Is Heathrow Express a good use of resources?

[Ianno87]

Heathrow Express is a vast waste of paths. I sorely hope it ceases to exist when the West Rail Link opens.

The reason I say that is that if you consider these new trains running from Paddington to Temple Meads via Parkway every 30 minutes will have limited stops and the Bath route will always be vastly busier. What if that half-hourly service ran via Heathrow then back out the other side? Yes, journey times would increase but connectivity would be fantastic. Reading, Swindon, Bristol Parkway and Temple Meads having a fast train every 30 minutes to the Airport; with 'one change' journey opportunities to Oxford, Banbury, Leamington, Gloucester, Cheltenham, Newport, Cardiff, Swansea, Weston-super-mare, Bath and such.

The other half-hourly path (aka to make up to 15 minutes) should be 8 car 387s and go to Newbury. It could stop at Slough, Maidenhead, Reading, Theale Parkway (if that is developed) and stations down to Newbury where the wires will obviously stop.

The majority of passengers/businesses from Bristol want to get to London quickly - that is the point of the fast IEPs. Given a WCML-esque journey time and frequency for Bristolians. Only a minority want to go to Heathrow. So you'd be hitting the majority for the benefit of the minority.

The West Rail Link I'd expect to as a minimum have a semi-fast link to/from Reading anyway. So all the places you list as being one change away, would still be one change away.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Why ever not? There are lifts between all the platforms and the RailAir lounge at Reading and the drivers load the luggage into the underfloor holds of the coach for you. They also unload it at the Terminal of your choice at Heathrow. It's a doddle!

Quite, there are reasons to avoid coaches (traffic risks primarily), but luggage space isn't really one of them, luggage on coaches is very well handled even compared with trains.

Indeed, it's why my (ageing) parents these days near enough always use coaches to get to airports and the likes.

 

[Taunton]

Will your calculus change when Crossrail is there? 6tph and a host of connections options?

Oh completely. Crossrail itself at my local station, and although not yet published the fares will undoubtedly be way less.

 

[coppercapped]

For some reason google is fuzzing the track access agreement on the heathrow website but if you google Heathrow Express track access agreement and click on the pdf file on the heathrow domain it will come up
Or

http://orr.gov.uk/rail/access-to-the-network/track-access/consolidated-agreements

They both appear to be slightly different agreements however and the date is redacted on the Orr site but not on the heathrow site.

Thank you for the links.

The document on the Heathrow site I've seen before - it was presented at the hearing held by the ORR into the track access charges being asked for by Heathrow Airports for the Crossrail services. It is actually the draft agreement between Heathrow Airport Ltd. (the infrastructure owner) and any train operator using HAL's tracks. It came about because in the early days BAA/Heathrow Airports made no distinction between the trains and the tunnels - it was one railway to them. Even the Connect trains weren't affected because, once on Heathrow Airports tracks, they were treated as HEx trains; fGW/GWR operate them to Hayes and from Hayes to the Airport they are the Airport's trains.

Then came Crossrail and in order to be able to charge it for access a separate Heathrow Infrastructure company became necessary. The document you pointed out to me is the result - it's the boilerplate outline of the contract needed by any train operator, HEx or Crossrail (or, rather, TfL) or any other to be able to run on HAL's track.

The second document is one of a series of contracts and contract amendments between HEx and NR to cover the changing circumstances of operation of HEx services on NR's infrastructure. IANAL but it does not appear to be the original agreement between BAA and BR for the HEx infrastructure and service - although this would have been novated to the various successor organisations. I am more than willing to be corrected.

 

[HSTEd]

The biggest critics of HEx are those who don't really understand its market.

I understand it's market - I just don't want valuable paths on the GWML, paths the public has generated at enormous expense, being squandered on comparatively short, comparatively lightly loaded trains when I can think of numerous other routes that would be far better in terms of service.

We could have four fast Crossrail trains mixed into the timetable each hour instead, for example.

 

[HSTEd]

As daikilo wrote, HAL is a private company. If the Government wanted to terminate its contract early, that is before the 25 year contract ends in 2023, it will have to pay for the privilege. HAL has not been responsible for the general growth in rail travel which is causing the capacity issues on the GWML which so concern people here. Adding additional capacity to cope with this growth is the responsibility of those that use it and their representatives - trying to push an existing operator off the line is morally, and probably legally, wrong.

Then why does the track access contract have an end-date, if it HAL has a 'moral and legal right' to eternal track access rights?
It is not in the public interest that HEX be permitted to continue past 2023.
If HAL want to throw their toys out of the pram in retalation and force the withdrawl of Crossrail services to the airport, so be it.

An organisation such as BAA/Heathrow which has invested heavily in rail should not be disadvantaged - it sends all the wrong messages to others who have invested or are considering investing in rail transport. (Unless of course you are one of the group which thinks that all funding should be made by the state...)

Considering the vast amounts of public money we have to transfer to "investors", a fully state funded model is the only one that actually makes economic sense.
But that is a forbidden thought under the glorious market-worship regime that pervades government at the moment.

 

[Wombat]

I've never used HEx and am posting from a position of more or less total ignorance. With that out of the way, is it a plausible notion that the DfT may consider the Heathrow and Gatwick expresses to be justifiable on the basis of some perceived status to London/UK conferred by having express services to and from the two main airports? I can see a theoretical benefit to "brand UK" (ugh, sorry) in the existence of these services, although I have no idea whether the experience in reality is a positive one.

 

[coppercapped]

I understand it's market - I just don't want valuable paths on the GWML, paths the public has generated at enormous expense, being squandered on comparatively short, comparatively lightly loaded trains when I can think of numerous other routes that would be far better in terms of service.

We could have four fast Crossrail trains mixed into the timetable each hour instead, for example.

The HEx trains are, for the most part, 9 coaches long - they are longer than a 2+8 HST.

I don't buy this 'lightly loaded' stuff. The loadings people have written about in this thread are based on an average of the daily passenger load over all the trains run.

If one considers that the trains running into, say, Cannon Street are fully loaded in the morning peak and return empty then carry fresh air around for much of the off-peak period until they run 'empty' to Cannon Street in the afternoon and out again fully loaded then spent most of the evening carrying fresh air around one would probably be hard pushed to get the average loading much above 50%.

And I yet hear no call to remove these lightly loaded trains from the service.

Then why does the track access contract have an end-date, if it HAL has a 'moral and legal right' to eternal track access rights?
It is not in the public interest that HEX be permitted to continue past 2023.
If HAL want to throw their toys out of the pram in retalation and force the withdrawl of Crossrail services to the airport, so be it.

Considering the vast amounts of public money we have to transfer to "investors", a fully state funded model is the only one that actually makes economic sense.
But that is a forbidden thought under the glorious market-worship regime that pervades government at the moment.

Why don't you read what I wrote? I clearly made the point that the original agreement was for a period of 25 years - it has been publicly stated that it ends in 2023. Why you think it is eternal is beyond me. What happens after 2023 is subject to negotiation between the responsible parties. My point was that terminating the contract early, that is before its natural expiry date of 2023, will cost whoever terminates the contract dearly as HEx has a legal and moral right to operate until then.

It should not be forgotten that BAA/HAL have spent way north of £1 billion on transport infrastructures at Heathrow - it has to be allowed to recoup its expenditure according to contract.

 

[Dougal2345]

Is Heathrow Express a good use of resources?

No, because it facilitates the use of aircraft, which are massively wasteful in their use of natural resources...

 

[ainsworth74]

It should not be forgotten that BAA/HAL have spent way north of £1 billion on transport infrastructures at Heathrow - it has to be allowed to recoup its expenditure according to contract.

Presumably when they signed up to a 25 year contract through to 2023 they felt that would be sufficient to recoup their investment. I am unclear on why they should get an extension automatically if there are other possibly better uses for the paths?

 

[coppercapped]

I've never used HEx and am posting from a position of more or less total ignorance. With that out of the way, is it a plausible notion that the DfT may consider the Heathrow and Gatwick expresses to be justifiable on the basis of some perceived status to London/UK conferred by having express services to and from the two main airports? I can see a theoretical benefit to "brand UK" (ugh, sorry) in the existence of these services, although I have no idea whether the experience in reality is a positive one.

Your post raises an some interesting points which have not been given sufficient notice in this thread.

Being an island, the UK is much more dependent on air transport than any other country on the continent of Europe (added in edit) with the exception of Switzerland. The European statistics organisation Eurostat publishes lots of interesting data about transport in general including air transport.

London Heathrow was the busiest airport in the EU-28 in terms of passenger numbers in 2015 (75 million), as it has been since the beginning of the time series in 1993. It was followed — at some distance — by Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport (66 million), Frankfurt airport (61 million) and Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport (58 million) — see Figure 4. The same four airports have been the largest four in the EU since 2011 when Amsterdam Schipol moved from fifth to fourth place.

The overwhelming majority of passengers through the four largest airports in the EU were on international flights; the lowest share was recorded for Frankfurt airport (88.7 %), rising to 100.0 % for Amsterdam Schiphol.

Also

Some 918 million passengers were carried by air in 2015 in the EU-28. The United Kingdom reported the highest number of air passengers in 2015, with 232 million or an average of 3.6 passengers per inhabitant.

And to show how important air transport is to islands or long thin countries

...islands of Malta and Cyprus (10.7 and 9.0 passengers carried per inhabitant) in 2015, as well as in Iceland (14.7) and Norway (7.2).

So you are right, there are very good and important reasons why airports should be easily accessible - lots of people want to use them.

 

[coppercapped]

Presumably when they signed up to a 25 year contract through to 2023 they felt that would be sufficient to recoup their investment. I am unclear on why they should get an extension automatically if there are other possibly better uses for the paths?

Who suggested HAL should get an extension automatically?

 

[HSTEd]

The HEx trains are, for the most part, 9 coaches long - they are longer than a 2+8 HST.

I don't buy this 'lightly loaded' stuff. The loadings people have written about in this thread are based on an average of the daily passenger load over all the trains run.

1+1 seating in a significant portion of the train doesn't help.

If one considers that the trains running into, say, Cannon Street are fully loaded in the morning peak and return empty then carry fresh air around for much of the off-peak period until they run 'empty' to Cannon Street in the afternoon and out again fully loaded then spent most of the evening carrying fresh air around one would probably be hard pushed to get the average loading much above 50%.

And I yet hear no call to remove these lightly loaded trains from the service.

Do you have an alternative use for the paths and stock those trains use that would move more people?

Why don't you read what I wrote? I clearly made the point that the original agreement was for a period of 25 years - it has been publicly stated that it ends in 2023. Why you think it is eternal is beyond me. What happens after 2023 is subject to negotiation between the responsible parties. My point was that terminating the contract early, that is before its natural expiry date of 2023, will cost whoever terminates the contract dearly as HEx has a legal and moral right to operate until then.

No, you said that an 'existing operator' has a legal and moral right to continue to operate.
That is something that is significantly different in this scenario.

It should not be forgotten that BAA/HAL have spent way north of £1 billion on transport infrastructures at Heathrow - it has to be allowed to recoup its expenditure according to contract.

Then I would support simply compulsarily purchasing the transport infrastructure if that is the price for five years of 4 more paths per hour into Paddington on the fast lines, and the end of the absurd pricing situation into Heathrow Airport that exists today.
£1bn or less, since it is largely depreciated by now, is a small price to pay for that.

 

[ainsworth74]

Who suggested HAL should get an extension automatically?

You have given the impression that you seem to think they should continue operating in near perpetuity? At least for the way you're arguing in their favour it comes across that way.

 

[JonathanH]

I understand it's market - I just don't want valuable paths on the GWML, paths the public has generated at enormous expense, being squandered on comparatively short, comparatively lightly loaded trains when I can think of numerous other routes that would be far better in terms of service.

We could have four fast Crossrail trains mixed into the timetable each hour instead, for example.

Right, but in the current timetable, Heathrow Express having a path immediately at xx55 behind the Oxford departure at xx52 allows the Oxford services to stop at Slough. If its path was taken by a fast train to Reading, that Slough stop would have to go or the path from Paddington would hold up the train behind. Similarly, there is scope for a fast xx36 to run to Maidenhead and cross to the relief line for its stop there because of the xx40 path being used for Heathrow.

 

[HowardGWR]

This never ending mantra that 'nobody wants to go to Paddington' is true for any of the terminal stations in London. It is also true for any terminal station in any city on the planet.

My bold, the last bit. Well, there's a challenge.

It depends on the type of traveller. I would have thought that the main groups on HEx are business types and tourists. Indeed, a small percentage of those pax walk to their destination from Paddington station.

I agree that when the City dispersed somewhat to Canary Wharf, the situation changed, but Liverpool St and Fenchurch St are pretty convenient for business types. I admit tourists probably only have a glib notion of where their hotel lies, in relation to eventual sightseeing. I think Crossrail will swallow up both groups. It gives the widest choice.

I give you Amsterdam Centraal (it is really a terminus) and raise you Marseilles St Charles and Rome Termini.

 

[The Ham]

I understand it's market - I just don't want valuable paths on the GWML, paths the public has generated at enormous expense, being squandered on comparatively short, comparatively lightly loaded trains when I can think of numerous other routes that would be far better in terms of service.

We could have four fast Crossrail trains mixed into the timetable each hour instead, for example.

The problem is where do you stop?

For instance, do we stop a Northern service because we could carry more people on another service, possibly serving London?

Alternatively, do we ditch all our trains with 2+2 seats and replace them with 3+2 seats as that would be a better user of resources?

The above is why we should be looking at if there's anything we should be doing to increase capacity by looking at new lines rather than removing services which may or may not be the best use of capacity on the existing lines.

 

[coppercapped]

You have given the impression that you seem to think they should continue operating in near perpetuity? At least for the way you're arguing in their favour it comes across that way.

Is this so difficult to understand...?

What happens after 2023 is subject to negotiation between the responsible parties.

I am arguing against two things:

• the perception that longer distance passengers on the GW are somehow more valuable or important that travellers to Heathrow; and
• premature termination of the contract originally made between BAA and BR - although it is now claimed that this is not what was meant.

I have seen no arguments to show that the first is true. In other threads there have been comments about the 'Reading commuters' filling all the trains to the detriment of people coming from further afield and now the needs of these self-same commuters (it must be they as Reading is the second busiest station on the GW) are more 'important' than Heathrow passengers. This is illogical - this is a value judgement depending on some person's definition of 'importance' or 'worth'. In any event HEx passengers pay some four and a half times as much per kilometre as the archetypical Reading Commuter™ does on his or her HST/IET - revenue the industry can ill afford to lose. If the HEx passenger is prepared to pay the price - then that's his business and nobody else's.

Air transport is very important if one lives on an island - the Republic of Ireland has an even greater number of flights per year per inhabitant than the UK. They, and we, don't have the option of surface transport to our neighbours (well, we do, but it is slow and can be bumpy depending on the winds and the tides...), except that we have one thin fixed corridor in the South East of the country. People of all types and professions want and need - for business, personal or leisure reasons - to use the airports and so should have a range of possibilities to reach them. This is also true for Heathrow.

There is also the question of 'fairness' which is also a concept found in Law - it's not just a personal thing. When BAA and BR signed the original agreement there was much spare capacity on the Western Region and the extra traffic HEx brought was welcome. In the meantime rail traffic has essentially doubled. This was not due to HEx but because of wider economic, structural, financial and managerial changes. The point is that, because of the presently perceived inadequate capacity of the infrastructure - at the prevailing ticket prices - there now seems to be a feeling that HEx should be closed down and the released capacity passed to other train operators. This is 'unfair' because HEx is not the reason for the lack of capacity - the lack of capacity is because the governing bodies of the railway have not seen fit to expand the railway in line with its growing traffic. A similar pressure can be seen building up against the freight business - arguably of great importance for health reasons as it keeps HGVs off the roads - because of Crossrail's demands for a more intense service on the Western. In the same manner - if Crossrail wants the extra capacity it should build it.

I'll finish soon...!

There are two ways the Government could prematurely terminate a contract:

• buy out the remaining period which would mean compensating HAL for loss of revenue and, most likely, also purchase the trains as HAL would have no further use for them.
• compulsorily purchase the infrastructure and trains.

In either case this would send all the wrong signals to businesses who have any sort of dealings with Government. The implication would be that Government is not to be trusted and reneges on agreed deals and contracts. If in future Government wants to purchase any sort of good or service from industry the now perceived higher risk that Government will change its mind will be priced into the contract. This extra margin will not be significant for the purchase of rubber gloves for the NHS, but could become significant for more complex purchases or service contracts.

However, I maintain that the users should decide what they want. If Crossrail abstracts sufficient custom from HEx that HEx is no longer viable in its current form, then so be it. It's evolution in action...

 

[coppercapped]

My bold, the last bit. Well, there's a challenge.

It depends on the type of traveller. I would have thought that the main groups on HEx are business types and tourists. Indeed, a small percentage of those pax walk to their destination from Paddington station.

I agree that when the City dispersed somewhat to Canary Wharf, the situation changed, but Liverpool St and Fenchurch St are pretty convenient for business types. I admit tourists probably only have a glib notion of where their hotel lies, in relation to eventual sightseeing. I think Crossrail will swallow up both groups. It gives the widest choice.

I give you Amsterdam Centraal (it is really a terminus) and raise you Marseilles St Charles and Rome Termini.

Brilliant!

 

[JamesRowden]

The Elizabeth Line services will only take 7 minutes longer than Heathrow Express between Paddington and Heathrow, and it will serve intermediate stations. The benefits of the 'Express' part of Heathrow Express would be less than 7 minutes to Paddington since the Elizabeth Line will be more frequent. How much is less than 7 minutes worth?

 

[Bromley boy]

The Elizabeth Line services will only take 7 minutes longer than Heathrow Express between Paddington and Heathrow, and it will serve intermediate stations. The benefits of the 'Express' part of Heathrow Express would be less than 7 minutes to Paddington since the Elizabeth Line will be more frequent. How much is less than 7 minutes worth?

Off topic but I just can’t get used to “Elizabeth line”. I hope the title is dropped eventually.

It just doesn’t trip off the tongue like “Crossrail”!

And of course it will be a 7 minute saving offset by a long, pain in the bum interchange at Paddington onto a Crossrail service, no doubt several trains behind the one you could have jumped onto at the airport!

 

[coppercapped]

The Elizabeth Line services will only take 7 minutes longer than Heathrow Express between Paddington and Heathrow, and it will serve intermediate stations. The benefits of the 'Express' part of Heathrow Express would be less than 7 minutes to Paddington since the Elizabeth Line will be more frequent. How much is less than 7 minutes worth?

Already answered...

However, I maintain that the users should decide what they want. If Crossrail abstracts sufficient custom from HEx that HEx is no longer viable in its current form, then so be it. It's evolution in action...

 

[JamesRowden]

Already answered...

Unless you provide a quantitative function as to how much custom during the trial is enough / too little, you have not answered the question.

 

[coppercapped]

Unless you provide a quantitative function as to how much custom during the trial is enough / too little, you have not answered the question.

You don't know what the answer is, although you can guess.
I don't know what the answer is, although I can guess.
The only people who know what the answer is are the fare-paying passengers.
Watch what they do between the time Crossrail opens and 2023. That is your answer.

 

[HowardGWR]

Off topic but I just can’t get used to “Elizabeth line”. I hope the title is dropped eventually.

Don't we all (too many syllables).

Try Lizzie, or perhaps Brenda? Betty - or Liza?

 

[JamesRowden]

You don't know what the answer is, although you can guess.
I don't know what the answer is, although I can guess.
The only people who know what the answer is are the fare-paying passengers.
Watch what they do between the time Crossrail opens and 2023. That is your answer.

I'm not talking about predicting what the passengers will do during the trial. I'm talking about what result would be sufficient for the Government to allocate those paths to the Heathrow Express rather than the Great Western franchise each time the franchise is tendered. I'm basically putting you in the Government's shoes. Stop using cop-out phrases such as the word sufficient (which is qualitative rather than quantitative) and give us some real numbers to express your view. Your statements imply that you believe there to be a numerical threshold, what is it? Or do you actually have a lot less numerical clue than you seem to imply on terms of whether giving paths to Heathrow Express is worth it (if you knew how many people would use it)?

 

[Clarence Yard]

The Government doesn’t allocate paths. That is the job of the ORR. If they came up for grabs I can imagine quite a few people wanting them, not just the DfT franchise.

 

[JamesRowden]

The Government doesn’t allocate paths. That is the job of the ORR. If they came up for grabs I can imagine quite a few people wanting them, not just the DfT franchise.

Could the Government set the minimum required level of peak service of the franchise post current Heathrow Express paths at a level which means that there is no space for any other services on the mainlines during the peak?

 

[The Ham]

I'm not talking about predicting what the passengers will do during the trial. I'm talking about what result would be sufficient for the Government to allocate those paths to the Heathrow Express rather than the Great Western franchise each time the franchise is tendered. I'm basically putting you in the Government's shoes. Stop using cop-out phrases such as the word sufficient (which is qualitative rather than quantitative) and give us some real numbers to express your view. Your statements imply that you believe there to be a numerical threshold, what is it? Or do you actually have a lot less numerical clue than you seem to imply on terms of whether giving paths to Heathrow Express is worth it (if you knew how many people would use it)?

I would suggest that the government wouldn't want to force the issue. However, post Crossrail if the number of passengers falls significantly then it would be HEX that would be looking to release their paths back to be used by others.

Which leads to a question, would there actually be any paths West of the airport if HEX released their paths?

I would guess (from what's been says on other threads) that there's not much score for many extra services on the B&H or towards Basingstoke because of the flat junction with of Reading. Likewise heading towards Oxford/Bristol is limited by the flat junction at Didcot. That's assuming that the 4 paths are viable beyond where they are.

As such, even if 4 paths were released would that relate in 4 paths?

Something else to think about, even if the 4 paths do exist, is so we want to use up those paths now when we know that there's going to be a Western Approach to Heathrow built? Given that you could run services from places to the West to Heathrow in the shadow of those HEX paths.

In theory, by using bimodal trains or with filling in the gaps in the wires, XC could run services from Heathrow towards Birmingham given that currently something like 25% of their services go no further south than Reading and these could potentially be extended to Heathrow.

Alternatively the Basingstoke services could continue through to Heathrow after electrification (and maybe some platform lengthening or at least ASDO), which would likely be a very popular new service given how long it takes (80 to 120 minutes depending on time and route). Compare that with 24 minutes from Basingstoke to Reading 27 minutes to Slough as a stoppersand then 12 minutes for the existing GWML to Heathrow services giving a total of 63 (+/-5 minutes, so circa 60-70 minutes) twice an hour.

Likewise change the existing slow Oxford/Banbury services to run between Banbury and Heathrow (as few people would use them from West of Reading to go to Paddington anyway and then replace the Paddington train with a new train to (say) Didcot and again those services would be fairly well used.

 

[coppercapped]

I'm not talking about predicting what the passengers will do during the trial. I'm talking about what result would be sufficient for the Government to allocate those paths to the Heathrow Express rather than the Great Western franchise each time the franchise is tendered. I'm basically putting you in the Government's shoes. Stop using cop-out phrases such as the word sufficient (which is qualitative rather than quantitative) and give us some real numbers to express your view. Your statements imply that you believe there to be a numerical threshold, what is it? Or do you actually have a lot less numerical clue than you seem to imply on terms of whether giving paths to Heathrow Express is worth it (if you knew how many people would use it)?

To what 'trial' are you referring?

As has already been pointed out to you, the Government does not allocate paths - that task is left to the ORR in the cases where there are more applicants for the paths than, apparently, the number of paths available.

It should, however be noted that even if there is a theoretical number of paths available over a section of route they will be based on a selected train type and signalling headway. Paddington - Reading might have, say, 20 paths per hour drawn on a graph using IETs and a 3 minute headway. In practice the number of trains that can run on any part of the network is not a fixed number - the number depends on a range of factors such a train performance (acceleration and braking performance, top speed and length), stopping patterns, diverging and converging traffic at junctions, platform capacity and so on.

The DfT sets out its expectations for the service pattern for any franchise it may grant. Other train operating companies , especially Open Access operators - may also bid for paths on the same route and there is quasi-judicial process the ORR follows to reach a decision. These decisions, at least from the evidence up to now, are not based solely on the number of passengers using each service.

I think what you are trying to suggest is that if Train service A carries 50 passengers a day and Train service B carries 100 passengers a day then A isn't necessary. But what if Service A earns twice as much as B and returns a bigger premium to the DfT so easing the load on the taxpayer? What would you do then?