The thumbnail of an old slam door train had me reaching for my inhaler. I used to commute on them in the late 80's and always wondered why I got home feeling wheezy. It wasn't until years later I discovered the seats were stuffed with horsehair and as someone allergic to horses this probably wasn't the best thing to sit on for 50 minutes every evening.
Far more comfortable and less sweaty than modern foam. Underground seats were also horsehair but supply would be a problem today with the lack of longer haired horses around. It is cheaper to maintain as doesn't need replacing when becomes compacted like foam, just remove, wash, fluff up and put back. Maybe a new market for all that hair on hairdressers floors.
Jago how about something on the public helicopter between Gatwick and Heathrow? I seem to recall that it failed as the CAA insisted it used runway "slots" at Heathrow. But not at Gatwick, if memory serves me correctly. Plus the residents of Esher complained....
I remember being desperate to do a flight on that helicopter! But if I recall correctly, a one way flight was £15 if you weren't connecting between flights. My dad refused to fork out the cash, saying that it was too expensive. But I later found that he was just terrified at the thought of flying on a helicopter! 😄
Interesting to note that there is a 10th span of the Grosvenor River Bridge into Victoria which has never been used that was allegedly built as provision for the Heathrow line
As a plane-spotting child, I used to enjoy the great adventure of catching the 37 bus from Clapham Junction to Hounslow Bus Garage, where I (or sometimes "we", depending on whether I could persuade any mates to join me) would catch the 111 to the airport. There was nothing better than tucking into some Marmite sandwiches on the roof of the Queen's Building whilst inhaling lungfulls of jet fuel fumes as jets screamed all around you. It does seem incredulous though that I was able to do this between the ages of about 9 and 13 without being accompanied by an adult!
@@jonharbour9166 Or the A1 Express Bus from Hounslow West. I didn't use it because I think it wasn't covered by Red Rover tickets and had more expensive fares than the 82.
I did the Green Line 727 bus from Crawley to Heathrow, for much the same reason as you, back in the mid 70s, aged about 13 upto 16..Would a kid be allowed to do something like that now?
The tube is a dreadful means of getting to Heathrow, with no luggage space. I lived in Croydon for 4 years (I survived the experience) and much preferred using Gatwick than Heathrow because a proper train was used, with luggage space. The new Heathrow Express is essentially a commuter train, with little luggage space for large suitcases. The _HE_ website suggests: "Leave your luggage in the ample racks near the doors" with a picture of a tiny rack, with a tiny lightweight case being lifted onto it. What a p155-take. I want to be able to keep my bags where I can see them, and close to me. I used to travel HuntingdonLeeds quite a bit in the '70s, and when HST came in the Mk3 coaches were perfect for the traveller - with luggage space between seats and overhead racks deep enough to take my 65l rucksack. The modern coaches on the west coast line, which I use every few weeks, is dreadful if you have cases. Modern trains revolve around commuters, not travellers, and it is mainly travellers who are going to the airport.
I travelled to Dublin in 1967, we checked in at the West London Air Terminal, our luggage was put in a special trailer attached to a special type of Routemaster Bus with a big engine and high speed axle, and we travelled at high speed to London Airport, (not known as Heathrow then), and were transferred, along with our cases, onto a BEA Vickers Vanguard, (four engine turbo prop, fantastic aeroplane, like the Viscount that preceded it, what a sound), and landed at Dublin.
Vanguards and Viscounts used to fly over my house daily back then. Being 6 miles from Gatwick and under the flightpath meant I became interested in planes ! The sound of those props overhead was brilliant.
@@nigelarmstrong252 Yes, great sounds. Rolls Royce Dart on the Viscount and I think Tyne on the Vanguard. Viscounts lasted until the 'nineties out of Southend, and some Vanguards carried on after being converted to cargo 'planes and renamed the Merchantman.
I worked at WLAT from 78 to 80. I don't recall much other than the two old buskers at Gloucester Rd tube station (one with a banjo) and the BA staff social club where we had a drink (or two) most lunchtimes. It's now an unremarkable Sainsbury's.
Another interesting video. Prior to the rail connections, for a while, I think there was a fleet of Routemaster buses painted silver and had luggage trailers. These were used to convey air passengers from central London to Heathrow - a curious way to start a journey by air.
I remember the West London Air Terminal with its branded buses with a little luggage trailer on the back. But when you say they were painted silver, are you getting them confused with the ordinary Routemaster buses that were painted silver for the Queen's silver jubilee in 1977?
A line to Feltham and Victoria makes so much sense in terms of the amount of additional track needed. It would also provide an automatic link to the Gatwick Express. In the fullness of time no doubt an inter-airport shuttle could be run. So of course it was decided to build a line for passengers with luggage that uses the smallest loading gauge and doesn't link up to any other airport.
Sadly the decision to build the Heathrow Extension to the tube loading gauge rather than the SSL was made in a spirit of penny-pinching in an era of rapidly-increasing costs...I seem to remember an LT high-up at the time saying it was a short-sighted decision he regretted,but otherwise the financial plug would have been pulled....
@@nickbarber2080 I would argue that the failure to build the Heathrow Extension to Sub-Surface Standards was more costly in the long-term. Especially when it ultimately meant that the Heathrow Express & Elizabeth Line had to be built later down the line. Just goes to show the dangers of under-investing in Transport Infrastructure.
@@nickbarber2080 Shows how poor they were back in those days of presenting cost benifits. Build a tiny railway or a full size railway that ultmately carried more people so fewer trains and staff were needed. Full size trains running round the north or south side of the Circle Line would have been much more useful. I suppose reinstating the disused junction at Hammersmith would have been out of the question by then. How much better would a full size Victoria line be than a tube line?
@@kevinrayner5812 Had they built the Victoria Line to accommodate Full-Sized Trains, it would have been possible to extend the line to additional places in South London such as Herne Hill. Instead we will have to build Crossrail 2 to deal with increased demand.
Thank you for pointing out that air travel used to be expensive! People love to post pictures from the olden days, showing how great flying used to be and how well air passengers dressed. Sure. But that was before airlines were created whose explicit goal it is to make flying affordable for everyone. Even to those with limited financial means. And due to this competition, the legacy airlines (such as BA) had to respond likewise.
I am surprised that you did not mention the Staines and West Drayton Railway. Even though the tracks have been lifted, most of the alignment survives and it runs almost right up the back of the Airport. There have been proposals to re-open this route as a link to the Airport from the south. Maybe this would have been used in the Victoria to London Airport proposal.
Having used the Heathrow Piccadilly line and then District line to Victoria, and thence to Sussex , with 2 large 23kg bags and a cabin bag, I have to say that the Piccadilly trains are woefully inadequate, even on a 6am departure..The District line trains have a little more space, but I suppose that the Elizabeth line trains are the way to go now..(when iI did LHR-Victoria last, the purple trains were not yet operational).. Comparing it to other cities, specifically Amsterdam or Paris, the RER trains from CDG are not much better, but the trains from Schipol into Amsterdam are much practical...I am amazed at the plethora of government committees over the years, its a wonder anything happened at all! Keep em coming, Jago! are you sure you dont want to be Minister of Transport?
The A1 non stop bus continued from Hounslow West even after the line's extension to Hatton Cross opened in 1975. It was finally withdrawn in late 1977, when the further extension into the airport opened.
One of the reasons it never took off (SWIDT?) is the large number of Level Crossings on the "Windsor Lines" between Clapham Junction and Feltham. An extra 4-6 trains per hour in each direction would mean the barriers would only be open to road traffic at those crossings for a few minutes in total each hour. Now like any train nerd, I always hope the barriers will come down in front of me if driving over a level crossing... but if it happens every 2-3 minutes the novelty might wear off!
For the future their is also the "Heathrow Southern Railway" project, which is the latest idea to make use of the rail platform space that was built into T5 when it was constructive. So a lot of long term planning was put into the design of T5, but not a lot has happened since.
Remember I teased that I had a sort of a personal connection to the Piccadilly Line link to Heathrow? It's actually more a... missed connection. Here's the story... the story of how a suitcase saved the lives of myself and my mother. It was the year after my 18th birthday. My mother was an attorney (we're Yanks, so it's just "attorney", we don't do the separate barrister/solicitor thing you Brits do) and making... reasonably good money, comparatively speaking (nothing like you'd see on the telly, mind, but it spends nonetheless). Enough so that we could afford to travel internationally for about two weeks, about twice a year or so. This was our second international trip. The first had been to London, sometime in early 2004, and the second in mid-2004, around certain nearby parts of the UK. This was a... somewhat expanded version of that second trip, going to Brighton and a few other spots in Britain proper, up into Edinburgh, and then off into Continental Europe, where we went on a bus tour of southern Italy and spent some time in Paris as well, as I recall, before returning to London on our way back home. Well, to make a long story short, we had already sent home two very large cardboard boxes of souvenirs at... quite considerable expense, especially considering that the exchange rate was almost two USD to a Pound Sterling, at the time (it was actually about $1.80-1.85 to £1 depending on the day, but we were not mathematicians and so just mentally doubled the cost of everything). For the record, true to form, UPS not only charged us a genuinely exorbitant sum for the effort, but smashed everything to bits -- and indignantly refused to cover the damages. But, that's beside the point... we actually had _such_ an out-of-control trinket collection habit, that even after all of that, we still wound up literally buying a spare suitcase off a London street vendor simply to house all the stuff we couldn't fit into the rather prodigiously American sized luggage we'd brought with us already. We were to fly out of London at Heathrow, of course (otherwise, this story being here would make precious little sense, if any), at somewhere around 10am. Mind you, I am autistic (Asperger's), and I also do NOT suffer mornings well at all. So, it was a bright and early Thursday morning in July, likely just about half past 8am, and I was utterly miserable, and I was not in the least bit shy about making sure the entire lobby of our hotel knew that as my mother tried to both shut me up and check us out of the place, at which she was far more effective (predictably) at the latter, than the former. I don't remember exactly why, but we were held up waiting for... something, and between me channeling my inner pester superpowers like Nermal from _Garfield_ in the Sunday Funnies, and the kind and gentle auditory ministrations of the hotel concierge (who no doubt simply wanted my fat American terror self out of his lobby absolutely as fast as humanly possible, and could someone kindly fetch him a cuppa for his nerves afterwards, please), my mother was eventually persuaded that, instead of hoofing it through the Underground as we'd originally planned, we'd be better off taking one of London's famous Black Cabs. Well, as it were, as we were rushing through Heathrow at breakneck pace (as my mother always insisted), with me desperately trying to catch my breath on a particularly lengthy escalator, Mom pointed to a television feed on a screen just above us. I was somehow more interested in trying to shove oxygen into the near-vacuum that my lungs were currently entertaining, but she was insistent. It was a news feed, and someone had just blown up a double-decker bus... it turns out that, by sheer coincidence, our flight home was on 7 July 2005, the day of the infamous London Tube Bombings. We later worked out that, had we taken the Tube as we'd planned, we'd almost certainly have been in Kings Cross St Pancras just in time to, erm, quite literally have had a blast of it. We would've died in that explosion. For the record... Mom came down with some chronic non-terminal illnesses in the summer and fall of 2007 and is now badly disabled because of them. My autism turned out to be disabling in its own way, and although I graduated college (you'd call it Uni, over there Across the Pond) in 2009, I began drawing what you'd call a disability pension within a year after, having applied not long before being granted it. I'm 38 now, just turned it a few days ago, and I now live some three miles (a bit less than 5km) from Mom, in a tiny apartment (flat) in a tiny town in the Southern United States where there's nothing of importance, nothing to do, and I absolutely hate it (but can't afford better... alas, my heart will forever pine for a flat in London). I still have the suitcase, although it rather sadly hasn't seen much use since. That said, whenever I pass it and I have the opportunity to remember, I stop and give it a smile. After all, it did save our lives once.
I remember the "Gatwick Express" trains that ran from London Bridge, 4VEPx3 with fluorescent gutter banding and Gatwick Express/RapidAir lettering down side of leading coaches and these units were tweaked with more powerful traction motors and either one stop or no stop to and from Gatwick these things would fly and the only trains running out of London Bridge on Xmas day earning staff a cool 5x overtime bonus and BR used to pay a hotel to lay on a banquet Xmas day for staff and their families to have Xmas dinner in London Bridge power box (trust me it wasn't worth the fuss...) but the problem was yes trains ran Xmas day but tubes and buses didn't, taxi's didn't so getting from London Bridge to wherever was just not happening lol Many a hapless arrivee would soon discover there was zero hotels nearby, the nearest was the exorbitant priced one next to Tower of London which was usually full over the holiday or up in the west end so shank's pony it was with luggage to try and find a hotel and getting cornholed for the price chucked in for free...
Imagine if they had built both the branch from Hayes and Harlington **and** from Feltham as one continuous through-running rail service... I'm a bit of a dreamer, me.
Imperial Airways began to tout Fairey's test field at 'Heath Row' in the 1930s as a replacement for Croydon, Heston and Northolt, with longer runways to rival those at Tempelhof and Schiphol. The Great Western offered to build a spur from Hayes into a central terminal area, which would have left the main line sooner than the branch laid years later from Airport Jc. AFAIK this was the first scheme for an LHR rail connection. In the 1970s there was some talk of a triangular junction between Feltham and Ashford (Middlesex) in the Bedfont area, enabling trains from Waterloo to run through the proposed Terminal 4 to the central area, plus services from Staines and points to the south west. But all plans for a southern 'Airtrack' approach to LHR have been stymied by the plethora of level crossings between Richmond and Wandsworth, while using the Hounslow loop would lengthen the journey time. Neither has the chord at Airport Jc which would facilitate trains from Reading and Slough to LHR been installed. The Elizabeth line ignores the existence of the world's busiest international airport.
The Great Western was way ahead of British Railways which always seemed rather lukewarm about planning to serve Heathrow when there was more free space and it would have been easier to do. I suppose the West London Air Terminal didn't help. Having lived in Hampshire and Oxfordshire, the idea of going all the way into Central London, then wiggling over to Gloucester Road, then a bus to the airport, boggles the mind. Railair isn't great, but it's way better than that ... as is driving there directly (or being driven) if you can afford the parking/taxi. But always hankered to westward and southward rail connections.
Classic case of Britain taking the cheapest option instead of doing it properly, forgetting that this is Britain's gateway to the world, although in fairness its cobbling together of multiple bits of inadequate infrastructure is a fair representation of the whole country.
London - By the 1930s it was understood that for an airport to be successful it needed good transport links. Melbourne - Plan for the first airport rail link, taking passengers 20km in the wrong direction to only gain 5km before changing trains, delayed until at least 2033.
I think there used to be a BA Check In desk at Victoria, up the escalator and at the end of what is now Victoria Place (was it then?), near the exit onto Belgrave Road.
Wasn't the one up the escalator the check-in for BCAL? Your luggage was taken on the train to Gatwick for you. You did the same rude then walked straight in through passport control. (Assuming you weren't flying to Glasgow!)
@@mikkoistanbul1322I think you're right, the check-in area that was actually inside Victoria Station used to be for BCAL flights. But after they merged with BA, you could use it to check in for BA flights departing from Gatwick. I used it myself when I was flying with BA from Gatwick to New York back in 1991, but I don't think it was around for much longer after that.
I grew up in Croydon and the Gatwick Express for most of the time of British Rail was an Intercity train, using class 73 locomotives and (I believe) Mk2 carriages with a GLV at the other end. After those trains got long in the tooth they were replaced with EMUs and there were three different classes of EMU in a few years.
Amusing to see the efforts to tart up the slam-door sets shown at the start and also here 2:32 by painting "go faster" stripes on them. A favourite ploy used by some rail administrations to make older trains look "modern and dynamic". Go-faster stripes were also popular on some motor vehicles which in practice could definitely not go faster!
Hahaha, the airport in Perth Western Australia only got a train station a few years ago. Jago could do all of the extant train lines here in one video.
I remember , as a boy, checking in for a flight at what I think was still BOAC or it might have just become BA at their offices within walking distance of Victoria Train Station ( I think the NAO uses the building now).They had a check-in desk just like the airport and no queues (unlike the airport) and afterwards you would sit around and wait for a complimentary coach to drive you through to Heathrow. As some who lived in Beckenham at the time , it was really convenient . I wish they did it today , it was a heck of a lot easier than trecking across to Heathrow using public transport from SE London today.
At one time, BA had a check-in area inside Victoria Station itself that you could use if you were flying from Gatwick. Checked bags were loaded onto the Gatwick Express. I remember using it myself when I was flying with BA from Gatwick to New York back in 1991.
@@andybaker2456 BA briefly introduced a similar service at Paddington in 2001, not too long after the Heathrow Express, which was originally affordable, came into service. Unfortunately the additional security measures that were put into place following 9/11 brought it to an end, which remains a real shame.
Melbourne still doesn’t have a train to the airport, and it’s unlikely to happen in the next century, if the never ending bickering between Melbourne Airport and the State Government is anything to go by…..
It worked quite well. You would check-in your luggage at the Terminal and it would be put on a trailer behind the bus,then the container on the trailer loaded onto the plane. So you didn't have to trail all the way out to the airport with your bags.
I distinctly remember my days of 73 bashing on the Gatwick Expresses that BA & American Airlines allowed passengers to check their luggage in at Victoria station before catching the train.The luggage was carried in the. MLV that formed part of the train
I well remember when the Heefrow express started but was not yet completed we were bussed out to a field where there was a wooden stand built beside a railway track. A posh new train arrived and we were whisked into Paddington in jig time. The trip cost just £5 and I loved it.
The first London Airport opened in 1920 at Croydon. After WW2 it moved to Heathrow where there was more space for the increasing international traffic and jet airliners.
Heathrow was originally a farm and small hamlet. Urban explorers suggest it possible to gain access to the abandoned habitation, until security measures made it impossible. I once worked in an industrial estate too close to the flightpath for comfort.
Hello Jago, (this video reminds me of the Underground poster “Fly the Tube - Take the Piccadilly Line to Heathrow Airport. It’s the only way to fly” that featured 4 aircraft front sections with Tube train bodywork. The poster featured the red circle with the blue bar roundel with white text HEATHROW CENTRAL and a plane silhouette within. There was another poster that features a paper dart made from the UndergrounD map and a green rolling hills landscape with the “Fly the Tube to Heathrow “ text. Yet another poster that I haven’t seen before is “The Heathrow Connection” “Links directly with Terminals 1, 2 and 3.” Nice artwork of front ends of Jumbo and Tube train from 1983, showing people alighting from a Piccadilly line train onto a plane. This poster, promoting the Heathrow extension displays the all red roundel. Best wishes from Oxfordshire.
Enlightening to hear about the old city check-in method of flying. I was in Hong Kong in 1997 and it was how they did things. Very civilised. Put your bag in in the morning, wander around sightseeing then jump on the train for your plane in the afternoon.
"I don't consider Transport Ministers as knowing what they are talking about". Jago, you won't believe it but NSW had a Premier/Transport Minister, a former real estate agent, who did know what he was talking about. Alas, he lost his job in 1932 but not before he opened the Sydney Harbour Bridge and created the state's first 'Transport Minister' job as a separate role on the Monday after the Bridge opened. That was 92 years ago. Actually, while the Statute of Westminister Act was past in Dec 1931, Australia didn't ratify it until 1939 with war looming. So NSW/Australia was a devolved administration at the time of his premiership. Technically, he did not call himself Transport Minister, so I don't really have an exception to your statement.
I was on the tube today - a rare occurrence these days and thanks to your videos I spotted so much more detail along my journey. Do keep up the good work!
This was rather fascinating. It seems so many transport plan were first envisaged many decades before they came to fruition. I also agree that transport ministers, in fact I'll go further and say politicians in general do not know what they are doing when it comes to transport. They put in policies that benefit them, to the detriment of large portions of the populous.
There was a branch line that broke off between Staines and Wraysbury, which ran to Hayes and Harlington. I always thought it could have served the Airport too since it ran right by it. I believe they closed it in the 70s. There's no tracks now, but you can walk where the track was. It's all Green belt.
Hahaha! And you think you've suffered! 🤣 DownUnder in Melbourne, we have our International Airport in Tullamarine... Despite Ronnie Biggs actually working on it, it opened in 1970. Do you think a rail line was included? Of course not. Give 'em a "Freeway" (motorway) instead. A monopoly private bus service is doing very nicely in the meantime, thank you... 2024 and finally the brawl is concluding over the prospect of a rail link being underground or overground: anything to stop either from the Privately Owned "Airport Authority". They make Millions (and I mean Millions) of dollars from the car parking monopoly they operate... Stop whinging, Poms! 😂
That Vickers Viscount! Great plane. In the '80s Richard Brandson's Virgin Airways opened a feedline between Gatwick and Maastricht Airport, just 5km from my home. Initially Virgin used the very loud Bac 1-11, but after a short while changed to the Viscount. Unfortunately I never flew with the Viscount, nor with the Bac 1-11 I used the fast train link from central London to Heathrow. Faster than the tube anyway.
Flew from Heathrow for the first time (intentionally, at least) last year. We went via the Heathrow Express (without realising we had booked on it!) and came back on the Elizabeth Line. The Express was OK, but horribly expensive. The EL was much cheaper and surprisingly comfortable and fast. So ,for my money, I don't really see the point of the Express. Much the same with Gatwick. I wonder how many of the passengers arriving at Gatwick would bother with the Express if they knew how good the non-express service is - and how much cheaper it is?!
I've done Heathrow to Croydon in as little as 70 mins, Admittedly it was late night and all the connections fit perfectly timewise (Tube to Hatton X, bus 90/285/490 to Feltham, - South western railway to Clapham and then Southern to East Croydon.) National Rail suggests taking Elizabeth line to Farringdon and then Thameslink. Whilst this is the most convenient route, especially if you have lots of luggage, it takes longer, sometimes much longer if there are cancellations.
"Let's have an Underground line to Heathrow" "No let's have an express rail link instead" "OK I give up - you can have both" said no Government spokesperson ever !! 😎
Given that the Heathrow Express solution looked nothing like the BR proposal, then I'm a bit puzzled about the conclusion that everybody was right, even if it was tongue in cheek.
I've never understood why they didn't extend the South West train routes to Heathrow. In the process they could have linked Gatwick through Guildford and Woking and Southampton Eastleigh, Farnborough and Exeter airports on direct routes to Heathrow
Any News on the Western rail connection for Heathrow - which should connect Heathrow to Slough, Maidenhead, Twyford and Reading (using Elizabeth Line possibly) - seemed to be close to starting construction but then nothing
All the various schemes to link Heathrow with the SW BR lines have...apart from their own individual weaknesses...hit a major stumbling-point which is the 2-track section between Barnes and Richmond with its multiple (busy) level crossings. The scheme you discuss...a new one on me,for which thanks...would have settled this issue presumably by being on a viaduct above the existing line? The cost would have been huge but no more so than the various other schemes proposed to address the bottleneck....on balance it might have been better had it been built...
B.E.A was the lead orderer of the Hawker Siddeley Trident. A trijet that was far better than the, later, Boeing 727, but B.E.A made micro demands that made the Trident unsellable to most of the world. So British European Airways screwed both British trains to Heathrow, and the British aircraft industry.
Wish that Heathrow Express would have kept the Class 332 or inherited the Class 379 Electrostar from Greater Anglia. Or if Heathrow Express were to order new trains such as Alstom Aventra.
I think it would be great if the Elizabeth Line were extended from Terminal 4 to Feltham and ran as far as Clapham Junction (and possibly thence to Waterloo, Victoria or even via the Overground route) to make better connections from South London to Heathrow
I remember checking in at both the British Airways and British Caledonia desks based in Victoria then getting a train to Gatwick in the 80s. I think TWA was in Kensington. But yes that huge BA building behind Victoria station was there until the late 80s if I recall? What memories😊
I think it’s kinda poetic that the Elizabeth line now acts as a hybrid between the Heathrow Express (faster mainline service) and Piccadilly (through service under the city)
I was only vaguely aware of Heathrow shuttle buses from diecast toys of the real thing, and vestiges of the old booking in facilities in the 1970s. Impossible to imagine modern traffic levels permitting such a timetable.
many years ago I lived not that far from one of the London air terminals the sight of those double decker buses (horrible shade of blue) with a box trailer for the luggage of course that was in the days of BEA and BOAC before thry became British Airways
@highpath4776 yes back then those buses always looked 'dirty' to me, thus air terminal was IIRC the West London terminal and I'm pretty sure their multi story car park had a spiral ramp which was made famous, or infamous for Simon Dee the one time TV chat show host driving his white E type Jag down it in the opening credits of his show
As a Feltham lad, that's Felt-ham, not Felth-am to the uninitiated, the link from the Windsor line seemed so sensible. The line is so close to the south side of the airport it seemed a no-brianer, especially as Feltham Marshalling Yard was becoming vacant so would have been useful as a depot or maybe some kind of hub connecting to the proposed London Orbital Ringway 3 road.
I live south of the Thames. When the Liz line isn't running, it's often faster (than the Piccadilly Line) for me to take a bus to Clapham Junction, train to Feltham, and bus to Hatton Cross. I always thought it that would be a great option for Crossrail 2 for a train to run from Waterloo along to Feltham and then north to Heathrow.
I don't think that the Piccadilly Line is particularly slow unless you are staying near Paddington as you have to factor in getting an Underground train to Paddington, getting off and walking to the Heathrow Express platform,etc while with the Piccadilly you might well already be on it all the way.
I had the joy of spending 2 nights last week in a Hounslow hotel. Hounslow West was the nearest Tube station (with a short hop on the 222 or H98). Why is the entrance to Hounslow West so far from the platforms with that metal tunnel connecting them? Was there ever a plan to build over the top of the car park or did such a building exist at some point?
have you ever made a video on the Heathrow Express tunnel collapse , using the "austrian tunnelling method", that almost took out the existing piccadillly line extension ? I assume you must be very well aware of it, with the amount of research you do !
Enjoyed the history lesson .despite living in West Midlands as from today I officially retired from job.as younger brother as visited his London headquarters once month planning joined him see more than tourist spots.could you recommend i ticket can use, hastle add got concessionary bus pass.l like using underground when visited capital .looking forward your help.thanks😊
With the old central London terminal system, did it mean that people coming from, say, Slough, would have to trek into central London to check in, and then back out most of the way to actually catch their flight?
Ah, subtitles... you've realised that Heathrow is not spelled Heo but instead you have decided that Hounslow is spelled Houndo or Hsow. I hope you never change being so random, as it's as much a delight seeing what you come up with as the videos you caption.
I've never understood why there aren't trains from regional centres that arrive at airports _airside._ A lot of the formalities and security processes could be performed on the train itself, which can provide a nice controlled environment. You'd get the duration of the outbound train trip for free, and they could build airports where they have the space, anywhere within (using modern trains, and with modern check in times) several hundred miles of the cities served.
The thumbnail of an old slam door train had me reaching for my inhaler. I used to commute on them in the late 80's and always wondered why I got home feeling wheezy. It wasn't until years later I discovered the seats were stuffed with horsehair and as someone allergic to horses this probably wasn't the best thing to sit on for 50 minutes every evening.
What doesn't kill you makes you weaker
Horsehair and springs that could launch you into orbit when you went over points!
@@mjowseySame goes for a non-fatal muscle-waiting disease.
Far more comfortable and less sweaty than modern foam. Underground seats were also horsehair but supply would be a problem today with the lack of longer haired horses around. It is cheaper to maintain as doesn't need replacing when becomes compacted like foam, just remove, wash, fluff up and put back. Maybe a new market for all that hair on hairdressers floors.
I don't think they'd have still been using horsehair by the time of the VEPs...
Jago how about something on the public helicopter between Gatwick and Heathrow? I seem to recall that it failed as the CAA insisted it used runway "slots" at Heathrow. But not at Gatwick, if memory serves me correctly. Plus the residents of Esher complained....
I remember being desperate to do a flight on that helicopter! But if I recall correctly, a one way flight was £15 if you weren't connecting between flights. My dad refused to fork out the cash, saying that it was too expensive. But I later found that he was just terrified at the thought of flying on a helicopter! 😄
Wonderful video, very well expressed thanks Jago
Interesting to note that there is a 10th span of the Grosvenor River Bridge into Victoria which has never been used that was allegedly built as provision for the Heathrow line
“I do not consider Transport ministers to know what they are talking about “ 😂 couldn’t agree more
That's why they are appointed! 😅
As a plane-spotting child, I used to enjoy the great adventure of catching the 37 bus from Clapham Junction to Hounslow Bus Garage, where I (or sometimes "we", depending on whether I could persuade any mates to join me) would catch the 111 to the airport. There was nothing better than tucking into some Marmite sandwiches on the roof of the Queen's Building whilst inhaling lungfulls of jet fuel fumes as jets screamed all around you. It does seem incredulous though that I was able to do this between the ages of about 9 and 13 without being accompanied by an adult!
Many things are possible in a homogeneous high trust society.
The 82 was a better choice from Hounslow bus station!
@@sneedchuckington i would say it's more a problem of internalizing 80/90s scaremongering that leads to todays helicopter parents
@@jonharbour9166 Or the A1 Express Bus from Hounslow West. I didn't use it because I think it wasn't covered by Red Rover tickets and had more expensive fares than the 82.
I did the Green Line 727 bus from Crawley to Heathrow, for much the same reason as you, back in the mid 70s, aged about 13 upto 16..Would a kid be allowed to do something like that now?
VOTE JAGO JULY 4TH !!!!!
He’d be a great prime minister
London mayor candidate
Make The Rail System Great Again
@@davidsummer8631 Yeah and quite a bit less expensive fares.
@@jdchsdjhj Imagine what that seditious chancer would do to public transport.
The tube is a dreadful means of getting to Heathrow, with no luggage space. I lived in Croydon for 4 years (I survived the experience) and much preferred using Gatwick than Heathrow because a proper train was used, with luggage space.
The new Heathrow Express is essentially a commuter train, with little luggage space for large suitcases. The _HE_ website suggests: "Leave your luggage in the ample racks near the doors" with a picture of a tiny rack, with a tiny lightweight case being lifted onto it. What a p155-take.
I want to be able to keep my bags where I can see them, and close to me. I used to travel HuntingdonLeeds quite a bit in the '70s, and when HST came in the Mk3 coaches were perfect for the traveller - with luggage space between seats and overhead racks deep enough to take my 65l rucksack. The modern coaches on the west coast line, which I use every few weeks, is dreadful if you have cases.
Modern trains revolve around commuters, not travellers, and it is mainly travellers who are going to the airport.
You don't get much luggage space on trains either.
I travelled to Dublin in 1967, we checked in at the West London Air Terminal, our luggage was put in a special trailer attached to a special type of Routemaster Bus with a big engine and high speed axle, and we travelled at high speed to London Airport, (not known as Heathrow then), and were transferred, along with our cases, onto a BEA Vickers Vanguard, (four engine turbo prop, fantastic aeroplane, like the Viscount that preceded it, what a sound), and landed at Dublin.
Vanguards and Viscounts used to fly over my house daily back then. Being 6 miles from Gatwick and under the flightpath meant I became interested in planes !
The sound of those props overhead was brilliant.
@@nigelarmstrong252 Yes, great sounds. Rolls Royce Dart on the Viscount and I think Tyne on the Vanguard. Viscounts lasted until the 'nineties out of Southend, and some Vanguards carried on after being converted to cargo 'planes and renamed the Merchantman.
I worked at WLAT from 78 to 80. I don't recall much other than the two old buskers at Gloucester Rd tube station (one with a banjo) and the BA staff social club where we had a drink (or two) most lunchtimes. It's now an unremarkable Sainsbury's.
The Eastbourne-Manchester train always baffled me as a kid in Bexhill in the 80s
There used to be class 47 on a Brighton to Manchester. Didn't know there was a service from Eastbourne.
I did Crewe to Eastbourne yesterday arduous to say the least, bring back Manchester to Gatwick 😊
@@Julian-ck6lf Crewe to Eastbourne? Was that a freight movement?
No passenger via Euston & Victoria very long trip.
@@Julian-ck6lf of course, my bad, I misunderstood that you meant a direct journey! For a moment thought I was missing something big.
Another interesting video. Prior to the rail connections, for a while, I think there was a fleet of Routemaster buses painted silver and had luggage trailers. These were used to convey air passengers from central London to Heathrow - a curious way to start a journey by air.
There was. The RMA class, differing from standard RM's in that they had a front entrance and staircase.
Yes, via West London Air Terminal, where people checked in, near Gloucester Road tube. Now a Sainsbury's
@@stuartparks8094 BOAC used the Terminal / Office Building at Victoria (Now national audit office)
I remember the West London Air Terminal with its branded buses with a little luggage trailer on the back. But when you say they were painted silver, are you getting them confused with the ordinary Routemaster buses that were painted silver for the Queen's silver jubilee in 1977?
RMA's painted in BEA light blue and white. SRM'S for Silver jubilee RM"s.
A line to Feltham and Victoria makes so much sense in terms of the amount of additional track needed. It would also provide an automatic link to the Gatwick Express. In the fullness of time no doubt an inter-airport shuttle could be run. So of course it was decided to build a line for passengers with luggage that uses the smallest loading gauge and doesn't link up to any other airport.
Sadly the decision to build the Heathrow Extension to the tube loading gauge rather than the SSL was made in a spirit of penny-pinching in an era of rapidly-increasing costs...I seem to remember an LT high-up at the time saying it was a short-sighted decision he regretted,but otherwise the financial plug would have been pulled....
@@nickbarber2080
I would argue that the failure to build the Heathrow Extension to Sub-Surface Standards was more costly in the long-term. Especially when it ultimately meant that the Heathrow Express & Elizabeth Line had to be built later down the line.
Just goes to show the dangers of under-investing in Transport Infrastructure.
@@nickbarber2080 Shows how poor they were back in those days of presenting cost benifits. Build a tiny railway or a full size railway that ultmately carried more people so fewer trains and staff were needed. Full size trains running round the north or south side of the Circle Line would have been much more useful. I suppose reinstating the disused junction at Hammersmith would have been out of the question by then. How much better would a full size Victoria line be than a tube line?
It could even have been extended to link up with the GWR main line at Langley. Just think of the benifits that would have brought?
@@kevinrayner5812
Had they built the Victoria Line to accommodate Full-Sized Trains, it would have been possible to extend the line to additional places in South London such as Herne Hill. Instead we will have to build Crossrail 2 to deal with increased demand.
Thank you for pointing out that air travel used to be expensive! People love to post pictures from the olden days, showing how great flying used to be and how well air passengers dressed. Sure. But that was before airlines were created whose explicit goal it is to make flying affordable for everyone. Even to those with limited financial means. And due to this competition, the legacy airlines (such as BA) had to respond likewise.
Hurrah for Freddie Laker!
I am surprised that you did not mention the Staines and West Drayton Railway. Even though the tracks have been lifted, most of the alignment survives and it runs almost right up the back of the Airport. There have been proposals to re-open this route as a link to the Airport from the south. Maybe this would have been used in the Victoria to London Airport proposal.
Having used both methods of getting to Heathrow - the tube more than the express route - I can say that I appreciate both!
2:27 I was in Feltham once…accidentally after realising I was on the wrong bus.
Different world, half crown red rover and London Buses were ours all Saturday or Sunday. Generally we were safe and adventurous.
Having used the Heathrow Piccadilly line and then District line to Victoria, and thence to Sussex , with 2 large 23kg bags and a cabin bag, I have to say that the Piccadilly trains are woefully inadequate, even on a 6am departure..The District line trains have a little more space, but I suppose that the Elizabeth line trains are the way to go now..(when iI did LHR-Victoria last, the purple trains were not yet operational).. Comparing it to other cities, specifically Amsterdam or Paris, the RER trains from CDG are not much better, but the trains from Schipol into Amsterdam are much practical...I am amazed at the plethora of government committees over the years, its a wonder anything happened at all! Keep em coming, Jago! are you sure you dont want to be Minister of Transport?
I remember getting the underground to Hounslow then getting a bus to Heathrow, a right bloody nuisance
As well as getting to the West London Air Terminal to get a flight from Luton
The A1 non stop bus continued from Hounslow West even after the line's extension to Hatton Cross opened in 1975. It was finally withdrawn in late 1977, when the further extension into the airport opened.
The BR proposal sounds a lot like the proposed Heathrow Southern Rail Link. So perhaps we could see the proposal return again.
One of the reasons it never took off (SWIDT?) is the large number of Level Crossings on the "Windsor Lines" between Clapham Junction and Feltham. An extra 4-6 trains per hour in each direction would mean the barriers would only be open to road traffic at those crossings for a few minutes in total each hour. Now like any train nerd, I always hope the barriers will come down in front of me if driving over a level crossing... but if it happens every 2-3 minutes the novelty might wear off!
For the future their is also the "Heathrow Southern Railway" project, which is the latest idea to make use of the rail platform space that was built into T5 when it was constructive. So a lot of long term planning was put into the design of T5, but not a lot has happened since.
Love your work Jago
Remember I teased that I had a sort of a personal connection to the Piccadilly Line link to Heathrow? It's actually more a... missed connection. Here's the story... the story of how a suitcase saved the lives of myself and my mother.
It was the year after my 18th birthday. My mother was an attorney (we're Yanks, so it's just "attorney", we don't do the separate barrister/solicitor thing you Brits do) and making... reasonably good money, comparatively speaking (nothing like you'd see on the telly, mind, but it spends nonetheless). Enough so that we could afford to travel internationally for about two weeks, about twice a year or so. This was our second international trip. The first had been to London, sometime in early 2004, and the second in mid-2004, around certain nearby parts of the UK. This was a... somewhat expanded version of that second trip, going to Brighton and a few other spots in Britain proper, up into Edinburgh, and then off into Continental Europe, where we went on a bus tour of southern Italy and spent some time in Paris as well, as I recall, before returning to London on our way back home.
Well, to make a long story short, we had already sent home two very large cardboard boxes of souvenirs at... quite considerable expense, especially considering that the exchange rate was almost two USD to a Pound Sterling, at the time (it was actually about $1.80-1.85 to £1 depending on the day, but we were not mathematicians and so just mentally doubled the cost of everything). For the record, true to form, UPS not only charged us a genuinely exorbitant sum for the effort, but smashed everything to bits -- and indignantly refused to cover the damages. But, that's beside the point... we actually had _such_ an out-of-control trinket collection habit, that even after all of that, we still wound up literally buying a spare suitcase off a London street vendor simply to house all the stuff we couldn't fit into the rather prodigiously American sized luggage we'd brought with us already.
We were to fly out of London at Heathrow, of course (otherwise, this story being here would make precious little sense, if any), at somewhere around 10am. Mind you, I am autistic (Asperger's), and I also do NOT suffer mornings well at all. So, it was a bright and early Thursday morning in July, likely just about half past 8am, and I was utterly miserable, and I was not in the least bit shy about making sure the entire lobby of our hotel knew that as my mother tried to both shut me up and check us out of the place, at which she was far more effective (predictably) at the latter, than the former. I don't remember exactly why, but we were held up waiting for... something, and between me channeling my inner pester superpowers like Nermal from _Garfield_ in the Sunday Funnies, and the kind and gentle auditory ministrations of the hotel concierge (who no doubt simply wanted my fat American terror self out of his lobby absolutely as fast as humanly possible, and could someone kindly fetch him a cuppa for his nerves afterwards, please), my mother was eventually persuaded that, instead of hoofing it through the Underground as we'd originally planned, we'd be better off taking one of London's famous Black Cabs.
Well, as it were, as we were rushing through Heathrow at breakneck pace (as my mother always insisted), with me desperately trying to catch my breath on a particularly lengthy escalator, Mom pointed to a television feed on a screen just above us. I was somehow more interested in trying to shove oxygen into the near-vacuum that my lungs were currently entertaining, but she was insistent. It was a news feed, and someone had just blown up a double-decker bus... it turns out that, by sheer coincidence, our flight home was on 7 July 2005, the day of the infamous London Tube Bombings. We later worked out that, had we taken the Tube as we'd planned, we'd almost certainly have been in Kings Cross St Pancras just in time to, erm, quite literally have had a blast of it. We would've died in that explosion.
For the record... Mom came down with some chronic non-terminal illnesses in the summer and fall of 2007 and is now badly disabled because of them. My autism turned out to be disabling in its own way, and although I graduated college (you'd call it Uni, over there Across the Pond) in 2009, I began drawing what you'd call a disability pension within a year after, having applied not long before being granted it. I'm 38 now, just turned it a few days ago, and I now live some three miles (a bit less than 5km) from Mom, in a tiny apartment (flat) in a tiny town in the Southern United States where there's nothing of importance, nothing to do, and I absolutely hate it (but can't afford better... alas, my heart will forever pine for a flat in London). I still have the suitcase, although it rather sadly hasn't seen much use since. That said, whenever I pass it and I have the opportunity to remember, I stop and give it a smile. After all, it did save our lives once.
Glad you liked the story, Jago :3
Thank you Jago, another great to start Sunday.
Let’s all vote for SIR. JAGO HAZZARD on July 4th 🇬🇧 🇺🇸 🇬🇧 🇺🇸 🇬🇧 🇺🇸 🇬🇧 🇺🇸.
I remember the "Gatwick Express" trains that ran from London Bridge, 4VEPx3 with fluorescent gutter banding and Gatwick Express/RapidAir lettering down side of leading coaches and these units were tweaked with more powerful traction motors and either one stop or no stop to and from Gatwick these things would fly and the only trains running out of London Bridge on Xmas day earning staff a cool 5x overtime bonus and BR used to pay a hotel to lay on a banquet Xmas day for staff and their families to have Xmas dinner in London Bridge power box (trust me it wasn't worth the fuss...) but the problem was yes trains ran Xmas day but tubes and buses didn't, taxi's didn't so getting from London Bridge to wherever was just not happening lol Many a hapless arrivee would soon discover there was zero hotels nearby, the nearest was the exorbitant priced one next to Tower of London which was usually full over the holiday or up in the west end so shank's pony it was with luggage to try and find a hotel and getting cornholed for the price chucked in for free...
A good airport needs 'good transport links' just like Bristol hasn't.
Imagine if they had built both the branch from Hayes and Harlington **and** from Feltham as one continuous through-running rail service...
I'm a bit of a dreamer, me.
Imperial Airways began to tout Fairey's test field at 'Heath Row' in the 1930s as a replacement for Croydon, Heston and Northolt, with longer runways to rival those at Tempelhof and Schiphol. The Great Western offered to build a spur from Hayes into a central terminal area, which would have left the main line sooner than the branch laid years later from Airport Jc.
AFAIK this was the first scheme for an LHR rail connection. In the 1970s there was some talk of a triangular junction between Feltham and Ashford (Middlesex) in the Bedfont area, enabling trains from Waterloo to run through the proposed Terminal 4 to the central area, plus services from Staines and points to the south west. But all plans for a southern 'Airtrack' approach to LHR have been stymied by the plethora of level crossings between Richmond and Wandsworth, while using the Hounslow loop would lengthen the journey time.
Neither has the chord at Airport Jc which would facilitate trains from Reading and Slough to LHR been installed. The Elizabeth line ignores the existence of the world's busiest international airport.
The Great Western was way ahead of British Railways which always seemed rather lukewarm about planning to serve Heathrow when there was more free space and it would have been easier to do. I suppose the West London Air Terminal didn't help. Having lived in Hampshire and Oxfordshire, the idea of going all the way into Central London, then wiggling over to Gloucester Road, then a bus to the airport, boggles the mind. Railair isn't great, but it's way better than that ... as is driving there directly (or being driven) if you can afford the parking/taxi. But always hankered to westward and southward rail connections.
Not forgetting the Art Deco magnificence that is the Imperial Airways terminal in Victoria.
Classic case of Britain taking the cheapest option instead of doing it properly, forgetting that this is Britain's gateway to the world, although in fairness its cobbling together of multiple bits of inadequate infrastructure is a fair representation of the whole country.
London - By the 1930s it was understood that for an airport to be successful it needed good transport links.
Melbourne - Plan for the first airport rail link, taking passengers 20km in the wrong direction to only gain 5km before changing trains, delayed until at least 2033.
Now please a video on the Rail link from Heathrow to towns in Surrey to ease the Load on the M25.
Railway politics without the politricks? No sabotage, or slap fighting and everybody's right? Gold star⭐
You following me around Jago? First outside Fulwell bus depot and now by the bustop I get off at when going to work.
I love the Piccadilly Line for a reason 💙
Oi! Now you’ve got to tell us the reason. 😉
I think there used to be a BA Check In desk at Victoria, up the escalator and at the end of what is now Victoria Place (was it then?), near the exit onto Belgrave Road.
Correct. It's the one I used a few times in the 1960s.
Wasn't the one up the escalator the check-in for BCAL? Your luggage was taken on the train to Gatwick for you. You did the same rude then walked straight in through passport control. (Assuming you weren't flying to Glasgow!)
@@mikkoistanbul1322I think you're right, the check-in area that was actually inside Victoria Station used to be for BCAL flights. But after they merged with BA, you could use it to check in for BA flights departing from Gatwick. I used it myself when I was flying with BA from Gatwick to New York back in 1991, but I don't think it was around for much longer after that.
"-you have never used, because it was never built"
That one guy who can travel to alternate universes:
Ha!
The Man in High Barnett
we learn something new about London everytime thanks to this man :D
I grew up in Croydon and the Gatwick Express for most of the time of British Rail was an Intercity train, using class 73 locomotives and (I believe) Mk2 carriages with a GLV at the other end. After those trains got long in the tooth they were replaced with EMUs and there were three different classes of EMU in a few years.
I do hope you weren't run over by the white BMW at the 1m 45s mark - good of the driver to maintain the BMW stereotype 😉
Amusing to see the efforts to tart up the slam-door sets shown at the start and also here 2:32 by painting "go faster" stripes on them. A favourite ploy used by some rail administrations to make older trains look "modern and dynamic". Go-faster stripes were also popular on some motor vehicles which in practice could definitely not go faster!
Hahaha, the airport in Perth Western Australia only got a train station a few years ago. Jago could do all of the extant train lines here in one video.
Melbourne is still waiting, and it's been so long it's become a city-wide joke!
@@roxiewynter8152 that's nuts.
I remember , as a boy, checking in for a flight at what I think was still BOAC or it might have just become BA at their offices within walking distance of Victoria Train Station ( I think the NAO uses the building now).They had a check-in desk just like the airport and no queues (unlike the airport) and afterwards you would sit around and wait for a complimentary coach to drive you through to Heathrow. As some who lived in Beckenham at the time , it was really convenient . I wish they did it today , it was a heck of a lot easier than trecking across to Heathrow using public transport from SE London today.
At one time, BA had a check-in area inside Victoria Station itself that you could use if you were flying from Gatwick. Checked bags were loaded onto the Gatwick Express. I remember using it myself when I was flying with BA from Gatwick to New York back in 1991.
Have you tried using the Elizabeth Line to get to Heathrow from SE London?
@@andybaker2456 BA briefly introduced a similar service at Paddington in 2001, not too long after the Heathrow Express, which was originally affordable, came into service. Unfortunately the additional security measures that were put into place following 9/11 brought it to an end, which remains a real shame.
Melbourne still doesn’t have a train to the airport, and it’s unlikely to happen in the next century, if the never ending bickering between Melbourne Airport and the State Government is anything to go by…..
Yet us backwards Queenslanders have had a dedicated, albeit privately owned, railway to the Brisbane airport terminals for how many years?
How interesting that people would go to a certain building and then carried to the airport by bus.
It worked quite well.
You would check-in your luggage at the Terminal and it would be put on a trailer behind the bus,then the container on the trailer loaded onto the plane.
So you didn't have to trail all the way out to the airport with your bags.
I distinctly remember my days of 73 bashing on the Gatwick Expresses that BA & American Airlines allowed passengers to check their luggage in at Victoria station before catching the train.The luggage was carried in the. MLV that formed part of the train
As soon as you mentioned Transport Ministers, Ernest Marples and Grant Shapps sprang to mind.
I well remember when the Heefrow express started but was not yet completed we were bussed out to a field where there was a wooden stand built beside a railway track. A posh new train arrived and we were whisked into Paddington in jig time. The trip cost just £5 and I loved it.
The train unfolding itself on the bridge at 2:51 is a lovely detail.
Sometimes, I think of Heathrow as this historical place but (fun fact) it’s younger than Kolkata’s airport
The first London Airport opened in 1920 at Croydon. After WW2 it moved to Heathrow where there was more space for the increasing international traffic and jet airliners.
@@RoyCousins Yes, I remember that from a previous video on the channel.
Heathrow was originally a farm and small hamlet. Urban explorers suggest it possible to gain access to the abandoned habitation, until security measures made it impossible. I once worked in an industrial estate too close to the flightpath for comfort.
Hello Jago, (this video reminds me of the Underground poster “Fly the Tube - Take the Piccadilly Line to Heathrow Airport. It’s the only way to fly” that featured 4 aircraft front sections with Tube train bodywork. The poster featured the red circle with the blue bar roundel with white text HEATHROW CENTRAL and a plane silhouette within. There was another poster that features a paper dart made from the UndergrounD map and a green rolling hills landscape with the “Fly the Tube to Heathrow “ text. Yet another poster that I haven’t seen before is “The Heathrow Connection” “Links directly with Terminals 1, 2 and 3.” Nice artwork of front ends of Jumbo and Tube train from 1983, showing people alighting from a Piccadilly line train onto a plane. This poster, promoting the Heathrow extension displays the all red roundel. Best wishes from Oxfordshire.
i think Jago showed them at Acton Depot on the Pic Line vid
Enlightening to hear about the old city check-in method of flying. I was in Hong Kong in 1997 and it was how they did things. Very civilised. Put your bag in in the morning, wander around sightseeing then jump on the train for your plane in the afternoon.
"I don't consider Transport Ministers as knowing what they are talking about". Jago, you won't believe it but NSW had a Premier/Transport Minister, a former real estate agent, who did know what he was talking about. Alas, he lost his job in 1932 but not before he opened the Sydney Harbour Bridge and created the state's first 'Transport Minister' job as a separate role on the Monday after the Bridge opened. That was 92 years ago. Actually, while the Statute of Westminister Act was past in Dec 1931, Australia didn't ratify it until 1939 with war looming. So NSW/Australia was a devolved administration at the time of his premiership. Technically, he did not call himself Transport Minister, so I don't really have an exception to your statement.
cool
It’s the UK, when doesn’t the government say money’s tight?
I was on the tube today - a rare occurrence these days and thanks to your videos I spotted so much more detail along my journey. Do keep up the good work!
This was rather fascinating. It seems so many transport plan were first envisaged many decades before they came to fruition. I also agree that transport ministers, in fact I'll go further and say politicians in general do not know what they are doing when it comes to transport. They put in policies that benefit them, to the detriment of large portions of the populous.
I do not consider that transport ministers know what they're talking about. Why just transport ministers?
Agrre...any Minister who knows what they are talking about is impossible!
4:10 B.A.A.? BAA = Sounds a bit *sheepish!* 😁
When I was a kid my grandfather took me on the tube to the original observation deck at Heathrow airport which the airport then closed
There was a branch line that broke off between Staines and Wraysbury, which ran to Hayes and Harlington. I always thought it could have served the Airport too since it ran right by it. I believe they closed it in the 70s. There's no tracks now, but you can walk where the track was. It's all Green belt.
And the top end (from about the M4 onwards) still exists and carries freight trains (I've been along it on a railtour).
@@iankemp1131 Thanks. I'll have to look out for the turn off around Hayes 🙂
No Keith Barber? send out a search party
God help us, politicians and peacock feathers.
The way of the future: Cars and helicopters.......... and jetpacks!
Hahaha! And you think you've suffered! 🤣
DownUnder in Melbourne, we have our International Airport in Tullamarine...
Despite Ronnie Biggs actually working on it, it opened in 1970.
Do you think a rail line was included? Of course not. Give 'em a "Freeway" (motorway) instead. A monopoly private bus service is doing very nicely in the meantime, thank you...
2024 and finally the brawl is concluding over the prospect of a rail link being underground or overground: anything to stop either from the Privately Owned "Airport Authority".
They make Millions (and I mean Millions) of dollars from the car parking monopoly they operate...
Stop whinging, Poms! 😂
That Vickers Viscount! Great plane. In the '80s Richard Brandson's Virgin Airways opened a feedline between Gatwick and Maastricht Airport, just 5km from my home. Initially Virgin used the very loud Bac 1-11, but after a short while changed to the Viscount. Unfortunately I never flew with the Viscount, nor with the Bac 1-11 I used the fast train link from central London to Heathrow. Faster than the tube anyway.
Flew from Heathrow for the first time (intentionally, at least) last year. We went via the Heathrow Express (without realising we had booked on it!) and came back on the Elizabeth Line. The Express was OK, but horribly expensive. The EL was much cheaper and surprisingly comfortable and fast. So ,for my money, I don't really see the point of the Express.
Much the same with Gatwick. I wonder how many of the passengers arriving at Gatwick would bother with the Express if they knew how good the non-express service is - and how much cheaper it is?!
I've done Heathrow to Croydon in as little as 70 mins, Admittedly it was late night and all the connections fit perfectly timewise (Tube to Hatton X, bus 90/285/490 to Feltham, - South western railway to Clapham and then Southern to East Croydon.) National Rail suggests taking Elizabeth line to Farringdon and then Thameslink. Whilst this is the most convenient route, especially if you have lots of luggage, it takes longer, sometimes much longer if there are cancellations.
"Let's have an Underground line to Heathrow"
"No let's have an express rail link instead"
"OK I give up - you can have both" said no Government spokesperson ever !! 😎
The 727 / 747 linked the airports.
I wish I had done the transfer link from LGW to LHR on the regular helicopter link.
You’ve reminded me that Victoria did have Gatwick check in desks, for Gatwick Express customers in the 90s(??)
How about a video on that?
Given that the Heathrow Express solution looked nothing like the BR proposal, then I'm a bit puzzled about the conclusion that everybody was right, even if it was tongue in cheek.
I've never understood why they didn't extend the South West train routes to Heathrow. In the process they could have linked Gatwick through Guildford and Woking and Southampton Eastleigh, Farnborough and Exeter airports on direct routes to Heathrow
Any News on the Western rail connection for Heathrow - which should connect Heathrow to Slough, Maidenhead, Twyford and Reading (using Elizabeth Line possibly) - seemed to be close to starting construction but then nothing
All the various schemes to link Heathrow with the SW BR lines have...apart from their own individual weaknesses...hit a major stumbling-point which is the 2-track section between Barnes and Richmond with its multiple (busy) level crossings.
The scheme you discuss...a new one on me,for which thanks...would have settled this issue presumably by being on a viaduct above the existing line?
The cost would have been huge but no more so than the various other schemes proposed to address the bottleneck....on balance it might have been better had it been built...
B.E.A was the lead orderer of the Hawker Siddeley Trident. A trijet that was far better than the, later, Boeing 727, but B.E.A made micro demands that made the Trident unsellable to most of the world. So British European Airways screwed both British trains to Heathrow, and the British aircraft industry.
Wish that Heathrow Express would have kept the Class 332 or inherited the Class 379 Electrostar from Greater Anglia. Or if Heathrow Express were to order new trains such as Alstom Aventra.
I think it would be great if the Elizabeth Line were extended from Terminal 4 to Feltham and ran as far as Clapham Junction (and possibly thence to Waterloo, Victoria or even via the Overground route) to make better connections from South London to Heathrow
I remember checking in at both the British Airways and British Caledonia desks based in Victoria then getting a train to Gatwick in the 80s. I think TWA was in Kensington. But yes that huge BA building behind Victoria station was there until the late 80s if I recall? What memories😊
I think it’s kinda poetic that the Elizabeth line now acts as a hybrid between the Heathrow Express (faster mainline service) and Piccadilly (through service under the city)
I was only vaguely aware of Heathrow shuttle buses from diecast toys of the real thing, and vestiges of the old booking in facilities in the 1970s. Impossible to imagine modern traffic levels permitting such a timetable.
Hopefully the Southern Access to Heathrow (SAtH) rail link (via Staines, not Feltham) will get built soon - making Heathrow more of a hub station
many years ago I lived not that far from one of the London air terminals the sight of those double decker buses (horrible shade of blue) with a box trailer for the luggage of course that was in the days of BEA and BOAC before thry became British Airways
BEA2 has justbeen re-restored in the pale blue (I like it). They would later be orange , then the Dark Blue BA colours
@highpath4776 yes back then those buses always looked 'dirty' to me, thus air terminal was IIRC the West London terminal and I'm pretty sure their multi story car park had a spiral ramp which was made famous, or infamous for Simon Dee the one time TV chat show host driving his white E type Jag down it in the opening credits of his show
As a Feltham lad, that's Felt-ham, not Felth-am to the uninitiated, the link from the Windsor line seemed so sensible. The line is so close to the south side of the airport it seemed a no-brianer, especially as Feltham Marshalling Yard was becoming vacant so would have been useful as a depot or maybe some kind of hub connecting to the proposed London Orbital Ringway 3 road.
I live south of the Thames. When the Liz line isn't running, it's often faster (than the Piccadilly Line) for me to take a bus to Clapham Junction, train to Feltham, and bus to Hatton Cross. I always thought it that would be a great option for Crossrail 2 for a train to run from Waterloo along to Feltham and then north to Heathrow.
I don't think that the Piccadilly Line is particularly slow unless you are staying near Paddington as you have to factor in getting an Underground train to Paddington, getting off and walking to the Heathrow Express platform,etc while with the Piccadilly you might well already be on it all the way.
I had the joy of spending 2 nights last week in a Hounslow hotel. Hounslow West was the nearest Tube station (with a short hop on the 222 or H98).
Why is the entrance to Hounslow West so far from the platforms with that metal tunnel connecting them? Was there ever a plan to build over the top of the car park or did such a building exist at some point?
This is so exciting! I've never been the reduction to anyone's cost estimate before. Usually I'm the cost overrun.
Transport ministers know very little about the subject indeed.
have you ever made a video on the Heathrow Express tunnel collapse , using the "austrian tunnelling method", that almost took out the existing piccadillly line extension ?
I assume you must be very well aware of it, with the amount of research you do !
The British Government and its consequences for the railways cannot be underestimated.
Enjoyed the history lesson .despite living in West Midlands as from today I officially retired from job.as younger brother as visited his London headquarters once month planning joined him see more than tourist spots.could you recommend i ticket can use, hastle add got concessionary bus pass.l like using underground when visited capital .looking forward your help.thanks😊
With the old central London terminal system, did it mean that people coming from, say, Slough, would have to trek into central London to check in, and then back out most of the way to actually catch their flight?
And given Northumber Park is right next to the Lea Valley line taken some of the pressure off of Liverpool Street.
Ah, subtitles... you've realised that Heathrow is not spelled Heo but instead you have decided that Hounslow is spelled Houndo or Hsow. I hope you never change being so random, as it's as much a delight seeing what you come up with as the videos you caption.
Now I'm curious why the district was closed to Hounslow and not somewhere else! Then we could have had mainline-gauge trains to Heathrow!
... And the Feltham to Heathrow link is still very much in discussion as a possibility!
I've never understood why there aren't trains from regional centres that arrive at airports _airside._ A lot of the formalities and security processes could be performed on the train itself, which can provide a nice controlled environment. You'd get the duration of the outbound train trip for free, and they could build airports where they have the space, anywhere within (using modern trains, and with modern check in times) several hundred miles of the cities served.
In the end, it all came down to cost. It was ever thus.