Great Western Coffee Shop

Here's a teaser. 5 adults (1 senior railcard) and one child Off peak from Heathrow to Slough single.

Does Heathrow connect do 4 for 2?  It does seem to do Senior Railcard.

So does one buy a through ticket, or is it cheaper to do Heathrow Hayes,  plus 4 for 2 and 1 Senior plus child from Hayes.

Also off topic how do you find First bus fares the website seems totally  hopeless. And oh yes they still have map of the Series 7 buses dated 2012 when they all changed last year and became just the 7 from Slough to both terminal 5 and Central Bus station

You generally can't get bus dfares from operators websites - you have to call in or phone

The Bus Services Bill should be requiring operators of scheduled bus services to provide pricing and schedule data to an open access database, so give it a year or three and we may have a "brbusfares" and a "realtimebuses".

According to the National Rail site, Heathrow Connect does not participate in GroupSave.

There is a map on the First site which shows the 7 route (https://www.firstgroup.com/uploads/maps/Slough%20Ntwk%20Col-Coded%20Map%20WEB.pdf) although I don't doubt there are obsolete ones as well that they have forgotten about.

There may even be a split ticket website if this information is published readily; there are split savings out there. One particular fare I know of can be split in two places for a significant saving.

If you can find out where the fare stages are (timing points are usually a subset of these and are the stops in bold on the timetables on the Traveline wesbites) it's a good start. It may even encourage people to walk a bit further to save money to the flag down the road. I remember when some flags used to have a "fare stage" flash across them.

Occasionally you may see the driver press a button on the ticket machine in motion. This is usually updating the origin fare stage so the next passenger is charged the correct fare (some ticket machines/routes can use GPS now to do that automatically). Destinations are "rounded up" to the next fare stage, origins are "rounded down" until that flag has been reached/passed.

The opaqueness of the fares data should be addressed.

Get the bus or an Uber taxi direct to Slough, I'm not sure why you'd want to go via Hayes with a change?

The bus manages to take almost an hour from what I can see, (but runs every 10 minutes) - quick look at travel line last night; train / bus or train / train combos quicker by around 20 minutes, but Heathrow Connect is only every 30 minutes. Much better (Manjana!) when Elizabeth Line comes to Heathrow - isn't that then 4 per hours out to Ayes and Arlington where you can change for Slough?

Hmmm ... is this a safety issue?

Split ticket rules, etc, are not the same on buses as they are on trains (National Rail Conditions of Travel don't apply).

In particular I'm aware

* If splitting, you need to get off the bus and back on (always?) ... witness the senior pass card holders who join a bus before 09:30 and buy a single to the first place the bus is scheduled to stop after 09:30.  You then have the pantomime of them all piling off and back on again to the same bus, sometimes at a small (and dangerous for crowds) request stop on a country lane, which the bus blocks while it's paused there.

* Buying a ticket for a longer journey than you're making isn't allowed either.  I'm not sure if it's still the case (as best fares rose last August when competition on the route ended, and again last Monday) but at one time a Bath to Corsham fare was considerably more expensive than a Bath to Chippenham fare, even through the journey passes though Corsham.  Bath to Chippenham, of course, competes with the train.  I got a right telling off when I purchased a Bath to Chippenham ticket and got off in Corsham due to a last minute change in plans - I had intended to travel to Chippenham, and the experience at dressing down by the driver (in front of the other passengers) alerted me to this little gem!

You certainly aren't allowed to do this on NatEX coaches....they have dearer fares to places like airports & I've tried to exit at one with a ticket further & I got a right dressing down! The driver thought about not letting me off, but finally changed his mind.

https://www.firstgroup.com/uploads/node_images/Slough%207s.pdf

Here's the timetable: 45/50 minutes on the bus depending on time of day, 35/40 mins if you're landing at T5.

Taxi will take you 12-15 mins, if there are 6 of you this will be by far the fastest & best value, £25-£30 with Uber, pre booked minicab about £35-£40.

I can tell you from experience of about 3 months ago that children are free on the LHR-Slough bus.  I think two adults + 2 kids came to £5 single on the bus, so I would suggest that your party by bus would be at least £10 (assuming senior is free as well)

We have also done a taxi (for 4 people from the HI Express next to Slough station) to T5 and it came to £17 on the meter (early morning, little traffic)

I'd do taxi if you are short of time or bus if you are happy to string it out.  At least that was our logic. 

They probably woudn't need to take their eyes off the road, but I could see how it may be a distraction. On a similar note, do some users of hands free mobile phones still have to press buttons to initiate a call? I'd look for a consistent approach here and stop all of that if deemed necessary.

There are practical issues, as you have witnessed :). A sensible driver though wouldn't make them pile off especially if it is a safety issue. I've seen drivers take their cards and keep them until an appropraite time, then pass them back without that rigmarole. The lack of awareness (due to lack of transparency of fares data) has probably limited the practical issues of split ticketing for non-ENCTS holders.


Break of journey is generally not allowed (realistically how are you going to enforce this on an outbound/single leg or where the boarding stop is correct for a return leg). I am sure that could have been explained more politely than a dressing down though!

The reason for looking at the train is they are staying at the Holiday Inn Express so short level walk from Station Station whereas from the 7 stop you have to cross the main road and then the railway so a good 10 minutes.

However they will probably pick up a rental car from the airport As they are American and coming in on an overnight flight I've tries to put them off that.

 

I've successfully done that a few times. I had to make the outward journey from West Drayton to Victoria by train/tube then NatEx coach to the West or South West. Coming back, get off early at Heathrow. Saves a lot of money and I was never challenged.

The bus route may have changed.  But the last time I caught the bus from T5 to Slough (which was the number 81), it pulled into the bus station right next to the station (although other side of the track to the HI Express and I expect you can't use the station bridge without a tciket).

I am sure that you can collect a rental car in Slough after a night at the HI X.  Would save a day's hire fee. 

The 81 does not go to Heathrow Central or Terminal 5. It runs from Hounslow via the Bath Road to Slough bus station avoiding the airport. It is a TfL route (red bus) run by London United. T5 to Slough would probably be a blue bus run by First.

You are absolutely right.  I could have sworn it was an 81, but the 81 doesn't stop at the terminal itself.  It was a blue bus I caught so it must have been one of the "7 series"

The whole 7 series has been revised, basically only the 7 runs from Slough to T5 and round to Central every 10 minutes plus N7 at night. 75 and 76 scrapped now 4 Slough to Maidenhead via A4. 74 and X74 now Slough High Wycombe, the Britwell and Burnham 7Xs which used to run to the airport now run from Slough and have been renumbered.