"tim...." wrote

Especially as the long term demand was for the services to Woking/Reading.
The Waterloo service was just an add on.

To scrap the whole thing because of problems with the waterloo service is
nuts.

The level crossing problems would affect the Reading and Woking services as
well. IIRC among the difficult crossings are Sunningdale and Wokingham.

But I suspect that overall Airtrack would have a net beneficial effect on
road congestion by making it easier for passengers to the airport to use
public transport.

Perhaps the idea of Airtrack can be resurrected after Crossrail is up and
running, and not as a stand alone service but as an extension of Crossrail.
One of the least satisfactory details in the Airtrack plans is that it would
dump passengers at T5, forcing those to the Central area to change, and
those for T5 to change twice. See inter alia MM's tale of woe at having to
change at T123 to get from T5 to HConn with his mountain of luggage.

Peter