.

Also confirmed that oyster / contactless will be available on Elizabeth line services to all stations at Heathrow - though they haven't announced what fare yet. Not clear whether zone 6 fare (as per Piccadily line) will apply or whether use of Elizabeth line from the airport will be at a higher fare.

Well, it's likely you could go crossrail from Reading to H&H then on to Heathrow. As per connect today, but hopefully cheaper.

I would have been very shocked had oyster/contactless card not been accepted on crossrail. It's part of the TfL network and there are countless connecting passages between crossrail and the tube along the line.

Pricing will be interesting, but whatever the price set it will be cheaper than HEX!