Why Heathrow over Gatwick?

[Darren Wheeler]

Sense being the key work. Since when does sense come in to anything.

http://www.crossrail.co.uk/pages/routemaps03.html

quote:Originally posted by DarkAuror
[quote]Originally posted by Darren Wheeler
Heathrow will suffer due to it's design and layout. It was never meant to handle the vehicle traffic it does now. It's also handicapped by no mainline rail serviceas HEX is really just a high speed version of the tube going from Paddington.


Won't the Crossrail project solve this and the square mile problem?[:?] OK it won't be completed until 2017.


Yes - hopefully and the work is well under way now in Town (Tottencourt Road/Charing Cross Road area) and in the East End [y]

quote:Originally posted by wanderingmariner
On the subject of ease of transfer to the City, surely Gatwick is ideal for business people heading into the square mile with the Gatwick trains serving London Bridge etc rather than having to sit on the Picadilly Line or using the Heathrow Express.


Exactly. As someone who use to commute into Paddington from Oxford then have to journey across London to Canary Wharf, Paddington (HEX) and LHR are in the wrong place. Would normally take 35-40 minutes from Paddington to Canary Wharf. Bank isn't too bad, just walk through to Lancaster Gate and hop on the central but even so its not easy.

The easiest London station for an LGW service should be Waterloo or London Bridge. The Drain can whisk people into the City if at Waterloo and Jubilee line out to CW.


quote:Originally posted by Scrooge
Yep, I think the all J airlines shot themselves in the foot with their airport choices, out of the US they should of gone for LGW rather than the outer airports.

I would agree. Although one has to wonder how much they were scared off by the presence of DL/US/CO/AA at LGW. One only has to look at the fun AA had with Eos, eventually, at STN to realise that if you go up against the big boys, even from STN (or LGW) they can (or could) eat you for breakfast.

quote:
Oasis, they shouldn't of flown here in the first place, way to much competition on the HKG-LON route, there was no way they could get the yields up high enough.

Oasis weren't helped by NZ launching LHR-HKG-AKL around the same time. Demand should really be there for additional services out of LON to HKG, I think the problem was they entered the market at the wrong time (especially with the arrival of a *a carrier on the route) and underestimated the large(ish) market share the likes of EK/QR have on the HKG route ex LGW.

There are two alternatives for rail travel to LHR to make connections better. One is the Staines connection, where additional tunnelling will allow services from Waterloo/Victoria, Guildford and Reading to run into Staines and then T5. In fact, T5 has the spare capacity to do this.

The other proposal was made by a very well-known construction company, Arup, who suggested that a big train station connecting the M4 corridor services (i.e. FGW HST services) with a WCML branch joining near Watford, allowing fast services to feed people away from Euston-Tube-Paddington-HEX-LHR to WCML-LHR, and stop this monkey business of having to catch a fast service from west of Reading to Slough (requiring a change at Reading) and then the Heathrow Connect, or a fast service into Paddington and then back out on HEX.

Apparently there is some cross-party support for the Arup proposal, and even more support (and the planning's already done and construction could begin soon) for the Staines proposal. If the Staines proposal takes off, then Gatwick Express services could technically stop at Clapham Junction and allow people to switch services there to get to T5 in 35 - 40 minutes, without rolling the dice on whether the M25 will be jammed or not.

The good news about the Arup proposal is that it could connect into CrossRail, making it easier for people to get across town, i.e. from Essex, using the CR to the LHR station, and switch there for a HST to Cornwall or any destination on the WCML, cutting out the Tube and the dodgy services into Liverpool Street.

Oh well.

S.

quote:Originally posted by DarkAuror
[quote]Originally posted by Tinkerbelle
I would have thought that Reading would make a lot more sense than Maidenhead!


Reading would make more sense!


I read that Reading was too congested. It's going to be remodelled but even then it won't have the capacity to accommodate CrossRail. Or something.

Yes, the Reading/Maidenhead debate was mostly due to congestion... how often have I and countless others been stuck outside RDG waiting for a platform to clear, only to end up missing the connection because of that.

S.