Heathrow Terminal 5 is a shared railway and

London Underground The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or as the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent home counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire in England. The Undergro ...

station serving

Heathrow Terminal 5 Heathrow Terminal 5 is an airport terminal at Heathrow Airport, the main airport serving London. Opened in 2008, the main building in the complex is the largest free-standing structure in the United Kingdom. Until 2012, the terminal was used ...

. It serves as a terminus for

Heathrow Express Heathrow Express is a high-frequency airport rail link operating between London Heathrow Airport and . Opened in 1998, trains run non-stop, with a journey time of 15 minutes. The service is operated jointly by Great Western Railway (train operat ...

services to

Paddington Paddington is an area in the City of Westminster, in central London, England. A medieval parish then a metropolitan borough of the County of London, it was integrated with Westminster and Greater London in 1965. Paddington station, designed b ...

, and for

Elizabeth line The Elizabeth line is a railway line that runs across Greater London and nearby towns, operating similarly to the Réseau Express Régional, RER in Paris and the S-Bahn systems of German-speaking countries. It runs services on dedicated infras ...

and London Underground

Piccadilly line The Piccadilly line is a Deep level underground, deep-level London Underground line running between the west and the north of London. It has two western branches which split at Acton Town tube station, Acton Town and serves 53 stations. The li ...

services to central London. It is managed and staffed by Heathrow Express. The London Underground section of the station is situated in Travelcard Zone 6; it is the westernmost below-ground station on the network. It is also the westernmost

National Rail National Rail (NR) is the trading name licensed for use by the Rail Delivery Group, a group representing passenger train operating companies (TOCs) of England, Scotland, and Wales. The TOCs run the passenger services previously provided by ...

station in London.

History

Following the longest public inquiry ever undertaken in the UK, construction of the station was granted in November 2001 by transport minister

Stephen Byers Stephen John Byers (born 13 April 1953) is a British Labour Party politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Wallsend between 1992 and 1997, and North Tyneside from 1997 to 2010. He served in the Cabinet from 1998 to 2002, and w ...

as part of the approval of the

project. The proposed terminal site was not welcomed by London Underground, as it would be impossible for all three stations to be served from the same route. Instead, twin tunnels would be built from Terminals 1, 2, 3 to the new terminal. Construction of the extension as part of the T5 construction took 6 years, funded by British Airport Authority (BAA). As part of the construction, the Terminal 5 project team shut down two aircraft stands from Terminal 3 so that an access shaft could be constructed. The new junction was then built into a concrete box which connected all the underground tunnels. Heathrow Terminal 4 tube station was closed for 20 months between January 2005 and September 2006 to allow these connecting junctions to be constructed. Train testing started when the extension was handed over to London Underground on 18 July 2007. The station opened on 27 March 2008 coinciding with that of

. It was designed by architects HOK in conjunction with

Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners RSHP is a British architectural firm, founded in 1977 and previously known as the Richard Rogers Partnership which became Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners in 2007. The firm rebranded from Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners to simply RSHP on 30 Ju ...

. Although situated underground, parts of the station's roofing are made of

translucent In the field of optics, transparency (also called pellucidity or diaphaneity) is the physical property of allowing light to pass through the material without appreciable light scattering by particles, scattering of light. On a macroscopic scale ...

ETFE Ethylene tetrafluoroethylene (ETFE) is a fluorine-based plastic. It was designed to have high corrosion resistance and strength over a wide temperature range. ETFE is a polymer and its source-based name is poly (ethene-co-tetrafluoroethene). It i ...

laminate Simulated flight (using image stack created by μCT scanning) through the length of a knitting needle that consists of laminated wooden layers: the layers can be differentiated by the change of direction of the wood's vessels Shattered windshi ...

panels, allowing natural daylight to flood down both ends of all six platforms. Since May 2022, Heathrow Terminal 5 has been served by the

Services

Terminal 5 station is the only one at Heathrow Airport where

, Elizabeth line and

services share the same station. The following rail services are provided: *

from platforms 5 and 6: half the trains on the Heathrow branch terminate here, via Hatton Cross and Heathrow Terminals 2 & 3. The other half do not serve Heathrow Terminal 5, running instead via the loop to service Heathrow Terminal 4 and Heathrow Terminals 2 & 3, before returning eastbound. *

terminus to and from

Paddington station Paddington, also known as London Paddington, is a London station group, London railway station and London Underground station complex, located on Praed Street in the Paddington area. The site has been the London terminus of services provided by ...

from platforms 3 and 4. *

terminus to and from Shenfield station from platforms 3 and 4.

Free intra-terminal transfers

Until 2012, free transfer was not possible between terminals via the Underground, unlike on the Heathrow Express. In January 2012, free travel was introduced for

Oyster card The Oyster card is a Payment#Types_and_methods_of_payment, payment method for public transport in London and some surrounding areas. A standard Oyster card is a blue ISO/IEC 7810, credit-card-sized Stored-value card, stored-value contactless ...

and

contactless payment Contactless payment systems are credit cards and debit cards, key fobs, smart cards, or other devices, including smartphones and other mobile devices, that use radio-frequency identification (RFID) or near-field communication (NFC) for making sec ...

card holders between the Heathrow stations on the Piccadilly line. Journeys from Heathrow Terminal 5 to Terminal 4 via the Piccadilly line require a change at Hatton Cross; this journey is free.

Future links

Network Rail Network Rail Limited is the owner (via its subsidiary Network Rail Infrastructure Limited, which was known as Railtrack plc before 2002) and railway infrastructure manager, infrastructure manager of most of the railway network in Great Britain. ...

has put forward a proposal for a Western Rail Approach to Heathrow, a short spur of track in tunnel which would run from a junction east of to Terminal 5 station. This would permit

Great Western Main Line The Great Western Main Line (GWML) is a main line railway in England that runs between London Paddington and . It connects to other main lines such as those from Reading to Penzance and Swindon to Swansea. The GWML is presently a part of t ...

trains to run directly from and into Heathrow, without the need to change at Paddington. The proposal is currently at consultation stage and remains unconfirmed. In addition to the above rail links, Terminal 5 station also has two safeguarded "heavy rail" platforms for use by a west-facing connection to the

network. The south-leaning proposal would spur off the Waterloo to Reading Line west of Staines railway station (originally dubbed Heathrow Airtrack, with a newer proposal named Heathrow Southern Railway). It proposes direct rail services to London Waterloo,

Reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of symbols, often specifically those of a written language, by means of Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifacete ...

Woking Woking ( ) is a town and borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in north-west Surrey, England, around from central London. It appears in Domesday Book as ''Wochinges'', and its name probably derives from that of a Anglo-Saxon settleme ...

Guildford Guildford () is a town in west Surrey, England, around south-west of central London. As of the 2011 census, the town has a population of about 77,000 and is the seat of the wider Borough of Guildford, which had around inhabitants in . The nam ...

and

Gatwick Airport Gatwick Airport , also known as London Gatwick Airport (), is the Airports of London, secondary international airport serving London, West Sussex and Surrey. It is located near Crawley in West Sussex, south of Central London. In 2024, Gatwic ...

. Due to the cost of replacing three level crossings, one in a very urban part of

Egham Egham ( ) is a town in the Borough of Runnymede in Surrey, England, approximately west of central London. First settled in the Bronze Age, the town was under the control of Chertsey Abbey for much of the Middle Ages. In 1215, Magna Carta was ...

, the proposals are currently unfunded.

Connections

London Buses London Buses is the subsidiary of Transport for London (TfL) that manages most bus services in London, England. It was formed following the Greater London Authority Act 1999 that transferred control of London Regional Transport (LRT) bus s ...

routes

350 __NOTOC__ Year 350 ( CCCL) was a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Sergius and Nigrinianus (or, less frequently, year 1103 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 3 ...

, 423, 482, 490 and night route N9 serve the station.Heathrow Airport Terminal 5
Transport for London

First Berkshire & The Thames Valley First Beeline Buses Limited, trading as First Beeline, is a bus operator providing services in and around Slough. It is a subsidiary of FirstGroup. History In January 1986 Alder Valley North Limited, later renamed, The Berks Bucks Bus Compan ...

National Express Mobico Group, formerly National Express Group, is a British multinational public transport company with headquarters in Birmingham, England. Domestically it currently operates bus and coach services under brands including National Express. Th ...

and

Oxford Bus Company The City of Oxford Motor Services Limited, trading as Oxford Bus Company, is a bus operator serving the city and surrounding area of Oxford, England. It is a subsidiary of the Go-Ahead Group. History Horse trams and horse buses The City of Oxf ...

also operate connecting bus and coach services.

References

External links

*
Proposed AirTrack Rail Link
{{authority control Piccadilly line stations London Underground Night Tube stations Tube stations in the London Borough of Hillingdon Railway stations in the London Borough of Hillingdon Railway stations opened by Network Rail Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 2008 Railway stations served by Heathrow Express Airport railway stations in the United Kingdom 5 tube station Railway stations located underground in the United Kingdom 2008 establishments in England Railway stations served by the Elizabeth line