"Andy" wrote in message
...
On Sep 4, 12:06 am, "Richard J." wrote:
wrote on 03
September 2010 23:02:24 ...

Don't forget Heathrow Connect is now minus one EMU, so Siemens do not
have a maintenance spare that they used to have. The unit taken off
the Paddington service is now part of the "Express" fleet and confined
to the Terminal 4 shuttle.

I think you'll find that there is still a spare. Previously they had a
fleet of 5 trains and needed 4 to run the service. Each train would run
to T4, then do a shuttle trip to T123 and back, then return to
Paddington.

They now have a dedicated Express-liveried CLass 360 for the shuttle.
The Connect trains now run only between T123 and Paddington and they can
do that with only 3 trains, leaving one spare as before.

The Connect units run empty, I think to Terminal 5 to reverse. But as
they no longer run the extra T123-T4 shuttle you are correct that they
now only need three units for the Connect service.

Yes they do run empty to terminal 5. If short of 360s then I don't see why a
332 couldn't do the terminal 4 shuttle and they have a few spare 332s.

John