It is already being planned as part of the airport expansion for
Heathrow Terminal 5. There will be an electrified link between West
Drayton and Staines down most of the route of the old GWR branch line
through Poyle. At Staines there will two chords from the re-instated
branch line to join the main line to get to Virgia Water and the West
and the other to get to Feltham, London and ultimately Gatwick.
Likewise there will be an extra chord at West Drayton to allow trains
to divert west to Reading. There is already a link to the east for
Paddington. Midway near Poyle there will be a spur into Terminal 5 -
this will meet up with an extended Heathrow Express branch.

In addition the current Heathrow Express branch will have an extra
chord installed at its northern end so that trains can also divert
west along the main GWR line to Reading etc. Currently there is only a
chord onto the main line to get to Paddington.

Under T5 - the service tunnels of which were built many years ago
during the building of the T4 loop of the Picadilly Line - even before
any planning application for T5 had even started but no-one noticed -
a huge empty box was excavated that will now become the rail
interchange to/from T5. This will include not only a new spur from the
Picadilly Line loop, but also a junction for the Heathrow Express and
the new spur from the West Drayton/Staines branch.

This has all been planned for years.

Crossrail will also use these lines - providing an excellent
connection to/from Heathrow and Stansted and to/from Heathrow and
Luton.

The Local Heathrow Express, which local residents were lead to believe
would also provide local services after all of the noise, dirt and
disruption which was caused when the HEX line was being built, never
actually eventuated. It MAY be introduced in the near future, but most
likely at prices well beyond most airport workers wages.

Meanwhile you can all look forwards to IMMENSE disruption on the GWR
line as Crossrail is being built, on the SWT lines near Staines as the
T5 branch is reinstated, and on the GWR line at West Drayton as all
the various chords, spurs and connections are upgraded or installed.

The GOOD thing about all this rail development at Heathrow is that
given all the new and fast connections between airports and the rest
of the country we wont need a new third runway to be built there -
thereby saving all the houses (10,000) and listed buildings etc., that
will need to be demolished if it does get built.

CJB.

"maf" wrote in message ...
How difficult would it be to achieve a Heathrow-Croydon-Gatwick rail
connection ? It would reduce M25 load, wouldn't it ?

Mike
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