WHICH WAY FROM HEATHROW ?
“The brand was transferred in May 2018, and will soon become part of the Elizabeth Line with penetration through central London, thus assuming prime position for ‘airport to East London’ journeys”
PADDINGTON station remained in the throes of Elizabeth Line construction at the end of January 2022. Heathrow Express, the headline operator for access to Europe’s busiest pre-pandemic airport, made its impact with the strapline ‘Famous for Fifteen Minutes’. That Andy Warhol-inspired four-word slogan managed to convey the key message of a 15-minute core frequency and 15-minute journey time from Paddington to Heathrow Central (Terminals 2/3).
Competitors had an uphill fight to counteract its effect. The stopping service, originally branded as Heathrow Connect, has six intermediate calls and takes 28 minutes (27 minutes net) to Central. The brand was transferred from the Great Western franchise to Transport for London (TfL) in May 2018, and will soon become part of the Elizabeth Line with penetration through central London, thus assuming prime position for ‘airport to East London’ journeys.
At the start of 2022, TfL was operating two stopping trains an hour to the airport, but each was scheduled to be overtaken at Hanwell by the next Heathrow Express. In the raw, ‘tooth and claw’ atmosphere of on-rail competition – which was encouraged elsewhere in the early years of Privatisation – we should perhaps be pleasantly surprised that Heathrow Express staff are not encouraged to draw attention to this fact as their train whisks past the cheaper but slower TfL Class 345. After all, Heathrow Express is an independent operator, not linked to Department of Transport service contracts or franchise agreements.
In contrast, the policy of Heathrow Airport Limited (HAL) is to promote the various options in an even-handed and transparent way, fostering awareness of the Express service whilst recognising the importance of the stopping services – especially for the 90,000 staff working in the aviation industry at Heathrow, many of whom live en route. HAL employs the station staff and is the infrastructure operator up to the Network Rail (NR)
