Paul Corfield wrote in
:

On Sun, 6 Jan 2013 10:37:46 -0000, "D A Stocks"
wrote:

wrote in message
...

Why oh why don't they let airport passengers use Heathrow Express or
Connect
as an alternative
They do, don't they? = or are you saying Heathrow Express wasn't
running either?

Not routinely. It only happens on limited occasions when travel
options are very limited or rail replacement vehicles are in short
supply due to the volume of work on any given weekend. Even then it is
often only Heathrow Connect that can be used as HEX don't seem to want
people overloading the Express service. I expect money is also a
factor.


Has this ever actually happened? It has been several years since Heathrow
Express was allowed as an alternative and the 15 minute service was running
as nine cars and basically full (but without much standing). Limiting
people to Connect (a five car train every half hour) would cause gross
overloading.

David

(Who suspects money is the main factor)

In article ,
(J Lynch) wrote:

wrote in message
...

Heathrow Express goes to a useless destination made more so by the
curtailment of the Circle service. More lengthy stairs without lifts at
Paddington or Edgware Road. Though lifts like those at Acton Town with
so many passengers with luggage around are also pretty hopeless.

Assuming you mean Paddington, not Heathrow, I think the interpretation of
"useless destination" rather depends on where you are starting from. Those
served by the FGW network might find it quite handy.

Cambridge is not, necessarily, the centre of the universe.

I meant for a journey from Heathrow to Kings Cross St Pancras which is
simplicity itself by Piccadilly Line when it is running.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article ,
(Paul Corfield) wrote:

On Sun, 6 Jan 2013 10:37:46 -0000, "D A Stocks"
wrote:

wrote in message
...

Why oh why don't they let airport passengers use Heathrow Express or
Connect as an alternative
They do, don't they? = or are you saying Heathrow Express wasn't running
either?

Not routinely. It only happens on limited occasions when travel
options are very limited or rail replacement vehicles are in short
supply due to the volume of work on any given weekend. Even then it is
often only Heathrow Connect that can be used as HEX don't seem to want
people overloading the Express service. I expect money is also a factor.

Previous closures of the Heathrow branch itself has seen coaches used
express from Acton Town to Heathrow because of their superior luggage
carrying capabilities. Buses are still needed for the all stns
service. No matter how you try to do it there are no convenient
locations for rail replacement transfer in West London.

Hammersmith - busy, overcrowded, overloaded bus stns, congested roads.
Acton Town - local roads struggle to cope with the volume of buses,
pavements too narrow for waiting passengers.
Ealing Broadway - similar to Hammersmith but with less room in the
ticket hall. Oh and a 1 way system past the station making drop offs /
pick ups difficult.

However the tracks and bridges on the 4 track section really do need
work doing to them. Unfortunately you can't run trains while doing that.

Is it really not possible to close only two tracks at a time more? The most
inexplicable was the choice of such a busy weekend at Heathrow for a
blockade.

You had a number of options at various prices for the journey. You took a
choice for the price you were prepared to pay, and that's the service you
got.

I am off to hide under a table as I can feel the wrath of Rosenstiel
approaching!

When I found out about the works (daughter's boyfriend tipped her off while
we were away) and looked at the TfL journey planner from abroad it didn't
seem an unreasonable alternative via Acton Town and Ealing Broadway. In
particular it seemed to compare OK with any via Paddington option.

Reality turned out to be rather different with the inexplicable decision to
terminate Heathrow shuttles at Northfields and the abysmal lack of support
for large numbers of passengers with luggage there, at Acton Town and at
Ealing Broadway (best of the bunch). There was a tendency for what staff
there were to hide in a room giving out occasional PA announcements with
blank platform information screens.

Then there was the total confusion of contradictory information at Acton
Town. Loads of people heading to and from Heathrow just seemed bewildered.

TOCs do seem to do better at staffing up for disruptions like this to assist
their customers.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article , (Roland Perry)
wrote:

In message , at
18:03:53 on Sat, 5 Jan 2013, remarked:
I find the choice of this weekend to block the route from Heathrow to
central London particularly inconsiderate to passengers. I'm sure this is
one of the busier weekends at Heathrow with people on Christmas and New
Year breaks returning. There were a lot of people with luggage
everywhere.

Whenever the news reports a "busy day" at Heathrow, the numbers they
quote are usually extremely close to the average. Because most
flights at Heathrow are full, and there's no slots for extra
aircraft, there isn't much of a daily fluctuation.

(From the airport's website, daily average 190k/busiest ever day 233k)

The amount of luggage accompanying the passengers varies more I suspect.
This is the winter holiday period. Business travellers carry rather less, I
have a feeling.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article , (Mizter T) wrote:

On 06/01/2013 00:03, wrote:
I find the choice of this weekend to block the route from Heathrow to
central London particularly inconsiderate to passengers. I'm sure this
is one of the busier weekends at Heathrow with people on Christmas and
New Year breaks returning. There were a lot of people with luggage
everywhere.

I flew off on a holiday on 27th December with no mention of the works
and got back this evening recommended to change at Acton Town and Ealing
Broadway to reach King's Cross via the Central Line and Oxford Circus.
TfL's Journey Planner suggested a journey time of 1 hour 20 minutes, not
too bad.

With no indication at Heathrow T123 we discovered the train we found and
took terminated at Northfields. That is just taking the **** when the
service was terminating at Acton Town anyway. It's not as if the
frequency was high. The next train at Northfields was a 10 minute wait.
Then the PA at Acton Town was directing people to replacement buses when
the signboards were telling them to go over the bridge to get a District
service from platform 2 to Ealing Broadway (as had the Journey Planner).
The west end of platform 1 had stop blocks so was out of use. All that
luggage would have been interesting on replacement buses!

Does the signalling at Acton Town really not allow a District Ealing
Broadway shuttle to and from platform 4? That would have allowed a
cross-platform connection from Heathrow to Ealing Broadway, where there
is a level connection to the Central Line. There was a huge queue for
the Acton Town lift from people with luggage and little staff presence
to help people with the disruption (none at all at Northfields).

In the end our journey to Kings Cross St Pancras took and hour and forty
minutes with four changes. Not good, especially with three large cases
plus smaller bags, a wife with a broken arm and six-year-old
granddaughter.

Why oh why don't they let airport passengers use Heathrow Express or
Connect as an alternative when there are blockages like this and why
can't they avoid the busiest holiday weekends?

Who are "they" in the above sentence?

If "they" are TfL, then do you think TfL should accept being held
over a barrel by LHR Airports Ltd (nee BAA), owner of HEx, for the
amount LHR/HEx wishes to charge to allow acceptance of LU tickets on
HEx? (I understand the demand for recompense is rather significant.)

If that is the attitude of the HEX owners then the sooner that farce is
brought to an end and the branch integrated into the national rail network
the better.

You say you flew off "on a holiday on 27th December with no mention
of the works" - just wondering if you looked out for any posters on
your outbound journey? There would certainly have been mention of the
works on the TfL website here (under "Future dates"):
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/livetravelnews/realtime/tube/default.html

I did look at King's Cross St Pancras and Heathrow but only at notices in
the routes taken by travellers like me. I didn't think I had to go and hunt
something like that out.

Perhaps it was a bad choice of weekends, but in a sense no weekend is
a good choice given how busy Heathrow is.

I think the point is that holiday periods involve more passengers with large
amounts of luggage, especially in the winter and that, if the choice was
unavoidable they needed to staff it up properly.

Also, no-one here seems to have come up with a justification for short
workings from Heathrow to Northfields. If it was platform capacity at Acton
Town (which I doubt given the low frequency of the shuttle) TfL seem not to
have helped themselves by blockading platform 1 there as well as the other
works. And no platform staff at all at Northfields was just not good enough.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article
,
(Recliner) wrote:

wrote:
I find the choice of this weekend to block the route from Heathrow
to central London particularly inconsiderate to passengers. I'm
sure this is one of the busier weekends at Heathrow with people on
Christmas and New Year breaks returning. There were a lot of people
with luggage everywhere.

I flew off on a holiday on 27th December with no mention of the
works and got back this evening recommended to change at Acton Town
and Ealing Broadway to reach King's Cross via the Central Line and
Oxford Circus. TfL's Journey Planner suggested a journey time of 1
hour 20 minutes, not too bad.

Obviously a bad journey home, for which I sympathasise. I wonder, however,
if you checked the TfL Journey Planner for the homeward journey before
departing? I always do, especially if I hope to travel over a weekend,
especially over the Xmas/new year period.

It didn't occur to me that TfL would choose the returning to work weekend.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In message , at 14:22:00
on Sun, 6 Jan 2013, remarked:

Whenever the news reports a "busy day" at Heathrow, the numbers they
quote are usually extremely close to the average. Because most
flights at Heathrow are full, and there's no slots for extra
aircraft, there isn't much of a daily fluctuation.

(From the airport's website, daily average 190k/busiest ever day 233k)

The amount of luggage accompanying the passengers varies more I suspect.
This is the winter holiday period. Business travellers carry rather less, I
have a feeling.

So the people with a problem are the tourists travelling business class
with lots of luggage, rather than the businessmen who would otherwise be
travelling business class with less luggage.

I suspect your target audience would rather be seen dead than using
public transport to depart Heathrow.

--
Roland Perry

wrote:
In article ,
(Paul Corfield) wrote:

On Sun, 6 Jan 2013 10:37:46 -0000, "D A Stocks"
wrote:

wrote in message
...

Why oh why don't they let airport passengers use Heathrow Express or
Connect as an alternative
They do, don't they? = or are you saying Heathrow Express wasn't running
either?

Not routinely. It only happens on limited occasions when travel
options are very limited or rail replacement vehicles are in short
supply due to the volume of work on any given weekend. Even then it is
often only Heathrow Connect that can be used as HEX don't seem to want
people overloading the Express service. I expect money is also a factor.

Previous closures of the Heathrow branch itself has seen coaches used
express from Acton Town to Heathrow because of their superior luggage
carrying capabilities. Buses are still needed for the all stns
service. No matter how you try to do it there are no convenient
locations for rail replacement transfer in West London.

Hammersmith - busy, overcrowded, overloaded bus stns, congested roads.
Acton Town - local roads struggle to cope with the volume of buses,
pavements too narrow for waiting passengers.
Ealing Broadway - similar to Hammersmith but with less room in the
ticket hall. Oh and a 1 way system past the station making drop offs /
pick ups difficult.

However the tracks and bridges on the 4 track section really do need
work doing to them. Unfortunately you can't run trains while doing that.

Is it really not possible to close only two tracks at a time more? The most
inexplicable was the choice of such a busy weekend at Heathrow for a
blockade.

You had a number of options at various prices for the journey. You took a
choice for the price you were prepared to pay, and that's the service you
got.

I am off to hide under a table as I can feel the wrath of Rosenstiel
approaching!

When I found out about the works (daughter's boyfriend tipped her off while
we were away) and looked at the TfL journey planner from abroad it didn't
seem an unreasonable alternative via Acton Town and Ealing Broadway. In
particular it seemed to compare OK with any via Paddington option.

Reality turned out to be rather different with the inexplicable decision to
terminate Heathrow shuttles at Northfields and the abysmal lack of support
for large numbers of passengers with luggage there, at Acton Town and at
Ealing Broadway (best of the bunch). There was a tendency for what staff
there were to hide in a room giving out occasional PA announcements with
blank platform information screens.


Actually, you were lucky that both lifts at Acton Town were working:
judging by the Picc's Twitter feed, those lifts fail rather often.

I wonder if reversing capacity at Acton Town was limited, hence the
decision to terminate some of the shuttles at Northfields?

In article . 174,
pleasereplytogroup (David Jackman) wrote:

wrote in
:

I find the choice of this weekend to block the route from Heathrow
to central London particularly inconsiderate to passengers. I'm sure
this is one of the busier weekends at Heathrow with people on Christmas
and New Year breaks returning. There were a lot of people with luggage
everywhere.

At least you weren't trying to come in from Uxbridge.

The Met is closed as well....

Is there an airport there as well?

My daughter came from Heathrow today by 105 bus to Hayes & Harlington and
Heathrow Connect from there using Oyster.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article
,
(Recliner) wrote:

wrote:
In article ,
(Paul Corfield) wrote:

On Sun, 6 Jan 2013 10:37:46 -0000, "D A Stocks"
wrote:

wrote in message
...

Why oh why don't they let airport passengers use Heathrow Express or
Connect as an alternative
They do, don't they? = or are you saying Heathrow Express wasn't
running either?

Not routinely. It only happens on limited occasions when travel
options are very limited or rail replacement vehicles are in short
supply due to the volume of work on any given weekend. Even then it is
often only Heathrow Connect that can be used as HEX don't seem to want
people overloading the Express service. I expect money is also a
factor.

Previous closures of the Heathrow branch itself has seen coaches used
express from Acton Town to Heathrow because of their superior luggage
carrying capabilities. Buses are still needed for the all stns
service. No matter how you try to do it there are no convenient
locations for rail replacement transfer in West London.

Hammersmith - busy, overcrowded, overloaded bus stns, congested roads.
Acton Town - local roads struggle to cope with the volume of buses,
pavements too narrow for waiting passengers.
Ealing Broadway - similar to Hammersmith but with less room in the
ticket hall. Oh and a 1 way system past the station making drop offs /
pick ups difficult.

However the tracks and bridges on the 4 track section really do need
work doing to them. Unfortunately you can't run trains while doing
that.

Is it really not possible to close only two tracks at a time more?
The most inexplicable was the choice of such a busy weekend at
Heathrow for a blockade.

You had a number of options at various prices for the journey. You
took a choice for the price you were prepared to pay, and that's the
service you got.

I am off to hide under a table as I can feel the wrath of Rosenstiel
approaching!

When I found out about the works (daughter's boyfriend tipped her
off while we were away) and looked at the TfL journey planner from
abroad it didn't seem an unreasonable alternative via Acton Town
and Ealing Broadway. In particular it seemed to compare OK with any
via Paddington option.

Reality turned out to be rather different with the inexplicable
decision to terminate Heathrow shuttles at Northfields and the
abysmal lack of support for large numbers of passengers with
luggage there, at Acton Town and at Ealing Broadway (best of the
bunch). There was a tendency for what staff there were to hide in a
room giving out occasional PA announcements with blank platform
information screens.

Actually, you were lucky that both lifts at Acton Town were working:
judging by the Picc's Twitter feed, those lifts fail rather often.

Actually, after looking at the queue, I carried the cases up the stairs.

I wonder if reversing capacity at Acton Town was limited, hence the
decision to terminate some of the shuttles at Northfields?

That was the claim which I find hard to credit given how long the waits were
for trains at Northfields and Acton Town. The signalling didn't appear to
allow reversal in platforms and the PIS was non-existent unless you could
hear the announcements.

--
Colin Rosenstiel