On Mar 24, 2:50*pm, Clark F Morris wrote:
As a traveler who has handled various transfers, I find that a station
in the airport is far more convenient and reduces the number of
connections needed by one. *The second best would be to have the rail
station connected to the internal circulation system. *If it makes
sense to have the TGV serve Charles de Gaulle and have an airport
station at Schipol (also Frankfurt), then having the high speed line
access Heathrow is worthy of very serious consideration.

I agree with you. But there are a few points to make.

(1) The previous proposal incorporated a 'Heathrow Hub' station at
Iver, several miles from the airport itself. Connecting that to the
airport would have required a complex inter-terminal shuttle system
that currently does not exist.

(2) Heathrow as such is not one place -- it is currently three places
(T123, T4, T5) and may by 2020 be four (T6, adjacent to the third
runway, would be the other one). The 'internal circulation system' is
Heathrow Express and/or Heathrow Connect (which will be replaced by
Crossrail before 2020).

(3) Once you're on the internal circulation system in order to reach
'Heathrow station', then it's reasonable to ask how close 'Heathrow
station' has to be to the terminals. I'd always assumed that it would
be close by, but given that it will only take about ten minutes to get
from T123 to Old Oak, and that siting 'Heathrow station' at Old Oak
allows HS2 to be shorter, cheaper and (most importantly) faster, I
actually think it's an inspired choice. And it's not like London's the
first city to do this: west of the Pond, both JFK and Newark do the
same thing. (Newark has a dedicated 'airport station' at the end of
the inter-terminal tramway; JFK connects its to a rail interchange hub
a few miles away. And both charge premium fares for riding the
internal circulation system to the railhead.)

(4) Even with all the above, I'd hope there would be a reasonably
regular international high-speed service from Heathrow -- but you'd
need to pick one place for it to run from. T5 has a pair of spare
platforms, and it's the home of BA, who own about 10% of Eurostar, so
that's the obvious place to use.