London Banter - View Single Post

John Rowland · September 28th 06, 02:13 AM posted to uk.transport.london

wrote:

Are the terminals really so far apart that a three station loop would
have been impractical? It just seems a more logical service pattern
than some loop, some terminating.

The easternmost "satellite" of Terminal 5 will be very close to the straight
section which was originally built in the Terminal 4 loop to allow
construction of a T5 station. However, that easternmost satellite won't be
built for some years. Since there will be a tracked transit leading from the
main T5 to its satellites, it doesn't seem impossible that the T5 tube
station (as opposed to the HEx station) could not have been built on the
straight spot in the loop, and people could have got from there to where
they need to be by the tracked transit. I don't think the tracked transit
being airside would be a major problem, because you could have airside pods
and landside pods using the same track, so long as they had separate
stations. But the decision seems to have been to minimise the distance
travelled by cars by building the satellites furthest from the road network
last, and to muddy the waters of the Piccadilly Line for the next 100 years
in the process. I don't know how BAA got away with that.