New premium Heathrow rail link by Elizabeth line (Crossrail) will cost more than Tube but less than Heathrow Express
Transport chiefs have confirmed travellers on the new Crossrail line to Heathrow will pay a premium – but that the fare will be less than half the standard Heathrow Express rate. A peak Crossrail fare from central London to the airport will be £12.10. That is £7 more than the Underground, but a big saving on the £27 standard fare on board Heathrow Express. Passengers travelling from London zone 2 on Crossrail will pay £9.60 single. Heathrow Express currently also offers online single fares of £22 off-peak and £25 peak. Crossrail, which will be officially known as the Elizabeth Line, will take 10 minutes longer than the Heathrow Express’s 15-minute journey – but roughly half the travel time on the Tube from central London. Crossrail services will run to Paddington Station, which the Heathrow Express serves, and will replace the existing Heathrow Connect trains that currently offer a stopping service to the airport from Paddington, from May 2018. Crossrail will open fully in December, linking Reading in the west with Shenfield in Essex and Abbey Wood in Kent. The No 3rd Runway Coalition commented that this is a money grabbing exercise by Heathrow, who own the tunnels which the Elizabeth line will use, to the benefit of its shareholders – and dis-benefit of local people
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New premium Heathrow rail link will be cheaper than Express service
Transport chiefs have confirmed travellers on the new Crossrail line to Heathrow will pay a premium – but that the fare will be less than half the standard Heathrow Express rate.
16.3.2018 (TTG Media)
A peak Crossrail fare from central London to the airport will be £12.10, £7 more than the Underground, but a big saving on the £27 standard buy on board Heathrow Express rate. Passengers travelling from London zone 2 on Crossrail will pay £9.60 single. Heathrow Express currently also offers online single fares of £22 off-peak and £25 peak.
Crossrail, which will be officially known as the Elizabeth Line, will take 10 minutes longer than the Heathrow Express’s 15-minute journey but roughly half the travel time on the tube from central London.
Crossrail services will run to Paddington Station, which the Heathrow Express serves. Crossrail will replace the existing Heathrow Connect trains that currently offer a stopping service to the airport from Paddington.
Heathrow Express director Fraser Brown said the train would “continue to be the fastest route”.
He added: “The Elizabeth Line will replace the Heathrow Connect stopping service in May while Heathrow Express will continue to offer air passengers designated luggage space, spacious seating, the option to upgrade to Business First, complimentary wi-fi throughout the journey, power points and BBC News bulletins to keep customers up to date.
“In addition, customers can choose to either turn-up-and-go with Heathrow Express or book great value online fares from £5.50 in advance, while children aged 15 and under travel for free.”
Crossrail will open fully in December, linking Reading in the west with Shenfield in Essex and Abbey Wood in Kent via two new tunnels under central London. Another benefit is that it will speed World Travel Market delegates direct from Heathrow to the ExCel centre in London’s Docklands in about 45 minutes.
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See earlier:
Crossrail (Elizabeth Line) has problems and may go over-budget, not helped by Heathrow only paying £70m (not £230m)
The management of Crossrail have issued a major alert that the £14.8 billion line (the Elizabeth Line) might not open on time and is at risk of blowing its budget. London Mayor Sadiq Khan said problems with software on new trains and an electrical explosion in east London, when engineers tried to switch on the high-voltage power, have caused “real, serious challenges.” Stations such as Bond Street, Paddington, Liverpool Street, Woolwich and Whitechapel — where there have been major construction problems — are behind schedule. Crossrail chairman Sir Terry Morgan admitted the line was “very close” to exceeding its budget. Costs are increasing rapidly in the rush to try and open on time. The line will link Reading and Heathrow with Shenfield and Abbey Wood once fully opened by the end of 2019. The central section of the line, between Paddington and Abbey Wood is due to open in December 2018. Heathrow was initially asked to contribute £230 million. But it managed to argue that it would only derive small additional benefit as it was “full”. (In reality, Heathrow has a lot of extra terminal capacity and its number of passengers rises annually, even with no 3rd runway. Heathrow had 75.7m passengers in 2017 compared to 72.3m in 2013.) So the taxpayer is having to shoulder the financial costs, which Heathrow should have paid.
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See earlier:
Heathrow and Crossrail in legal dispute over how much TfL would have to pay to use 5 miles of track
Crossrail (the Elizabeth line) is a £15 billion train line designed to cross London from west to east, bringing relief for commuters, but it seems it may not now stop at Heathrow because of a legal row with the airport’s owners over fees. Heathrow has its lucrative Heathrow Express service runs partly on a 5-mile stretch of track, built and paid for (over £1 billion) by the airport. The Crossrail link into Heathrow would run on this section of track. It is an expensive (£25 per ticket) route, and Heathrow’s foreign owners want to recoup past spending on the private train line with an “investment recovery charge” of £570 for every train that uses the track, plus extra fees of about £107 per train. But the Elizabeth line, by contrast, will be in line with the fares that apply across the rest of the capital’s transport network. The opening of the new Crossrail service to Terminals 1, 2, 3 and 4 is expected to throw the financial sustainability of the existing Heathrow Express into question, though Heathrow insists it would continue to run alongside the Elizabeth Line. Heathrow’s owners are now in dispute with the Office of Rail and Road, which sets track access charges, over the amount that TfL, which runs the Elizabeth Line, will need to pay to use the track. The hearings were held earlier this year and a High Court judgment is expected within weeks.
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Taxpayers to cover Heathrow’s £160 million contribution to Crossrail – CAA claims Heathrow doesn’t need more passengers coming by rail
Plans for the £14.8 billion Crossrail line across London originally envisaged – in 2008 – a £230 million contribution from Heathrow, to reflect the benefit it is expected to gain from the link to central London, Maidenhead, and Brentwood. But now it emerges that the taxpayer must cover a £160 million shortfall, which Heathrow will now not pay. Now Heathrow will only pay £70 million. [Heathrow is pushing hard for a 3rd runway – surely if it got that, it would need all the rail passengers from Crossrail that it can get]. The CAA has said that with the airport already running at or near capacity, (it is not at capacity for terminal space, only runway space) Crossrail would deliver no net benefit in terms of additional passengers. After the CAA set aside a provisional pot of £100 million to pay towards Crossrail, the DfT lowered its proposal to £137 million, and now down to £70 million. The National Audit Office said the shortfall means that the DfT’s contribution to the project will rise from £4.8 billion to almost £5 billion; but this remains inside the £5.2 billion set aside in case it failed to secure sufficient funding from private sources. Crossrail is now half built and is due to open by December 2019. It will run from Maidenhead, via Heathrow, out to Abbey Wood and Shenfield in the east.
https://www.airportwatch.org.uk/2014/01/19584/
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