HEx-pansion: shuttle operator prepares for T5

Other improvements are due to follow on from T5, Heathrow Express Managing Director Brian Raven told the Fourth Friday Club

Heathrow Express is celebrating its tenth birthday this year. In June 1998 Heathrow Express's distinctive Class 332 electric trains began serving the airport's terminals, following a start-up period when the terminals were reached by a bus shuttle from a temporary station adjacent to the Great Western main line just south of Airport Junction.

Heathrow Express links London Paddington to the airport, departing every 15 min from 05.10 to midnight, seven days a week. The journey to the central terminal area takes just 15 minutes, giving rise to the famous marketing tag ‘From central London to the airport, 15 minutes every 15 minutes'.

Heathrow Express uses a fleet of 14 Class 332 EMUs, 5x5-car and 9x4-car. These are maintained by Siemens at a purpose-built depot at Old Oak Common. ‘Siemens keeps the units with an almost-new feel – we don't do refurbishment per se, but when something needs sorting out, it gets sorted out – from seat covers to paintwork' Brian Raven told the Fourth Friday Club.

Heathrow Express represents a £500million-plus investment for airport operator BAA, but it has been a worthwhile project as not only does it improve the airport's environmental credentials, it also runs at a profit. At £15.50 for a single ticket from the airport to London Paddington, Heathrow Express is not cheap – but it is a quality service which appeals to an important segment of the airport's users. ‘Our core customer is an upmarket business traveller who flies frequently, with one in four of our passengers using Heathrow Express ten or more times a year. This person has typically spent hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds getting here from North America, Europe or wherever, so a few pounds on top for Heathrow Express is not going to make much difference one way or the other' Mr Raven told the Club. ‘But importantly, these people expect the same level of service that they have just enjoyed on the plane – otherwise they will go back to chauffeur-driven limousines, taxis and other options that will only add to congestion problems on the airport's approach roads.'

70% of Heathrow Express passengers are travelling on business, while the other 30% on leisure trips typically comprise a high proportion of people that have used the rail service before for business purposes. ‘It is the same high-income people taking their holidays' explained Mr Raven.

Interestingly, 40% of Heathrow Express's customers are flying on British Airways services. That makes Heathrow Terminal 5, which will be for the exclusive use of BA, an important destination for Heathrow Express.

Heathrow Connect

Heathrow Connect is a stopping service from Paddington to the airport operated in conjuction with First Great Western that was introduced in 2005. The service uses 5x5-car Class 360/2 EMUs which are maintained at Old Oak Common alongside the ‘332s'. There are two trains an hour, catering for both airport workers and passengers for whom the journey is not time-sensitive: Heathrow Connect takes 28 minutes to reach the central terminal area. Fortunately, there are counter-directional peak flows for the two sets of passengers, with airport workers going in to the airport in the early morning when trans-continental overnight passengers are coming out of Heathrow – and vice versa in the evening.

The single fare from Paddington to the airport is £6.90. The fare structure was changed just over a year ago, stimulating demand: in 2007 twice the number of passengers that were expected travelled on Heathrow Connect.

Brian Raven

Terminal 5

The T5 station is in the basement of the main terminal building, T5A. The building has been skilfully designed so that natural daylight penetrates down to the lower levels. The station has been located so that the check-in is just a 20 m walk from the lift coming up from the platform level.

The station is the size of six football pitches and has six platform faces. Two of these are for Heathrow Express, two for London Underground's Piccadilly Line and two are being held in reserve for the proposed Airtrack service to Staines and Waterloo, Guildford and Reading.

Heathrow Express will be the station operator, dispatching Piccadilly Line trains and staffing the ticket office.

The opening of T5 will prompt a recast of Heathrow Express and Heathrow Connect service patterns, as shown in the diagram. The 15-min Express service will call at the central terminal area and then go on over the double-track route to T5.

The line to T4 from the central terminal area is a single-track route, and this will be served by the half-hourly Connect service from Paddington, with a shuttle train from T4 to the central terminal area in the intermediate quarter hour. In this way a 15-min interval service will be maintained at T4. While originally it was proposed that the shuttle would be worked by the Paddington train on a ‘W'-shaped working in between trips to the capital, it has now been decided that (on weekdays at least) a ‘captive' unit providing the shuttle is a better option.

Airtrack

With T5 under its belt, BAA is moving on to tackle the Airtrack project. £5million in funding has been committed to the Transport & Works Act application for this project, with CJ Associates, Halcrow and Temple Group assisting BAA in the application. About 5km of new railway will be necessary, running west from T5 alongside the M25 and then turning south to join the Windsor branch near Staines. Some improvements are also needed to the layout at Staines; Spelthorne council is closely involved in the project.

Three Airtrack routes into the airport are envisaged:

• Waterloo via Richmond;

• Guildford via Woking;

• Reading via Bracknell.

The aim is a departure every ten minutes from T5, giving two trains an hour on each leg of the Airtrack network.

Airtrack will cost in the order of £350-400million to build, with funding expected to come from various sources. The aim is to commence services in 2013, and by 2015 BAA estimates Airtrack will be attracting 3.2million passengers annually.

Future developments

Airtrack is just one of many developments planned for Britain's biggest airport. Construction is due to begin shortly on Heathrow East, a new development on the London side of the airport. Terminal 2 and the Queen's Building will be demolished to make space for the new terminal, which it is hoped will be ready in time for the Olympics in 2012.

The central terminal area developed higgledy-piggledy following Heathrow's transformation from a simple airfield into a major passenger airport in the years following World War 2. As such, the alignment of the aeroplane docking bays is sub-optimal. By contrast, Heathrow East will be arranged on a north-south pattern, mirroring that of T5 on the other side of the airport. This is a much more efficient way of operating, and when Heathrow East is complete T1 will be demolished, leaving just T3 in the central terminal area.

Further growth on the air side at the airport will depend on the outcome of the government-led consultation exercise on a third runway, but rail services will see major change with the completion of Crossrail, slated for 2017.

Crossrail, going underneath the centre of London and offering direct services to the City, will serve a different market from Heathrow Express, which is principally used by air travellers bound for hotels in Kensington, Chelsea and Westminster travelling on from Paddington by taxi. Heathrow Express will use the fast lines on the south side of the formation into Paddington, while Crossrail will use the relief lines on the north side.

The mix of services in the airport itself has yet to be decided. The constraint will be the track layout in the central terminal area, which currently handles six trains each hour from London and could handle eight without problems. But much more than this would require underground grade separation, an expensive proposition. Time will tell whether or not this will be necessary.

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Neil Buxton, Association of Community Rail Partnerships

John Dennis, Association of Train Operating Companies

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Vernon Murphy, First Trans Pennine Express

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Brian Raven, Heathrow Express

Tony Teague, Human Systems

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Tricia Meade, The Institution of Railway Operators

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