Brimstone wrote (I've repositioned his comment):
Mait001 wrote:
It is also the complete lack of foresight and advance preparation
when building the original line, and then the T4 line that irks me.

Whilst I don't disagree with you basic premise, it has to be said
that the site for T5 has been moved IIRC.

Yes, the design of T5 was changed, which meant that the straight section
of the T4 loop that could have accommodated a station was not in a
suitable place. In other words, people did their best to show foresight
and advance preparation. You would have done better within the
available budget, I assume?

Let me give you an example. In the late 1960s/early 1970s, my
father was a civil engineer working for the London Borough of
Hounslow. He was responsible for rebuilding Stanwell Road, a road
connecting the Great South West Road to the cargo area of Heathrow
Airport. At the time, there were vague rumblings about building a
rail link to Heathrow from Victoria. In the end, it was abandoned
because it would have cut through Buckingham Palace Garden.

With that possibility in mind, however, he ensured that there were
culverts, diverted drainage etc., and indeed an opening beneath
Stanwell Road (that is there, unused, to this day) so that this
could have been used by the railway line if ever it was built.

So, on the basis of "vague rumblings", extra costs were voluntarily
incurred by L.B. Hounslow, including a bridge under Stanwell Road large
enough for a 2-track railway apparently. That perhaps explains part of
the large debt that Hounslow council taxpayers are still having to pay
the interest on.

--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)