Heathrow Airtrack

Heathrow Airtrack was a proposed railway link in the United Kingdom which would link Heathrow Airport in west London to London Waterloo railway station in Central London.

The line, as proposed by BAA, would run from Heathrow Terminal 5 across the suburbs of southwest London to Waterloo, with additional direct rail services from the airport to Reading and Guildford. Airtrack would provide an alternative route into London to the existing rail routes from Heathrow, Heathrow Express, the Elizabeth line and the Piccadilly line.

The scheme has been estimated to cost £673 million. In April 2011, BAA announced that it would not proceed with the project, citing the unavailability of government subsidy and other priorities for Heathrow.

Various alternate forms have since been proposed, including a revised plan Airtrack-Lite put forward by Wandsworth London Borough Council in 2011.

Heathrow Terminal 5 has two safeguarded heavy rail platforms for use by a west-facing connection to the National Rail network, which would be utilised by Airtrack. The original proposal for the AirTrack link included a new station, called Staines High Street, to be built near the site of the former station of the same name, but that plan was omitted from the revised proposals in the second public consultation, published on 20 October 2008.

A new depot for rolling stock on the site of the former marshalling yard at Feltham is included in the proposal.

BAA indicated that it wished to extend the Heathrow Express service from Terminal 5 to a new terminal platform at Staines.

The principle of a rail connection to Heathrow from the south had been the subject of considerable discussion and study for 50 years. Since 1960, there have been more than 10 studies or proposals that considered how to improve surface access to Heathrow by means of an additional fixed rail link, and in 1984 studies confirmed the viability of the link.