London Banter - View Single Post

Colin Rosenstiel · December 28th 07, 09:14 PM posted to uk.transport.london

In article
,
(Mizter T) wrote:

On 26 Dec, 23:58, (Colin Rosenstiel) wrote:

In article ,
(Colin Rosenstiel) wrote:

(Mizter T) wrote:

Hounslow West, the next station along, has 425 places so might
well be a better bet.

"£No charge" on Bank Holidays I see. Luckily this will be an early
morning visit.

Zones 5-6 fare £1 on Oyster but £3 cash. I can see we'll need to
get
another Oyster card.

Perfect! Car park almost empty at 8 this morning. Daughter had a day
trip to Covent Garden on Saturday morning so told her to get an
Oyster which will eventually go to my wife. So we both had Oyster
to get to Heathrow, all in time for the flight and at sensible and
flexible parking cost. The time it took to get her checked in and
into Security the car park would have been an hour and a half's
worth.

The "sensible and flexible parking cost" being nil! Though I quite
understand what you were getting at - parking at Hounslow West only
cost you £3 total in Oyster PAYG fares on this occasion.

I was a bit worried that the car park might be full of loony post-xmas
sales junkies heading up at the crack of dawn to the west end to
"catch a bargain" / feed their consumerist habit. Thankfully this was
not the case!

Presumably they calculated (correctly) that they could do that sort of
thing a lot further East.

There's also no car parking charge at Hounslow West on a saturday (in
addition to sundays and bank holidays), and a max charge of £2.50 on
weekdays, so it's certainly worth bearing in mind for the future. Of
course it's much more likely to be full during weekday daytimes, but I
reckon it' be OK for evenings and maybe even early mornings too.

I'll mention it to my mother but she gets away with more at Heathrow with
a blue badge when she meets my brother or sister-in-law.

The only oddity at Hounslow West was no departure indicators. Surely
they will need them before T5 opens and it gets two Westbound
services?

Punters might simply be expected to either read the front of the train
or go one stop to Hatton Cross and then change if required, I suppose.

That could apply in many places but it's hardly user-friendly. I mean,
what was wrong with making people get off there and get a bus to Heathrow?
:-)

--
Colin Rosenstiel