St. Pancras to Heathrow
 

We plan to take the Eurostar from Calais to London. We then need to get to Heathrow for our 6:30 pm flight. I'm assuming a taxi from St. Pancras to Paddington and then the Heathrow Express. How long should this take? Anyone done this?

Paddington to Heathrow is about 20 mins and trains leave frequently - certainly the fastest - how long you have to wait for a taxi is hard to say - but it's a straight shot once in the cab and but a 2-3 miles to Paddington. If not in a hurry you can take the Heathrow Connect trains to Heathrow that take longer as they stop several times en route but are cheaper.

At 3 o'clockish, it should take you about 10-15 mins, depending on the length of the taxi queue, from the St Pancras queue to getting out at Paddington, though I've no direct experience of taxi queues when Eurostars arrive. 5 mins to the platform,including time to buy tickets from a machine, an average of 22.5 mins (including waiting time) from the platform to LHR T1-3.

Personally, I'd walk to the Piccadilly Line tube at St Pancras and get it (50 mins to T1-3: about every 5 mins). Problem is, though, that queues for tube tickets are horrid when Eurostars arrive. Follow the signs from the St Pancras ticket office to Kings Cross, without going upstairs, thgen buy your tickets just before you see signs sending you to the Picadilly Line

And perhaps face boarding with bags a perhaps fairly full Tube train?

"And perhaps face boarding with bags a perhaps fairly full Tube train?"

Absolutely. Can't see the problem.

Me too. I'd get the Piccadilly Line. Straightforward, no changes, plenty of room for bags, won't be crowded at that time. Dunno about queues for tickets... couldn't cope with London without my Oyster!

Q- can't join get to the Piccadilly Line now from the new St Pancras station - or do you have to go outside the station and schlepp over to next door King's X - i mean there must be a walkway right from St Pancras to the existing Piccadilly Kings X tube station - no way would they design Britain's flagstar train station without such a convenient link, right?

Just follow the signs from St Pancras International. No going outside to KingsX, there is a bright and shiny new walkway to the tube KingsCrossStPancras that takes a few minutes.

Don't know if it applies, but when we arrived at King's Cross (adjacent to St. Pancras) a couple years ago, we had to wait in the taxi line for an hour or more. So stick to the Tube.

And the Piccadilly line trains have an area by some of the doors intended for luggage. At 3:00 pm they shouldn't be crowded, but will in any case thin out once you get out of the center.

We're getting really confused here.

1. Taxi queues. Forget about what taxi queues used to be like at Kings Cross in 1832, which have as little to do with the question as rickshaw queues in Old Saigon. St Pancras operates its queues completely differently from KX. I've never had to wait more than 30 secs for a cab at St Pancras since it got refurbed- but then I never get into the queue at the same time as 700 Frenchmen. Has anyone?

2. Tubes. Get off the Eurostar and follow the signs for the tube. About 25 yards after immigration, down a flight of stairs (or there's a lift on the left), you get to the St Pancras ticket offices for the tube. When a Eurostar arrives, they get mobbed, and the machines take forever because there aren't enough machines and the Continentals:
a) can't get their tiny brains round how the machines work, and
b) can't understand English anyway

SO: instead of buying a ticket in the St Pancras tube ticket hall,follow the signs - underground - from the ST Pancras ticket hall to KX.Another 40 yds on, you're in the KX tube ticket hall, where there are more ticket sellers and shorter queues. Buy your ticket here, then get the escalator straight down to the Piccadilly Line. You've walked no further than you would have done, because the Piccadilly platform is under KX: under St Pancras is the Circle and H&C platform.

All clear? There'll be a test on this later.

Yes, I've arrived on Eurostar and taken a taxi mid afternoon on a Saturday last September.

The queue was about 10 minutes--there was a dispatcher and I believe someone helping load luggage into the taxis.

At that time there were temporary signs and temporary cover in case of rain but all worked well.

a) can't get their tiny brains round how the machines work, and
b) can't understand English anyway>

Which begats the question why Britain's premier International train station - portal for 1000s of arriving Continentals don't have instructions in at least French, spanish, Italian, etc.

Once again the Brits come up short in providing these amenities in its international gateway station.

And it would be efficient to provide French, etc. instructions if not to post multi-lingual personnel by the machines.

Now I'm the one who's confused and it was my question. Does the Picadilly Line go to straight to Heathrow without changing? If so, how long does it take? We're on an AA flight which I believe departs from T3.

As flimflanner said above it goes direct and takes about 50 minutes directly to all terminals at Heathrow, including the unified Tube stop serving terminals 1, 2 and 3 (and quite a Schlepp itself from the tube station thru tunnels to the terminals but there should be luggage carts at the tube station.

Here ya go -

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/piccadilly.pdf

Probably too late for you LisaE but hopefully this info will benefit others.

I read this string prior to my trip to Europe at the end of August and decided to try the Piccadilly Line. It could not have been easier and was certainly the least expensive.

My family of 4(2 teenagers)took the Chunnel into the St. Pancras Station. There are plenty of signs directing you to the platform. We stood in line for tickets, but we could have used the automatic teller if we knew the system well enough. My preference was to speak to a human being to ensure I was going in the right direction. We had 3 large roller bags, a back pack, and a couple of smaller bags.

The train was indeed crowded at noon on a Monday. We just kept moving our bags out of the way so people could get in and out. By the time we arrived at Heathrow we were sitting.

The train line expects people will have bulky luggage and they have areas identified as luggage storage(but people stand there too)

It was a long trip, maybe 45-50 minutes because there are so many stops along the way. But, it was part of the adventure, we saved money, and acclimated ourselves to the Underground.

My trip was not normal by a long shot. I use an electric scooter. My trip from St. Pancreas to LHR took almost 4 hours. The tube does not have many lifts, so round-a-bout way to LHR to say the least. Actually took longer than the train from Paris.

"It was a long trip, maybe 45-50 minutes"

It's 50 minutes, with trains to T1/3 on average every 4 mins during the day. From the same spot, the best a taxi/Heathrow Express combination can manage is roughly the same time - for about five times the price. It's impossible to do the tube/HEX journey (also 50 mins) to LHR without very nasty stairs (though there's one stair-free option travelling FROM LHR to St Pancras if you take the Circle Line at Paddington), and a taxi will take longer at any time from 7 am to 8 pm - and cost ast least ten times as much.

The ONLY arguments for avoiding the tube on this journey are:

- if you want the convenience of being driven to your terminal (though this is irrelevant for T5), or
- if you've got luggage or mobility problems, or
- for speed before 7 am or after 8 pm, or
- if Virgin are still doing the motorbike transfer to LHR, which is fastest of all, all day,
- if there are four of you, car services can often work out a pound or two cheaper, though they're usually slower.