On May 6, 1:18*am, Tony Polson wrote:

Mizter T wrote:
The obvious place when coming in on the M40/A40 into London is
Hillingdon Underground station on the Metropolitan and Piccadilly
lines - it's not far from where the M40 crosses the M25 and becomes
the A40 - you take the turn-off for Hillingdon, and I'm pretty sure
the Underground station is also signposted from the A40 too - see this
map:
http://www.streetmap.co.uk/oldmap.sr...D184750&lm=3D1

Beware. *It is a poor choice for two reasons. *

First, the car park is small, and is invariably wedged (and beyond) by
mid morning. *Second, the trains are very slow - there are an awful lot
of stops between Hillingdon and central London.

Re the journey time - on the Met it's eleven stations to Finchley Road
and takes about 32 minutes, then on the Jubilee a further 14 minutes
to get to Westminster station. The TfL journey planner estimates the
whole journey at taking between 47 and 50 minutes. Jubilee line trains
are very regular, whilst Met line trains to Uxbridge are every 10
minutes off-peak.

From Beaconsfield there are 4tph into Marylebone (not quite every 15
minutes but not far off) which take either 30 or 40 minutes depending
on the stopping pattern. From Marylebone one needs to add on the five
minute walk to Baker Street to catch the Jubilee to Westminster for
the 7 minute journey to Westminster.

So if one caught the slower train from/back to Beaconsfield it
wouldn't be *that* much faster. Though of course parking at
Beaconsfield means leaving the motorway earlier and driving for
slightly less distance (though Beaconsfield station is a bit further
away from the M40).

Of course it's all very academic if there's nowhere to park at
Hillingdon! I dunno what the side streets are like nearby Hillingdon
station and if parking is allowed there - unlike lots of other London
borough websites, Hillingdon council don't provide any details of
where there are controlled parking zones in their borough so I can't
tell from that.

The one thing I can say is that the Hillingdon option is much cheaper
when it comes to fares - as I said, off-peak it'd be £7.50 for an
Oystercard-less passenger, whilst from Beaconsfield an off-peak day
return to Marylebone is £12.90 and a bundled Day Travelcard is £17.00.
Of course if someone else is paying then such considerations are
likely of far less importance, but they might well be relevant for
people making recreational day trips (esp. as the Hillingdon car park
costs a maximum of £1 for weekend parking - again no idea how early it
gets full up on saturdays and sundays).

I'd probably go with the Oxford P&R plus coach option anyway, or maybe
the Beaconsfield option.