Heathrow Terminal 5 Opening/Service Changes

[whole diary]

[Lee]

I Work For FGW^▸ (First Great Western) blog post link on the opening of Terminal 5 and associated service changes.
http://www.iworkforfgw.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=71&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

Heathrow Terminal 5
Now that Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport has opened (this morning with 04:50 arrival from Hong Kong) changes will occur to the Heathrow Trains from London Paddington

Heathrow Connect
The Heathrow Connect will be extended to additionally serve Heathrow Terminal 4.

Heathrow Express
The Heathrow Express will no longer call at Heathrow Terminal 4 but instead will be going to Heathrow Terminal 5.

Background I Work For FGW blog post link.
http://www.iworkforfgw.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=58&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

Coach services from Oxford-Heathrow are also changing (link below.)
http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=1680.msg11292#msg11292

[swlines]

Trains have actually been doing this since Tuesday - for crew training moves prior to the terminal opening.

[Lee]

British Airways was forced to suspend all baggage check-in at the flagship ^4.3 billion facility yesterday following a series of problems wrecked what should have been a landmark day at the west London airport (links below.)
http://www.oxfordmail.net/display.var.2153347.0.heathrow_headache_for_local_traveller.php

http://www.savethetrain.org.uk/melkshamrailway/251_Terminal_5_a_portent_for_the_Olympics.html

Travellers were left with the option of cancelling or rebooking their flights or flying with just carry-on hand luggage.

The move completed an utterly miserable few hours for many passengers, for BA^» (British Airways - about) and for BAA, the airport operator, with BA having to cancel 34 flights.

Many passengers were left stranded overnight with some finding hotels, but others forced to sleep on benches of the terminal floor.

[Ollie]

Trains have actually been doing this since Tuesday - for crew training moves prior to the terminal opening.

Right you are. But I decided I'd actually time the blog entry for when it is complete relevant to Terminal 5 opening.

[eightf48544]

If the Quail track plans are to believed there is a bottle neck between the Terminal 1 -3 station and the junction of the Terminal 4 and 5 lines. i.e. Every train in both directions has to pass over this single piece of track!  I've just checked and it's even worse than a single line junction  it appears all traffic passes over a double slip. For those not in the know a double slip is basically two points overlaying each other so there are 4 routes in each direction. This means that the moving blades will have to change for each movement. double slips are notoriuosly difficult to keep in alingement which is why they normally confined to sidings or lightly used tracks. This must be the only double slip in the country which takes the whole traffic flow i.e 12 tph. Hopefully somebody will say Quail is wrong.

If it is a double slip  it is not going to improve timekeeping.

The only thing with the  Heathrow connect going to T4 means is that they no longer have to use that retractable post buffer at Terminal 1-3 station to stop the train running back when changing direction in the platform. This has caused problems in the past.

[BBM]

I've just checked and it's even worse than a single line junction  it appears all traffic passes over a double slip.

That's correct as I understand it. A normal double slip would allow parallel movements for two trains not using the crossover part of it. What I mean is that if this was a normal layout an up HEX from T5 could pass at the same time as a down Connect going to T4. However because the two 'through' tracks are curved towards each other there is not enough clearance to allow two parallel movements without conflict. Therefore only one train at a time can use this double slip for any movement.

[eightf48544]

Perhaps we should start a sweep on how long it is before the doulbe slip fails!