London Banter - View Single Post

SamB · June 12th 06, 05:29 PM posted to uk.railway,uk.transport.london

wrote:
CJB wrote:
Another nightmare weekend courtesy of the BAA - g*d help us when the
Spanish takeover.

This last weekend the T4L London to Heathrow Pic. line was out of
action yet again for repairs / rebuilding / planned engineering works /
whatever - but this time HEX / Connect were NOT accepting Z1-6
Travelcards into/out of Heathrow. The two alternatives were T4L bus
rail replacement services to/from North Acton (??), or a ripoff £15 /
£9 for a single ticket on the BAA's toy electric trains. Heathrow
Airport staff were equally inconvenienced by this alternative
arrangement.

The Heathrow line was NOT affected by engineering works. The Picc and
District were both suspended EAST of Acton Town, but you could still
have got to Heathrow by Picc. I admit it was a farce having to find a
way to get to Acton from the east in the first place, but to their
credit, TfL had buses running every few mins from North Acton (to
connect with the Central line) and had loads of porters at Acton
helping with luggage.

In my experience, these replacement buses to Heathrow (or in this case,
to Acton from the city centre) are fine. Generally plenty of people to
tell you where to go and help you get your case on, and usually only a
wait of 5 minutes or so. The journey is then more comfortable
(guaranteed seat in an air conditioned coach) and often quicker.