Transformative Link to Heathrow and London?

A recent interview on the Podcast Calling All Stations hosted by the transport journalist Christian Wolmar had an update on the latest from one of the organisations developing proposals to link the rail system to the south of Heathrow to the Heathrow Terminal Area.   Steve Costello of Heathrow Southern Railway Ltd confirmed that the organisation was still actively promoting the case for its development and refining the scheme. 

The scheme could have a major impact on Guildford as it opens up via the proposed Guildford-Woking -Heathrow-Paddington a large number of new travel patterns into Soth West of London and also via Old Oak Common links to HS/2 to the north.

Current thinking on the route appears to put more of the link into tunnel with the line joining the South Western Rail Network just north of Staines Station and continuing further south to join the Waterloo to Woking main line.

Heathrow Southern Railway, who are backed by AECOM, believe the project makes sense with Heathrow at its current capacity with surveys indicating for example 20% of the M25 traffic in the South West Quarter is Heathrow related.

Service Pattern

The company is now proposing a service pattern of:

1. Two Trains per Hour from Guildford and Basingstoke with these four services all terminating at Paddington having taken over the current Heathrow Express paths on the Great Western Main Line.
2. Waterloo would serve Heathrow via the Staines Connection and these services, if a western chord is built on the Great West Main Line at Airport Junction, could be extended to Maidenhead/Reading. 
3. Elizabeth Line services to Terminal 5 would be extended to Staines, this strongly supported by TFL.

Transport Links – Government Attitude

The Government in its strategic vison for London Transport Links states that any surface access strategy must:

1. Make public transport the first choice – credible, accessible, integrated rail and bus links so most passengers and staff choose them over cars.
2. Minimise road network impact – reduce congestion and disruption via mode shift and traffic management.
3. Prioritise environmental sustainability – cut emissions and air quality impacts through sustainable modes and zero‑emission vehicles, aligning with UK Net Zero goals.

The government is thus expecting any Heathrow expansion to have a strategy to set out how rail services would:

• Enable through-running via Heathrow, reducing the need for interchange in central London.  The government states that these should support direct and through-running services from the west and/or south where appropriate. Importantly, as stated in the draft Heathrow Expansion NPS, the government is not requiring surface access schemes to be brought forward as part of the expansion Development Consent Order (DCO) itself; rather, it requires there to be a credible plan for new rail links to be delivered ahead of airport capacity reaching 130 million or more passengers per annum;
• Improve coverage for passenger and staff catchments currently poorly served by direct rail links; and
• Provide sufficient capacity and resilience to accommodate phased growth.