Heathrow T5 and HEX

Wasn't the preferred option to Heathrow via BR Staines idea but LT managed to get Picc there instead?

Yes it was, to be blunt. It made a whole lot more sense economically and ergonomically. The suggestion was for a branch line just west of the crossing in Bedfont Lane, where interestingly there had been a wartime War Department 'branch' that curved round to the south and went across the High Street into the Royal Army Service Corps base. The old points and a level crossing were still there until the mid-1960s. Anyhow, the line was to then cross I suppose round the back of the properties over then gravel pits, etc. and presumably through Bedfont into the area now occupied by T4. The later suggestion of the Underground extension was very much seen publicly as a secondary proposal; not very serious and not very attractive. The journey would take too long it was suggested...!!!

As is known as from 1st January 1970 the GLC [Greater London Council]* took over from the State-owned London Transport Executive, and then things changed dramatically. Stops had been introduced at Feltham and the old coal yard became a bus station. The Railair link enabled SR passengers to go by dedicated link to Heathrow. The GLC then pressed ahead with the Picc extension, and the rest is history. However, there were also proposals to provide a link from West Drayton down the still-extant Staines West branch, with a line coming off south of Colnbrook I think, to Heathrow. The M25 of course gobbled-up part of the line south of Colnbrook, and the link roads around the M4/25 junction only enabled a single-track line to run through. When the line was severed a link, using an alignment of a wartime link, was built from the Windsor branch to enable oil trains to access Staines West oil terminal. The trackbed still exists it seems north of the old link site up to the Motorway.

Of course when T4 was being planned discussions then took place about rail links: the SR branch was mooted again, as well as a loop off the Picc at Hatton Cross. In the end because of delays, which I will not discuss publicly, the alignment of the T4 loop had to be altered which required another, additional, authorising Act of Parliament, and the station box which was reserved by BAA in the terminal building had to be let go and the next-best offer of a station under the car park had to be accepted. There was of course a prospective station site built on the loop for T5 which was in the end in the wrong position. As is known, just as the T4 loop was being constructed, the T5 discussions started and the question of a Picc extension to it and how it would fit in with the T4 loop had to be discussed and answered.

It will indeed be interesting to see if the branch off the Windsor Lines ever does get built. I know it was discussed around the formation of Greater London in 1965 but it might have been suggested as far back as 1955 though I am just speculating. The Perry Bar sewage works which T5 was built over, was suggested as a site for a possible terminal at London Airport by then and a rail link woud have been very feasible. It is perhaps something that I can delve into in the future. Against all this history, I am very pleased to see that reservations have been made this time at T5 for a future possible link.


* I am not too sure what part politics played at the time. The Conservatives were in power at the take-over (whilst Labour under Harold Wilson were still in Westminster, until Ted Heath won the 1970 General Election. From Wikipaedia:

When the Conservatives lost control of the GLC in 1973 and Sir Desmond Plummer resigned as their Leader in 1974, [Sir Horace] Cutler was chosen as his successor. He was a populist and a showman who delighted in stunts, and when he won the 1977 GLC elections he became a very flamboyant Leader. He was sceptical of the merits of the GLC, seeing it as "too big, too remote and too shadowy", and set up an inquiry under Sir Frank Marshall into its powers and existence; Marshall found enough to justify the continuation of the GLC.

Cutler wanted to extend the Jubilee Line into Docklands but was refused the money by the Labour Government. Investment on the London Underground was not substantial and decisions taken during his period of office have been much criticised subsequently for leading to poor infrastructure in the long term. Cutler was also noted for meddling in detailed Underground management, which London Transport Chairman Sir Peter Masefield had to persuade him to stop. He also made a failed bid to host the Olympic Games of 1988.

In the 1981 GLC elections, Cutler made a great deal of the fact that Andrew McIntosh was likely to be deposed by the much more left-wing Ken Livingstone if the Labour Party won. He concentrated on attacking Livingstone during the campaign, saying that he wished to establish a Marxist power-base in London. Nevertheless, Labour won, and McIntosh was duly voted out by Livingstone. Cutler gave up the Conservative Leadership in 1982, and left politics when the GLC was abolished in 1986. ...

Ken Livingstone in fact took over as Leader immediately after the spring 1981 GLC elections that Labour won.