On Jan 15, 6:30*am, wrote:

A Heathrow Hub station on the GWML near Hayes and Harlington was a
core part of proposals published by Arup last year. They have just
(last week) formed a company to develop the idea.

IMHO: The best location for a Heathrow Hub would be next to the M25
north of Staines. Trains would run from Waterloo International, and
from the South Coast, thru Heathrow and onwards to the English
Midlands, North and Scotland.

This of course precludes its use as a line only carrying high speed
trains.

1506 gurgled happily, sounding much like
they were saying:

IMHO: The best location for a Heathrow Hub would be next to the M25
north of Staines.

It'd get a bit wet.

On 15 Jan, 17:18, 1506 wrote:
A Heathrow Hub station on the GWML near Hayes and Harlington was a
core part of proposals published by Arup last year. They have just
(last week) formed a company to develop the idea.

IMHO: The best location for a Heathrow Hub would be next to the M25
north of Staines. *Trains would run from Waterloo International, and
from the South Coast, thru Heathrow and onwards to the English
Midlands, North and Scotland.

Waterloo is a dead horse. With airtrack even the precious Surrey
brigade will be able to have a one-stop international option.

Assuming no new stations in London, and a requirement on a Heathrow
GWML station, it would make sense to have a High speed line from
Euston (Domestic), to Heathrow (about 2 miles of tunnelling. You then
reach the GWML, where you can take over the fast lines (severely
curtailing fast trains to Paddington from Reading, with some
terminating at heathrow, or using the slow lines), or fit some new
lines in. Or you could tunnel as far as Heathrow, but that'd be
expensive.

You'd extend some services from the CTRL to this line, bypassing StP
and have a stopping pattern of
StP-Ebbsfleet-Paris/Brussels
Heathrow-Ashford-Lille-Paris/Brussels (And direct to amsterdam?)

After the Heathrow hub (15 miles/10 minutes from Euston), you head
directly to Birmingham, fitting through the chilterns with approppiate
tunneling, or following the M40.

A New parkway at Bicester, on the A34/M40 junction, would be built,
enabling interchange with the Oxford-Bicester line (which could be
upgraded to a 4tph park and ride), and optionally re-open the line to
Bletchley and Bedford. This would be about 55 miles from Euston and
take about 20 minutes to Heathrow, and another 10 to Euston

You then head directly to Birmingham Airport, about 100 miles from
Euston, well under one hour. Trains could then join the existing track
into Birmingham, or you'd have to tunnel the main route through the
city.

Without the Birmingham tunnel, you have a bypass line, following the
route of the M6 Toll, and go as far as Stoke. A New parkway near M6
Junction 15 perhaps, at about 135 miles.

Up through Cheshire to Manchester Airport, at 170 miles, or 75 minutes
from Euston, and then *somehow* get into Manchester. Unlike Birmingham
it's doesn't seem as easy to bypass the center of Manchester.

Manchester at 180 miles (1 hour to do 155 miles to Heathrow could be
possible?), then to Leeds at 220 miles. This should still be under the
two hour mark, even with a fair number of stops.

From Leeds you then have a stop about Newcastle (300 miles), Edinburgh
(400 miles), Glasgow (440 miles), before finishing at Glasgow Airport.

Something like http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2495083

Possible end-end time points for a non stop train

Glasgow Airport 0:00
Glasgow 0:10
Edinburgh 0:25
Newcastle 1:00
Leeds 1:30
Manchester 1:45
Manchester Airport 1:50
Stoke: 2:05
Birmingham Airport: 2:20
Oxford: 2:35
Heathrow: 2:50
Euston: 3:00

You could also have trains from Birmingham, Liverpool, and
Middlesbrough feeding in, they aren't far from the line.

You could run direct trains to 3 different London stations
(Paddington, Euston, Stratford), so no platform issues.

A non-stop train Birmingham-Heathrow at 30 minutes would be almost
fast enough to make Birmingham a 7th terminal.

At some point in the future, direct trains from Manchester and
Birmingham could run through the tunnel.