In message , AstraVanMan
writes
"Jkf" wrote:
I'm trying to do something that may be impossible...help would be
appreciated. I will be arriving Friday night at Heathrow in a few
weeks. I imagine I'll be out of customs by 10:00 pm. Is there any way
I can arrive in Blackheath, where I will be staying by 11:00 pm?

You should manage it within the hour, I'd have thought.

Shouldn't be a problem - that's what the knowledge is all about !

1. If I got a cab at the airport, how long would it take and about how
much would that cost (approximately) to get to Blackheath? (I'm afraid
to hear the answer, because I recall that cabs in London were a King's
ransom.)

There's a London cabbie that hangs around in here (Mike Hughes IIRC) so he
should be able to answer that one.....

Done that elsewhere.

--
Mike Hughes
A Taxi driver licensed for London and Brighton
at home in Tarring, West Sussex, England

In message , Paul Corfield
writes

No idea about taxis - never use them. I understand cabs from Heathrow
will charge you a premium.

No premium from Heathrow. Just a 2.00 GBP charge which half what we get
charged to go into the system before being allowed to pick up at the
terminal.

You may also struggle to get one to take you
to Blackheath as opposed to Central London.

Blackheath is outside the compellable distance but there are usually
plenty of drivers prepared to go there.


2. Can I take either the Heathrow Express or the Underground at
Heathrow and get off someplace in London from which I could get a cab?
What stop would I get out at? Would this save time or money? Would it
be safe?

Why get a cab? - trains and tube will get you there quickly

But probably not within the hour, especially if you don't know your way
around the system and may be laden with luggage.

Heathrow will be busy, Paddington will be busy and Central London will
be busy on a Friday night. It is very unlikely anywhere will feel
unsafe.


--
Mike Hughes
A Taxi driver licensed for London and Brighton
at home in Tarring, West Sussex, England

AstraVanMan wrote:
"Mizter T" wrote:
Unfortunately I think you'll be very lucky to land at 10pm and get to
Blackheath by 11pm.

Paul C's route described elsewhere on this thread sounds solid but
nontheless I also think trying to do it in an hour is pushing it. If
you took a taxi I can't help but imagine you'd get stuck up in traffic
(friday night is party night after all), though this could possibly be
avoided by going round the M25, but that's just much further -
depending upon which route you used to get into Blackheath you could
end up doing almost a half circle of the M25 - which would eat up time
too.

Indeed - just worked it out very roughly on Memory-Map Navigator and it's
around 49 miles from J15 to the J3 for the M20/A20 - there's no way in the
world you could beat the direct route at that time by going that way. Or,
indeed, at most times.

One suggestion might be to get a train to Lewisham - you might possibly get
a slightly quicker train that might only call at more major stations on the
way out to somewhere further out, than a more local stopping service.
Wouldn't knock much off the time, but there might be slightly more trains to
Lewisham, and depending on where in Blackheath the OP is heading for, it
might be almost as close anyway.

And from what someone else said, going from the tube to mainline station at
London Bridge is probably almost as much of a pain in the neck as it is at
Charing Cross from the Bakerloo line. I wouldn't bother with Southwark to
Waterloo East though - a quick look on a map reveals it to be a longer walk
than at Charing Cross.



Don't think so. The Bakerloo platforms are under Cockspur Street. The
Jubilee platforms are to the West of Blackfriars Road.

To be honest, this is all a bit academic. I don't think that the
journey is actually possible in the time specified. Probably won't
even be out of Heathrow by the time required to be in Blackheath.

In message . com, zin92
writes
Unfortunately I think you'll be very lucky to land at 10pm and get to
Blackheath by 11pm.

The OP posted that they expected to clear customs by that time so it
would be reasonable to assume that the flight lands before that time.

One thing to take into account is that Heathrow is a nightmare airport
to exit. It can take quite a while to talk from your arrival gate to
passport control. If you have a European Union passport, you can
usually get through passport control fairly quickly. However if you
don't, the queues can often be quite long.

Best case, with an EU passport and hand luggage only, I think you could
possibly be out of customs by 10.15pm, assuming your plane lands on
time.

As outlined elsewhere in this thread, train/tube options would take at
least an hour.

I've found that the best possible taxi time from Heathrow to Blackheath
across central London is about 45 minutes. However this only works in
the early hours of the morning (6am). At 10-11pm on a Friday night,
central London will be very busy and I think it would take about 90
minutes but this is very variable.

One hour should not be a problem. That's where the knowledge of London
comes in, enabling a taxi driver to choose the best route to avoid the
Friday night jams (clue: Vauxhall Bridge is usually best). Remember that
taxis can also use bus lanes which does help, even at night times since
many people do not realise that they are legally allowed to use most of
them but don't leaving it clear for buses and taxis.

Going around the M25 would be quicker at this time of night (though
more expensive). I would guess a journey time of 65-70 minutes (make
sure the driver leaves the M25 at junction 2 - longer but quicker as
compared to exitting at junction 3).

Cheaper than a black cab taxi would be to pre-book a minicab. A company
that provides a reasonable service and is fairly reliable is Blackheath
Cars. I haven't done Heathrow to Blackheath for a while but if memory
serves, the fixed cost (ie there's no meter) is about £55-60 across
central London (more expensive around the M25).

Not a lot different from a licensed taxi - and you don't have to go
around the M25 which will be at least treble the distance of going
through town.

Blackheath Cars can have somebody waiting for you after you exit
customs. Note that you'll lose a few minutes over getting a black cab
as you'll need to walk to where the driver has parked in the short-term
car park and the driver will need to pay for the parking charges.

And charge the customer a fee for the parking and waiting! What's more,
if they are local to Blackheath there is a strong probability that they
do not know their way through the centre very well and could well be
relying on GPS which will definitely lead you into some of the most
congested night time areas.

Blackheath Cars can be contacted on +44-20-8318-5432.

Given the above, on a Friday night, I reckon train and tube options are
better (and cheaper).

Are you committed to Heathrow though? Much more convenient for
Blackheath is London City airport (to which you can fly from several
European locations). You can usually exit City airport in about 5
minutes and a taxi to Blackheath should only take 10-15 minutes
(assuming the Blackwall tunnel isn't closed for maintenance - it does
happen, search the web).

Again it would be reasonable to assume that the OP is coming from
somewhere which does not have a service to and from City Airport so this
would not be an option.

Now if they were coming into Gatwick at that time of a Friday I'd leave
home later and could offer them a very competitive fixed price rate as I
often pass Gatwick on the way to and from (night) work. :-))

I usually just get a black cab from City airport to Blackheath as the
premium isn't too much over a minicab. Obviously you could also book
Blackheath Cars as above.

Good luck!


--
Mike Hughes
A Taxi driver licensed for London and Brighton
at home in Tarring, West Sussex, England

On Sat, 7 Oct 2006 12:13:06 +0100, Mike Hughes
wrote:

In message , Paul Corfield
writes

Why get a cab? - trains and tube will get you there quickly

But probably not within the hour, especially if you don't know your way
around the system and may be laden with luggage.

Which is why I provided such a detailed set of directions. With that
you're very unlikely to be lost.

I accept the luggage point which is why I specifically mentioned it at
the end of the post. If someone is laden down with stuff then public
transport is much more difficult and will take more time on the
interchange legs of the journey.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

Paul Corfield wrote:


(snip much helpful advice)

Now the one thing I am not sure about is whether you can buy one ticket
all the way through from Heathrow on HEX plus the tube plus the train to
Blackheath. It will be convenient if you can but I think HEX is
separately ticketed from the rest of the main line network - I'm sure
someone "in the know" will pop up. My best recommendation is to at
least ask at Heathrow HEX station as to whether they can sell you a
through ticket all the way - their website is silent about this. If they
cannot then buy a single to Paddington. At Paddington Tube Station ask
for a through single ticket to Blackheath at the ticket office - they
should be able to sell you one. The National Rail website says the
ticket should cost £5.40.

http://nationalrail.co.uk/index.html


The National Rail (NR) website is also talking balls! The £5.40 fare
quoted by the NR website would appear to be the price of a zones 1-4
off-peak Day Travelcard.

However the NR website seemingly doesn't take account of the new
"Tube/DLR - Train tickets" which are "the maximum you will pay for a
single journey in the London zonal area" - see the pricing table on the
TfL website [1] or in the TfL fares booklet [2]. In this case a
Paddington (zone 1) to Blackheath (zone 3) fares would be £4.40, which
you would buy at Paddington Underground station.

Like Paul I've no idea about whether there's any possibility of
purchasing a through ticket at Heathrow before boarding the HEX, but as
Paul rightly says you can but ask.

-----
[1] Tube/DLR - Train fares on the TfL website
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/fares-tick...e/rail-2.shtml

[2] Tube/DLR - Train fares in the TfL Fares & tickets booklet (PDF
file)
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/fares-tick...006.pdf#page=6

AstraVanMan wrote:

"Mizter T" wrote:
Unfortunately I think you'll be very lucky to land at 10pm and get to
Blackheath by 11pm.

Paul C's route described elsewhere on this thread sounds solid but
nontheless I also think trying to do it in an hour is pushing it. If
you took a taxi I can't help but imagine you'd get stuck up in traffic
(friday night is party night after all), though this could possibly be
avoided by going round the M25, but that's just much further -
depending upon which route you used to get into Blackheath you could
end up doing almost a half circle of the M25 - which would eat up time
too.

Indeed - just worked it out very roughly on Memory-Map Navigator and it's
around 49 miles from J15 to the J3 for the M20/A20 - there's no way in the
world you could beat the direct route at that time by going that way. Or,
indeed, at most times.

Yeah, a spectacularly bad idea! It's not one that I would ever try
myself but I threw it out there just to see whether anyone else might
rate it or not.

One suggestion might be to get a train to Lewisham - you might possibly get
a slightly quicker train that might only call at more major stations on the
way out to somewhere further out, than a more local stopping service.
Wouldn't knock much off the time, but there might be slightly more trains to
Lewisham, and depending on where in Blackheath the OP is heading for, it
might be almost as close anyway.


At that time any train to Blackheath will be coming from Charing Cross
so there's no point in going to Lewisham to pick up another to get to
Blackheath.

You could go to Lewisham if there's a wait for the next Blackheath
train and pick up a cab from there - as there's a rank at Lewisham -
but you might have to wait for a taxi as that's a busy time taxi-wise
(either in a queue or waiting for one to pull up, or both). Doing this
could be useful if there's a long way to go from Blackheath to the
final destination as there's no taxi rank at Blackheath station, but
it's dicey as you might be waiting at Lewisham a while.


And from what someone else said, going from the tube to mainline station at
London Bridge is probably almost as much of a pain in the neck as it is at
Charing Cross from the Bakerloo line. I wouldn't bother with Southwark to
Waterloo East though - a quick look on a map reveals it to be a longer walk
than at Charing Cross.


It's not a long walk for a very good reason - Southwark tube station
has two exits, one onto the street and another exit directly connected
to Waterloo East - there's no exit to the street via this dedicated
link, just a concourse that leads to stairs up to the far end of the
platforms. Given that Southwark tube station is practically underneath
Waterloo East it's very easy - I've done it myself several times.

One issue with catching a train from here is that the train information
screens aren't as useful as they should be and there's a choice of two
platforms (whilst the train will almost certainly go from one of these
I wouldn't rely on it). So it'd be helpful to know the time of your
train and the ultimate destination so you can decipher which platform
you need to be on quickly - unfortunately there won't be any staff to
ask on this concourse (there is a member of Underground staff, but they
don't know about the railway) but there are often railway staff on the
platforms above - along with other passengers to ask of course.

The information at Charing Cross is much more thorough, if it weren't
for that I'd give the Waterloo East route my full thumbs up.

Olof Lagerkvist wrote:

Jkf wrote:

I'm trying to do something that may be impossible...help would be
appreciated. I will be arriving Friday night at Heathrow in a few
weeks. I imagine I'll be out of customs by 10:00 pm. Is there any way
I can arrive in Blackheath, where I will be staying by 11:00 pm? Here
are some questions...

I don't have answers to all questions but I have some ideas if you want
to save some money. It is possible to make this journey much cheaper if
you avoid Heathrow Express or cabs. Heathrow Express - tube through
central London - train to Blackheath with cash single tickets will cost
you 14.50+3+2.40 = £19.90 and by tube to Charing Cross - train to
Blackheath only the price of a Z1-6 day travelcard, £6.30.


There's no need to buy seperate tickets for the tube and the railway
journey - as I state on another post in this thread you just need to
buy a "Tube/DLR - Train ticket" from Paddington at a cost of £4.40.

An even cheaper alternative is tube - bus but according to TfL Journey
Planner it will take between 1:33 and 1:44. With cash single tickets it
will cost you 4+1.50 = £5.50. If you want to try this I recommend
Piccadilly Line to Hammersmith, then District Line to Westminster,
Jubilee Line to North Greenwich and then bus 108 (or maybe 422 depending
on where in Blackheath you want to go).
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/buses/spiders/...-greenwich.pdf


Given that time is tight I don't think the bus is going to help the OP!

But North Greenwich is useful especially if the destination is
somewhere in the Westcombe Park area of Blackheath - the 108 or 422 bus
goes that way. There's also a taxi rank at North Greenwich but I don't
know how well inhabited it is by taxi's at that sort of time of night -
but the OP could of course arrange for a minicab to pick him up from
there.

"Mizter T" wrote:
Indeed - just worked it out very roughly on Memory-Map Navigator and it's
around 49 miles from J15 to the J3 for the M20/A20 - there's no way in
the
world you could beat the direct route at that time by going that way.
Or,
indeed, at most times.

Yeah, a spectacularly bad idea! It's not one that I would ever try
myself but I threw it out there just to see whether anyone else might
rate it or not.

Heh. I certainly wouldn't. Apart from if they completely closed all of
London within the North/South Circulars, or something equally extreme....
:-)

At that time any train to Blackheath will be coming from Charing Cross
so there's no point in going to Lewisham to pick up another to get to
Blackheath.

You could go to Lewisham if there's a wait for the next Blackheath
train and pick up a cab from there - as there's a rank at Lewisham -
but you might have to wait for a taxi as that's a busy time taxi-wise
(either in a queue or waiting for one to pull up, or both). Doing this
could be useful if there's a long way to go from Blackheath to the
final destination as there's no taxi rank at Blackheath station, but
it's dicey as you might be waiting at Lewisham a while.

That was my idea - if a cab would have been required from Blackheath station
to the destination anyway, then it'd probably be as well to get off at
Lewsisham, especially if a Lewisham train that wasn't stopping at BH came
along first.

And from what someone else said, going from the tube to mainline station
at
London Bridge is probably almost as much of a pain in the neck as it is
at
Charing Cross from the Bakerloo line. I wouldn't bother with Southwark
to
Waterloo East though - a quick look on a map reveals it to be a longer
walk
than at Charing Cross.

It's not a long walk for a very good reason - Southwark tube station
has two exits, one onto the street and another exit directly connected
to Waterloo East - there's no exit to the street via this dedicated
link, just a concourse that leads to stairs up to the far end of the
platforms. Given that Southwark tube station is practically underneath
Waterloo East it's very easy - I've done it myself several times.

Ah - noted. Didn't know that. I'm only going on an A-Z - though I do know
the tube network reasonably well (having done a bit of 'tube challenging'
here and there) - just not that particular connection.

One issue with catching a train from here is that the train information
screens aren't as useful as they should be and there's a choice of two
platforms (whilst the train will almost certainly go from one of these
I wouldn't rely on it). So it'd be helpful to know the time of your
train and the ultimate destination so you can decipher which platform
you need to be on quickly - unfortunately there won't be any staff to
ask on this concourse (there is a member of Underground staff, but they
don't know about the railway) but there are often railway staff on the
platforms above - along with other passengers to ask of course.

The information at Charing Cross is much more thorough, if it weren't
for that I'd give the Waterloo East route my full thumbs up.

Yup. Sounds like the interchange between Southwark and Waterloo East is the
best choice compared to the masses of walking at Charing Cross and London
Bridge, and Bakerloo Southbound to Jubbly Southbound is an easy change at
Baker Street.

--
"For want of the price of tea and a slice, the old man died."

zin92 wrote:

Going around the M25 would be quicker at this time of night

No. I think there would be no significant traffic jams between Heathrow and
Blackheath at this time of night, whether you went via Vauxhall or
Westminster bridges, so taking the M25 would be crazy, unless you are going
to travel at 150% of the speed limit.