Heathrow Express

[RooFlyer]

No service on Christmas Day or Boxing Day. Half hour services from 27th Dec to 1st January inclusive.

I've found the service in general to be deteriorating over the past 2 years. frequent slow trips and delays.

On my LHR-Paddington journey last month, we were slow. The driver came on the PA and apologized, saying that we were 'behind something', and she would do her best to make up time. I thought this was a good effort.

On the return journey later that day departure was delayed by about 15 mins (there were no HEX trains at all at the station when I arrived); the crush on the platform when the train arrived for boarding was pretty bad. The entire journey then varied between a suburban trundle to snails pace.

 

[Mal]

The outage could be related to maintenance on the track. Certainly many trains are messed up due to maintenance over the Christmas period.

Note that there is no public transport scheduled for Christmas day within London. A huge bugbear of mine (why not run a skeleton bus timetable???)

If people are in London and wanting to get to LHR on Christmas day, the best option is a mini cab (if you can find one, and they will be charging a premium). National Express coaches are also running coaches between Victoria Bus Station and Heathrow as well.

PS. My daily commute involves leaving Paddington and heading to a station a little bit further than the Heathrow turnoff. Trust me, the track is under massive pressure and delays are frequent.

 

[erkpod]

The outage could be related to maintenance on the track. Certainly many trains are messed up due to maintenance over the Christmas period.

Note that there is no public transport scheduled for Christmas day within London. A huge bugbear of mine (why not run a skeleton bus timetable???)

If people are in London and wanting to get to LHR on Christmas day, the best option is a mini cab (if you can find one, and they will be charging a premium). National Express coaches are also running coaches between Victoria Bus Station and Heathrow as well.

That is one thing that surprised me when I found that out. I am a little surprised the same thing hasn't been thought of for Sydney when I think of the amount of English rail managers from the CEO down that are here.

That said, there's still a reasonable amount of people traveling on the day in my experience of working several Xmas days in the past.

 

[RooFlyer]

The outage could be related to maintenance on the track. Certainly many trains are messed up due to maintenance over the Christmas period.

Note that there is no public transport scheduled for Christmas day within London. A huge bugbear of mine (why not run a skeleton bus timetable???)

If people are in London and wanting to get to LHR on Christmas day, the best option is a mini cab (if you can find one, and they will be charging a premium). National Express coaches are also running coaches between Victoria Bus Station and Heathrow as well.

PS. My daily commute involves leaving Paddington and heading to a station a little bit further than the Heathrow turnoff. Trust me, the track is under massive pressure and delays are frequent.

When I read that I though ... gee why not suggest the normal Piccadilly Line ? Then looked up the TfL site and found that the whole system closes down Christmas Day for a 24 hr orgy of maintenance.

Good on 'em, but the wages cost for that must be truly eye-watering.