Poor experience at Heathrow: is this normal?

[yorkie]

At Heathrow T3 (HXX) just now, the 2348 Heathrow Express (HX) showed as delayed but the 2353 Elizabeth Line (XR) showed as on time. Both showing as departing from platform 2, heading for Paddington.

The XR departed T4 early but was held in the tunnel for a few minutes. It eventually was signalled into platform 1, arriving there just over 2 minutes late.

An automatic announcement told passengers at platform 2 waiting for the XR train to go to platform 1, but with very little notice ; a manual announcement immediately followed, forcefully telling people to 'ignore this message' and stay on platform 2. Which people did.

The XR train arrived on platform 1 and eventually a manual announcement at platform 2 told people for the XR train to go to platform 1. But the train didn't hang about long, and I would be very surprised if everyone made it across in time!

The XR then waited between HXX and Hayes & Darlington for the HX to overtake, thus ensuring connections were missed.

Is this normal at HXX, and is this now the new normal of what is considered acceptable/good practice in the UK?

Why is there an obsession with trains departing ASAP (sometimes even early) and then having them almost immediately stop to wait in loops, tunnels etc?

This experience must have been quite a shock for people who had just landed from various countries where the rail network is genuinely run for the benefit of passengers, and where announcements and signage are clear, and where connections are maintained wherever practicable! (perhaps the purpose of this poor showing at Heathrow is to set low expectations for the rest of their visit (!))

This sort of experience certainly reminds me very much that I am back in Britain, and no longer somewhere with the sort of approach to running a railway network that we will never be allowed to have here.

 

[TFN]

From my experience at Heathrow T2&3 (HXX), it was manageable when it was just 2tph Connect and 4tph Express services.

HXX now has 6tph Elizabeth and 4tph Express per platform.

The T4 spur only having one track and no crossover to the immediate North (or East?) side of the station means delays can quickly spiral.

It’s not uncommon for a Lizzie Line service to terminate short at Hayes or diverted to West Drayton just to ease congestion. I’m not sure what Network Rail/Heathrow could do to fix it.

Regarding your specific issue, surely the control room could make a station wide PA for the platform change? Or the member of staff radio to confirm if the automatic PA is correct instead of instantly disregarding it.

 

[Mike395]

The announcements at Heathrow Central (T4/T5 seems much more reasonable) do my head in at the best of times - a constant wall of manual announcements often just repeating the much clearer automatic announcement saying exactly the same thing.

It's a trickier one regarding the HEX overtaking though - the problem is that the GWML is often 2-track at that time of night (as seems to be the case here), so there's nowhere for the HEX to overtake once it reaches Hayes & Harlington; the argument here is that the mostly-fresh-air-carrying Heathrow Express should probably have less priority at that time of night than the XR service, but then the Heathrow Express would be forced to follow until just outside Paddington, losing c. 10 minutes so the time penalty is higher, which takes preference over the XR service picking up a 5 minute delay ultimately into Paddington due to being held. It's probably not the right call in terms of reducing total passenger delay minutes, but in this particular instance, I have sympathy with the NR signaller making that decision.

 

[Johnny Lewis]

Does anyone know the reason why the line from Heathrow Central to Heathrow T4 was only ever built as a single line? Is there physically insufficient space for this to be double tracked? Now that T4 is operating at pre-Covid levels once more, a train service more than every 15 minutes would be welcomed! I'm guessing the costs involved to double track this line would be astronomical though.

 

[Acton1991]

The announcements at Heathrow Central (T4/T5 seems much more reasonable) do my head in at the best of times - a constant wall of manual announcements often just repeating the much clearer automatic announcement saying exactly the same thing.

The Heathrow station announcements are almost unbearable. Staff screaming down the microphone, hard to understand or decipher with little information being provided to passengers over and above the automated announcements.

I don’t understand why these staff are instructed to do such a thing. It’s the same in the Elizabeth line core during peak - staff shouting out every single station a service is calling at despite the automatic announcements providing the same information in a clear and calm manner

 

[yorkie]

The announcements at Heathrow Central (T4/T5 seems much more reasonable) do my head in at the best of times - a constant wall of manual announcements often just repeating the much clearer automatic announcement saying exactly the same thing.

It's a trickier one regarding the HEX overtaking though - the problem is that the GWML is often 2-track at that time of night (as seems to be the case here), so there's nowhere for the HEX to overtake once it reaches Hayes & Harlington; the argument here is that the mostly-fresh-air-carrying Heathrow Express should probably have less priority at that time of night than the XR service, but then the Heathrow Express would be forced to follow until just outside Paddington, losing c. 10 minutes so the time penalty is higher, which takes preference over the XR service picking up a 5 minute delay ultimately into Paddington due to being held. It's probably not the right call in terms of reducing total passenger delay minutes, but in this particular instance, I have sympathy with the NR signaller making that decision.

Given the timetable at that time of night, I don't see why the XR train from T4 couldn't have departed at the booked time (no need to go early), then simply gone straight into platform 1, allow people plenty of time and notice as to which train is on which platform, and once the HX has departed platform 2, then the XR could follow it.

There is, instead, an obsession in the UK, which I don't see in any other country, with trains getting away from stations ASAP even if passengers have not had time to even board the service, missing connections, and making trains wait in tunnels or at junctions.

I am not blaming any one individual; maybe signallers are doing what they are told, maybe platform staff are doing what they are told, but the overall end result and experience is very, very different to what I experience in countries that really know how to run trains, and actually run them for the benefit of passengers!

 

[Horizon22]

Firstly, I'm assuming this is a two-track railway situation on the GWML?

This is typical behaviour really from Heathrow signaller (and arguably Thames Valley Signalling Centre [TVSC] in general...); services are often given the route out with 2 minutes to go and ARS (automated route setting) takes over even when its clearly nonsense (i.e obvious delays to the outbound following a late inbound). It's not even a large panel but the intensification of the service (6tph Elizabeth line, 4tph HEX) meant a separate Heathrow panel was split out from the Hayes panel. There's no TRTS (train ready to start) buttons on either T4 or T5 so the signaller just routes trains out (most of the time) at near enough their booked time.

The Elizabeth line service didn't leave early (unless you count 15 seconds) here. It then was held and waited for a route into T2/3 and the signaller has evidently intervened & routed it into P1 (arriving 2 minutes late), presumably to not further delay the HEX service into P2; the inward HEX service arrived at T5 15 minutes late and was no way going to depart T5 towards T2/3 on time. Therefore the Eliazbeth line service (all stops) was regulated due to it being a two-track raiilway and to allow the fast HEX service a good run. The Elizabeth line driver left T4 on time - again 15 seconds is not really early and wouldn't have known any better and just followed the signals they were given and would have no say in the platform alteration as a permissive route.

Simply put the signaller could have called Heathrow Control in advance to tell them the platform alteration which could have been amended on the CIS or the radio but for whatever reason either a) didn't or b) did and wasn't updated accordingly c) did, edit was made and was promptly ignored by platform staff (?). Such communications do not happen all the time and controllers are left banging their head against a wall and platform staff don't know what to suggest. Why the platform staff overuled the automatic platform announcement is an unknown here.

Overall I don't think the decision was the worst idea (regulate a stopper for a fast train), just the way it was carried out (i.e why not just hold the Elizabeth line train on P1) and communicated was sub-par.


== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 23 Sep 2024 ==

Does anyone know the reason why the line from Heathrow Central to Heathrow T4 was only ever built as a single line? Is there physically insufficient space for this to be double tracked? Now that T4 is operating at pre-Covid levels once more, a train service more than every 15 minutes would be welcomed! I'm guessing the costs involved to double track this line would be astronomical though.

Cost? The single line is a definite cause of congestion and knock-on impacts as there are often clashes.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 23 Sep 2024 ==

The XR then waited between HXX and Hayes & Darlington for the HX to overtake, thus ensuring connections were missed.

Out of interest what connection? There isn't one at Hayes (for any destination) until a Reading service 50 minutes later.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 23 Sep 2024 ==

Given the timetable at that time of night, I don't see why the XR train from T4 couldn't have departed at the booked time (no need to go early), then simply gone straight into platform 1, allow people plenty of time and notice as to which train is on which platform, and once the HX has departed platform 2, then the XR could follow it.

Automated Route Setting - it was booked in Platform 2, and so needed manually editing into P1.

 

[sh24]

The staff at Heathrow Central love the sound of their own voices on the PA. As noted above, T5 and T4 are relatively more peaceful.

 

[Purple Train]

The Heathrow stations are, for fairly obvious reasons, used by considerably more people who are unfamiliar with either the UK rail network or trains in general than the common or garden railway station. Unfortunately, the station operator's way around it seems to have been to employ lots and lots of people and create an overwhelming amount of noise.

I'm sure I remember reading, somewhere on this Forum, that the Heathrow rail staff were employed by the airport, otherwise I would have said it was a TfL thing. The platform staff at Ealing Broadway during peak hours are particularly good at cutting off a PA announcement halfway through the list of stations with the message, "Stand behind the yellow line and let people off the train." For people unfamiliar with the network, this constant overwhelming noise in an unfamiliar environment would surely only make things worse.

There are basically two problems here - the platform alteration and regulation, and the communication of it. I don't think there's anything wrong with the regulation in and of itself* - the only "connection" that might have been missed on the way into Paddington was a -1-minute connection onto a Maidenhead train at Hayes & Harlington, and planning a journey around a -1-minute connection is unwise! The communication was evidently awful, I agree - in no way, however, is it going to become "the new normal". In complete contrast to your experience, a week ago on Saturday I was on an Elizabeth Line train that was held for two hours in Twyford platform 4 due to the power being switched off between Maidenhead and Paddington. That was infinitely better than being held at Ruscombe junction for two hours, despite the fact that the train probably could have got around that far. That is the very opposite of a system where there is an "obsession" with the train departing on time only to wait a little later. Do either of these instances, in isolation, provide an example of what the system is really like? I don't think so.

*To clarify this further - I presume that, if the platform staff had not overruled the automatic announcement, no confusion would have occurred and the only frustration would have been the train leaving the platform on time only to be held soon after. Please correct me if I'm wrong on any of this - obviously I wasn't there, so I could well have got the wrong end of the stick

 

[Wolfie]

Does anyone know the reason why the line from Heathrow Central to Heathrow T4 was only ever built as a single line? Is there physically insufficient space for this to be double tracked? Now that T4 is operating at pre-Covid levels once more, a train service more than every 15 minutes would be welcomed! I'm guessing the costs involved to double track this line would be astronomical though.

The obvious answer is because that is what BAA were prepared to finance.

 

[Trailfinder]

Several years ago I was on a Paddington bound EL service that departed P1 at T2/3 and it stopped at the Down Main platform at Hayes, much to the astonishment of the passengers waiting on P4.
It crossed to the Up Main at Hayes East.

 

[JN114]

Does anyone know the reason why the line from Heathrow Central to Heathrow T4 was only ever built as a single line? Is there physically insufficient space for this to be double tracked? Now that T4 is operating at pre-Covid levels once more, a train service more than every 15 minutes would be welcomed! I'm guessing the costs involved to double track this line would be astronomical though.

The original infrastructure was built with only the 4tph HEx to T4 (remember the T5 branch is 10 years newer) in mind; even the Heathrow Connect services from 2005 were an afterthought. The 10tph using the Airport system as a whole as it is now is absolutely on the limit of what can be accommodated; with number of trains per ventilation system section being the current limiting factor.

The single line between Central and T4 was perfectly adequate back in 1998 when it was only HEx using the line.

You could theoretically bore another tunnel to make the T4 branch “double track”; and I’m fairly sure the design of the station box at Central was such that new lines could be plumbed into it with relative ease (I don’t recall carving in the Up Terminal 5 to the CTA box back in 2007ish required any more than a bank holiday weekend partial shut down) - the barriers are going to be around cost and cost-to-benefit. A new tunnel would be incredibly expensive; and there’s a couple of other tunnelling projects already on Heathrow Airport’s wishlist which I’m sure they’d be building if they had that kind of money. And even if Heathrow could afford it, then they’re still going to be at capacity ceiling for ventilation sections between Central and the Tunnel portals. At least with Heathrow’s pet projects of Western Access and Airtrack; they’re proposing extending existing traffic through the new infrastructure West/South from Terminal 5; not adding more trains onto the Central - Portal section. There’s also the not insignificant matter of how long-term Terminal 4’s future really is? Had the Heathrow East project been further along, and perhaps the pandemic lasted slightly longer; there’s a very real chance it may have never reopened.

 

[Purple Train]

The original infrastructure was built with only the 4tph HEx to T4 (remember the T5 branch is 10 years newer) in mind; even the Heathrow Connect services from 2005 were an afterthought. The 10tph using the Airport system as a whole as it is now is absolutely on the limit of what can be accommodated; with number of trains per ventilation system section being the current limiting factor.

The single line between Central and T4 was perfectly adequate back in 1998 when it was only HEx using the line.

You could theoretically bore another tunnel to make the T4 branch “double track”; and I’m fairly sure the design of the station box at Central was such that new lines could be plumbed into it with relative ease (I don’t recall carving in the Up Terminal 5 to the CTA box back in 2007ish required any more than a bank holiday weekend partial shut down) - the barriers are going to be around cost and cost-to-benefit. A new tunnel would be incredibly expensive; and there’s a couple of other tunnelling projects already on Heathrow Airport’s wishlist which I’m sure they’d be building if they had that kind of money. And even if Heathrow could afford it, then they’re still going to be at capacity ceiling for ventilation sections between Central and the Tunnel portals. At least with Heathrow’s pet projects of Western Access and Airtrack; they’re proposing extending existing traffic through the new infrastructure West/South from Terminal 5; not adding more trains onto the Central - Portal section. There’s also the not insignificant matter of how long-term Terminal 4’s future really is? Had the Heathrow East project been further along, and perhaps the pandemic lasted slightly longer; there’s a very real chance it may have never reopened.

Public transport to and from Terminal 4 is also, of course, augmented by the Piccadilly Line. It's a while since I explored the Underground down that way; what's capacity like on that stretch?

 

[JN114]

Heathrow Stations are staffed by Heathrow Airport, but the info system isn’t controlled by the Airport; it’s just another node on GWR’s CIS “controlled” from the info desk in Swindon Control.

I suspect either:

1) The info controller in Swindon was made aware of the platform change far enough in advance (directly from the signaller or happened to be looking at the signalling maps or similar) to effect a manual alteration into the system; which triggered the first auto announcements or

2) Enough information was fed down from the signalling system to convince the system that a platform change was going to occur; and the system triggered completely automatically. It can do this in some circumstances but I don’t recall off hand if on the Heathrow branch is one of them.

In neither situation; none of the staff at the station, or in Heathrow’s rail control room that supervise those staff are in the loop. There are no maps for the platform staff to see; and an Up train off platform 1 is quite rare, I suspect incorrect platform numbers being auto-announced is genuinely the more common scenario. Meanwhile Heathrow Control can’t hear the platform staff manually contradicting the automatic announcements even when they see on their maps an Up Train is coming into 1. And control don’t ordinarily need to explicitly tell the platform staff of an alteration if they do see it because the platform staff should pick it up from the auto announcements… and the feedback loop continues.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 24 Sep 2024 ==

Public transport to and from Terminal 4 is also, of course, augmented by the Piccadilly Line. It's a while since I explored the Underground down that way; what's capacity like on that stretch?

I’m not 100% sure; but I’m fairly sure the train service on the Heathrow arm of the Piccadilly line as a whole is largely as it has been since Terminal 4 opened - the only real difference being that when T5 opened in 2008 a proportion of the trains were diverted at Hatton Cross to CTA than T5; rather than the previous setup of all trains running via the T4 loop (save a couple of rusty rail trains per day).

EDIT:- Yes I’ve just looked it up

Pre-2008 it was, very consistently 12tph to Heathrow all via Terminal 4

Post-2008 it’s a 6/6 split between Terminal 4 and Terminal 5 trains.

 

[Purple Train]

I’m not 100% sure; but I’m fairly sure the train service on the Heathrow arm of the Piccadilly line as a whole is largely as it has been since Terminal 4 opened - the only real difference being that when T5 opened in 2008 a proportion of the trains were diverted at Hatton Cross to CTA than T5; rather than the previous setup of all trains running via the T4 loop (save a couple of rusty rail trains per day).

EDIT:- Yes I’ve just looked it up

Pre-2008 it was, very consistently 12tph to Heathrow all via Terminal 4

Post-2008 it’s a 6/6 split between Terminal 4 and Terminal 5 trains.

Thank you!

 

[Newtraveller58]

- the only "connection" that might have been missed on the way into Paddington was a -1-minute connection onto a Maidenhead train at Hayes & Harlington, and planning a journey around a -1-minute connection is unwise!

Is the connectional issue here not people from T5 who want an Elizabeth Line train rather than being stuck on the HEx train to Paddington.

 

[Horizon22]

Is the connectional issue here not people from T5 who want an Elizabeth Line train rather than being stuck on the HEx train to Paddington.

I don't think so as the HEX train was fairly late and would have just delayed the Elizabeth line service even more.

It's frustrating but they'd have to wait at CTA - this sort of thing happens every day though just more acute at night.

 

[jayah]

The Heathrow station announcements are almost unbearable. Staff screaming down the microphone, hard to understand or decipher with little information being provided to passengers over and above the automated announcements.

I don’t understand why these staff are instructed to do such a thing. It’s the same in the Elizabeth line core during peak - staff shouting out every single station a service is calling at despite the automatic announcements providing the same information in a clear and calm manner

Someone thought it would be a good idea to give them all headset microphones and many fancy themselves as 'personalities'.

 

[Johnny Lewis]

One thing that amuses me at Heathrow Central station is, when Digital Doris (Atos Anne) is actually allowed to get her two penn'orth in, she tells passengers catching Elizabeth line services "please move down inside the carriages and use the luggage stacks available, keeping the aisles and doorways free of luggage" (or words to that effect). A completely pointless announcement, as Class 345s don't have ANY luggage stacks at all. (I don't think she's permitted to speak about trains heading into central London, because, as we have ascertained from this thread, the station staff prefer to drown out all other announcements with their incessant shouting).

 

[trebor79]

The Heathrow station announcements are almost unbearable. Staff screaming down the microphone, hard to understand or decipher with little information being provided to passengers over and above the automated announcements.

I don’t understand why these staff are instructed to do such a thing. It’s the same in the Elizabeth line core during peak - staff shouting out every single station a service is calling at despite the automatic announcements providing the same information in a clear and calm manner

Agreed. I travelled through Heathrow a couple of weeks ago and was stuck by the very shrill, loud announcer. It didn't help that she had an incredibly annoying voice either. Completely superfluous shouted announcements for the entirety of the time the train was in the platform. To the extent that when the doors shut someone said "thank god for that" and there was a bit of laughter.

 

[paulmch]

I'm usually quite sceptical of RUK perceived wisdom so I was interested to see how things would turn out when I travelled through Heathrow last week. My goodness, it's terrible! There was some bloke screaming down the PA so loud that you couldn't hear anything he was saying except for some comedic interpretation of "Abbey Wooooooooooood", which was neither entertaining nor helpful. Having just arrived from Vienna where everything ran very pleasantly it was quite a jarring experience.

 

[168lover]

I used to work at Heathrow on the station platforms and gate lines. Those announcements are mandatory from Heathrow that we had to do every single time a train arrived or departed, yes we didn't like it either. I was employed directly by the airport, like the rest of the station staff. Onboard and in terminal sales people are employed by HEX and the HEX drivers are employed by GWR. Meant sometimes information about changes were rather difficult to get through to passengers as we knew as much as they did