And one thing can be certain - there will be much said and indeed much
to say about it. Already BAA have put the plan to fingerprint all
passengers flying from T5 on hold because of concerns over compliance
with data protection laws, whilst anti-third runway protesters plan on
holding a 'flash mob protest' at T5 at 11am today.

Main BBC News online story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7314816.stm

BBC News - BA pioneer to land first T5 plane
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7313093.stm

BBC News - Heathrow fingerprint plan on hold
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7315415.stm


BAA has produced a fairly comprehensive and reasonably informative
Terminal 5 information pack, which can be read or downloaded via this
link (PDF):

http://www.heathrowairport.com/asset...fo_packnew.pdf


The 'Vital Statistics' pages do contain some useful hard facts, along
with the obligatory comparisons of elements of T5 with pre-existing
'big things' - however, whilst some such comparisons are ridiculed,
the fact that the T5 site is stated to be the equivalent area to Hyde
Park did catch my imagination (though maybe that just merely proves
I'm a bit of a simpleton...).

And anyone who decides that the unit of comparison for the amount of
steel in the roof is to be bull elephants wins my respect! (It's 2,833
bull elephants worth of steel, by the way - and you'd better get used
to it, as this is the unit which Lakshmi Mittal is apparently
considering switching to.)

Lots of other things of note in there. I particularly liked the choice
of the type of tree that was chosen for the area outside the main
entrance to the terminal building - the 40 woody perennials in
question are of course London Plane trees.

In message
, at
18:59:34 on Wed, 26 Mar 2008, Mizter T remarked:
http://www.heathrowairport.com/asset...fo_packnew.pdf


The 'Vital Statistics' pages do contain some useful hard facts

"The TTS station is underground, and passengers travelling from
Terminal 5B descend to the station via the longest open design
escalator in Europe. It will take 90 seconds to travel on the
escalator which has a vertical rise of 21.75 metres.

Does that beat the escalator at Angel Tube station? What's an "open
design" escalator, anyway; and where is the presumably longer "not open
design" escalator somewhere else in Europe?
--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry wrote:
In message
,
at 18:59:34 on Wed, 26 Mar 2008, Mizter T
remarked:
http://www.heathrowairport.com/asset...fo_packnew.pdf


The 'Vital Statistics' pages do contain some useful hard facts

"The TTS station is underground, and passengers travelling from
Terminal 5B descend to the station via the longest open design
escalator in Europe. It will take 90 seconds to travel on the
escalator which has a vertical rise of 21.75 metres.

Does that beat the escalator at Angel Tube station?

No - Angel rises 27.4 m in 60m length - less than the Tyne Foot Tunnel at
25.9 in 60m too. I guess open design just means the underside is visible
(through glass perhaps).

Of course London 'records' are often a little dubious, like the recent
'first ever' bowstring arch railway bridge!

Paul S

"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message
, at
18:59:34 on Wed, 26 Mar 2008, Mizter T remarked:
http://www.heathrowairport.com/asset...fo_packnew.pdf


The 'Vital Statistics' pages do contain some useful hard facts

"The TTS station is underground, and passengers travelling from
Terminal 5B descend to the station via the longest open design
escalator in Europe. It will take 90 seconds to travel on the
escalator which has a vertical rise of 21.75 metres.

Does that beat the escalator at Angel Tube station? What's an "open
design" escalator, anyway; and where is the presumably longer "not open
design" escalator somewhere else in Europe?
--

Do you mean Western Europe? Because the escalators on the Budapest metro are
quite deep.

In message , at
21:04:39 on Thu, 27 Mar 2008, remarked:
http://www.heathrowairport.com/asset...fo_packnew.pdf


The 'Vital Statistics' pages do contain some useful hard facts

"The TTS station is underground, and passengers travelling from
Terminal 5B descend to the station via the longest open design
escalator in Europe. It will take 90 seconds to travel on the
escalator which has a vertical rise of 21.75 metres.

Does that beat the escalator at Angel Tube station? What's an "open
design" escalator, anyway; and where is the presumably longer "not open
design" escalator somewhere else in Europe?

Do you mean Western Europe? Because the escalators on the Budapest metro are
quite deep.

The words belong to the Terminal 5 brochure.

Moszkva tér (square) metro station in Budapest is mentioned as having
very long escalators, but I can't find a figure.

I recall that Prague has some pretty deep tube lines too. Not sure if
individual escalators exceed Angel, though.

Moscow metro's longest escalator is 126 m (Park Pobedy), apparently
[wikipedia]. More than twice the Angel. A different source says the
Ukraine has the longest escalator at 87m.
--
Roland Perry

On Mar 27, 9:46 pm, Roland Perry wrote:
Moscow metro's longest escalator is 126 m (Park Pobedy), apparently
[wikipedia]. More than twice the Angel. A different source says the
Ukraine has the longest escalator at 87m.

Theres a couple of stations on the Kiev metro (Dnipra, Arsenelna) that
are seriously deep because they're in the side of a cliff with 2 sets
of escalators to go down, both probably longer than Angel though thats
a guess on my part just based on what I saw. I've been told they were
designed as nuclear bunkers. They're certainly very impressive to look
at.

B2003

On Mar 27, 10:15*am, Roland Perry wrote:
In message
, at
18:59:34 on Wed, 26 Mar 2008, Mizter T remarked:

http://www.heathrowairport.com/asset...20Files/T5_Inf...

The 'Vital Statistics' pages do contain some useful hard facts

* * * * "The TTS station is underground, and passengers travelling from
* * * * Terminal 5B descend to the station via the longest open design
* * * * escalator in Europe. It will take 90 seconds to travel on the
* * * * escalator which has a vertical rise of 21.75 metres.

Does that beat the escalator at Angel Tube station? What's an "open
design" escalator, anyway; and where is the presumably longer "not open
design" escalator somewhere else in Europe?

I presume they mean it's not in a closed shaft, like Angel's is - this
one is in a very large atrium, with open space above and below.

There's a photo at http://flickr.com/photos/22819720@N02/2307578958/

- martin

In message
, at
09:48:34 on Sat, 29 Mar 2008, martin
remarked:
What's an "open design" escalator, anyway; and where is the
presumably longer "not open design" escalator somewhere else in Europe?

I presume they mean it's not in a closed shaft, like Angel's is - this
one is in a very large atrium, with open space above and below.

There's a photo at http://flickr.com/photos/22819720@N02/2307578958/

There seems to be a lot of "going up and down" mentioned with respect to
T5. I understand they don't have the space to make it flat like
Stansted, but couldn't they have kept it more on one floor (one each for
arrivals and departures), like Gatwick North?
--
Roland Perry

On 29 Mar, 17:24, Roland Perry wrote:
There seems to be a lot of "going up and down" mentioned with respect to
T5. I understand they don't have the space to make it flat like
Stansted, but couldn't they have kept it more on one floor (one each for
arrivals and departures), like Gatwick North?

It's a fairly good design. From the tube (lower basement) you go up by
direct lift to Departures on the top floor (where the coach drop off
road also is). Check in and security happens on this floor. If your
gate is in building 5B you get a long escalator down to the people
mover in the basement., but for gates in the main building you go down
one floor on an escalator to where the gate waiting areas are, and
also the shops. Each gate then has another escalator (and lift) behind
the boarding pass desk that goes down to the floor below, where the
actual jetways are.

IF you're arriving, the jetways are on the same floor as immigration/
customs. Once complete you go down one floor to baggage claim, which I
think is on the ground floor. You come out by the tube/HEx ticket
office, and it's a simple lift down to catch a train.

There's a lot of up and down, but very little horizontal movement.

U

--
http://londonconnections.blogspot.com/
A blog about transport projects in London

Mr Thant wrote:
On 29 Mar, 17:24, Roland Perry wrote:
There seems to be a lot of "going up and down" mentioned with
respect to T5. I understand they don't have the space to make it
flat like Stansted, but couldn't they have kept it more on one floor
(one each for arrivals and departures), like Gatwick North?

It's a fairly good design. From the tube (lower basement) you go up by
direct lift to Departures on the top floor (where the coach drop off
road also is). Check in and security happens on this floor. If your
gate is in building 5B you get a long escalator down to the people
mover in the basement., but for gates in the main building you go down
one floor on an escalator to where the gate waiting areas are, and
also the shops.

Actually the escalators to the people mover start from the T5A gate waiting
and shops floor. I wandered past them during the trial I was on while
waiting for my "flight" to Moscow, but unfortunately they were out of use
that day.
--
Richard J.
(to email me, swap 'uk' and 'yon' in address)