Expensive But Worth Every Penny! (Heathrow Express)

Member Name: lordpercy

Product:	Heathrow Express
Date:	11/03/01 (917 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Quick, simple ,clean, efficient

Disadvantages: Expensive

Recently I had to make the short hop to visit a supplier on the outskirts of Paris. My first thought was to use Eurostar from Waterloo but the overall journey time was going to be in excess of 4 hours.

So flying was our only real choice, most of my colleagues live to the west of London so Heathrow was chosen for a flight to Orly airport on the south eastern side of Paris.
My journey from the east end was going to be a long one, after carefully studying the route it became apparent that the Heathrow express might be an option.

The Heathrow Express project started in 1993 led by Laing construction in consortium with most of the major utilities companies. The route from Paddington to Heathrow uses some 10km of tunnels mostly at the Heathrow end. The construction cost 450 million pounds and took some five years and including a 6-month delay after one of the tunnels collapsed during heavy rain. Finally the service to the public began in June 1998 with predictions that it would remove some 3000 car and taxi journeys per day from the highly congested M4 Heathrow spur road.

So after much indecision I plumped for the Express and headed for my local tube station at some unearthly hour, the journey via tube to Paddington is like any other journey on London Underground depressing! On arrival at Paddington I headed for check in, now for me this is the single biggest attraction of the express as you can check in for your flight at Paddington. Even though I only had hand luggage good old BA insisted that I must check in an hour before take off, this is a constant pain in the neck for any regular traveller so the ability to soak up some of this time while still travelling to the airport is great.

Currently 27 airlines have check in desks at Paddington, the routine is identical to that at the airport 1 hour check in for hand luggage and 2 hours for the full blow suitcase scenario. Once you have checked in normally with only a small queue, it&#
39;s only a short trot across the newly modernised Paddington Concourse to the Heathrow Express Ticket office.

A standard single ticket is £12 and a return is £22 and 1st class tickets are £20 and £40 respectively, this for a 17-mile journey seems a bit steep at first but if you book via telephone or Internet you can save another £3. Also Children under 16 travel free when accompanied by an adult paying the full fare.

The staff seemed friendly and quite jovial for 6am, the purchase was made via credit card and took only seconds, soon I was wandering along the platform with only 5 mins to wait for the next service. The Express runs from 5am to 11:45 pm Monday to Saturday and roughly the same for Sundays except that train times within each hour change. The trains run every 15 minutes regular as clockwork with a journey time of 15 mins to terminals 1+2+3 and approximately an extra 7 mins to terminal 4.

Soon the silver outline of the express slithered into the station and I've got to say the trains do look a lot better than your average BR runabout even though they are based on the same chassis as the networkers that run many commuter services.
The trains consist of 8 carriages 2 of which are for first class, these more expensive seats are very nice and come with complimentary papers and magazines etc.... but on a fifteen minute journey I think I'll rough it and go chicken class.

The standard carriages are clean, classy and have plenty of legroom the air-conditioning makes for comfortable travel at any time of the year, there is of course ample room for luggage and facilities for the disabled and families with small children.

Now when it comes to food I normally get very picky but alas not so with the Heathrow Express as there is no catering service, not even a BR cheese sandwich with its legendary rubber filling, the decision was taken that the journey was too short to make it viable. Many of my early morning com
rades had purchased coffee at Paddington to get around this problem.

One of the first things that strikes you once seated are the TV displays at the end of each carriage, as the doors shut and the train begins to leave the platform they burble into life with a nice young lady explaining how long the journey will take etc. Then once the formalities are over it's a mixture of adverts, pop videos and news and weather form BBC World. This seems like quite a unique idea and one that I enjoyed, it saved fighting with a copy of the times or the embarrassment of trying to read the Daily Sport in front of others.

The train is whisper smooth and reaches speeds of 100mph on its 15 minute sprint to Heathrow, the only distraction from the Express TV service was to have my ticket checked. If you really want peace and quiet 2 carriages 1 1st class and one standard are marked as quiet zones with big Q's on the doors and windows. These carriages do not have the Express TV service and seemed ideal if you have a hangover!

The stations at Heathrow are directly beneath the main check in halls and a short walk and a lift journey later brings you into the heart of Heathrow, as you've already checked in you can walk straight to your flights gate or to a bar if you're like me!

The return journey is just as simple and expensive sadly, but overall it is a high quality service and probably worth the expense compared to a tortuous Victoria Line tube journey of over an hour or a ride with one of London’s vocal cabbies!

For more details and savings on tickets visit the express website @ www.heathrowexpress.co.uk this provides all the information you need including timetables, ticket information and check in details.
The site is a simple affair but with a nice use of flash / Java to make navigation a synch, the site uses SSL encryption for transactions or you can browse for information and give them a call on 0845 600 15 15 to
make the purchase.

I found the level of service and overall quality of the Heathrow Express impressive, it is expensive costing me 22 pounds for 2 fifteen-minute journeys, but compared with the rest of the day's journey courtesy of London Underground and British Airways it justified the money.

I will certainly use the Express again and if the need arises I would have no qualms about using the BAA operated Gatwick or Stanstead Express either.


Lordpercy ©2001

www.heathrowexpress.co.uk
0845 600 15 15

Summary: