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Heathrow Express

Non-stop trains every 15 minutes between London Paddington and Heathrow Airport, taking 15 minutes to Terminals 2 and 3 and 21 to Terminal 5. Heathrow Airport has owned the service since it opened in 1998, outside the franchise system. Great Western Railway has run it since 2018, with 12 Class 387 Electrostars that replaced the original Class 332s in December 2020.

1998Current operator since
18 miles (29 km)Route miles, ORR
3Stations served
4.6 millionJourneys a year, ORR (2025–26)

Facts

Current operator since
23 June 1998
London terminals
London Paddington
Type
Airport express train operator
Depots
Reading (GWR)
Main routes
Non-stop between London Paddington and Heathrow Airport four times an hour, calling at Heathrow Terminals 2 & 3 after 15 minutes and Terminal 5 six minutes later. Up to 150 trains run each day. Beyond Airport Junction, near Hayes, trains run in Heathrow's own tunnel to the airport.
Stations managed
3
Operating company
Heathrow Express Operating Company Ltd, a subsidiary of Heathrow Airport Ltd, which owns the service and sets its fares. Great Western Railway has run and maintained the trains under a management contract since August 2018, due to end in 2028. GWR passes into public ownership on 13 December 2026; Heathrow said in 2018 that the contract was expected to transfer to any new operator of the GWR franchise.
Class 387 Electrostar, schematic side elevation, 2 cars
Class 387 Electrostar · Bombardier Transportation (now Alstom), Derby · indicative

Routes 1 routes · 3 stations

London Paddington – Heathrow Terminal 5: schematic, not to scale London Paddington — change for Bakerloo, Circle, District, Hammersmith & City, Elizabeth lineLondon Paddington Heathrow Terminals 2 & 3 — change for Piccadilly, Elizabeth lineHeathrow Terminals 2 & 3 Heathrow Terminal 5 — change for Piccadilly, Elizabeth lineHeathrow Terminal 5

Schematic, not to scale. Ringed stations are interchanges. Each strip is one service route with its stops in order. Where fast and stopping trains share a route, the strip shows the one with most stops, and a route whose stops all lie on a longer one is left out. Station order from TfL open data.

StationZoneInterchanges
London Paddington1Bakerloo, Circle, District, Hammersmith & City, Elizabeth line
Heathrow Terminals 2 & 36Piccadilly, Elizabeth line
Heathrow Terminal 56Piccadilly, Elizabeth line

Stations, zones and interchanges from TfL open data (2026-10-06). National Rail interchanges are listed where TfL groups the stations together.

Fleet

ClassUnitsFormation and notes
Class 387 Electrostar12four-car Class 387/1 Electrostars converted for Heathrow Express, running in pairs as eight-car trains of 374 seats, 44 of them Business First; maintained by GWR at Reading

History 10

  1. Three tunnels being dug for the line at the airport's central terminal area collapse, delaying the opening.
  2. A stopgap service, Heathrow FastTrain, starts running from Paddington to a temporary Heathrow Junction station near Hayes, with coaches for the rest of the journey to the terminals.
  3. Prime Minister Tony Blair officially opens Heathrow Express, and the temporary Heathrow Junction station closes. The line was built with two 5-mile tunnels and two underground stations at the airport.
  4. The extension to Terminal 5 and its station open with the new terminal.
  5. Heathrow and FirstGroup agree that Great Western Railway will run Heathrow Express under a management contract to 2028. Heathrow keeps ownership, the airport stations, marketing, fares and revenue.
  6. GWR takes over the running of Heathrow Express, and its staff transfer to GWR.
  7. Porterbrook places an £11m contract with Bombardier to convert 12 of GWR's Class 387s for Heathrow Express, with new seating, more luggage space, Wi-Fi and ETCS digital signalling.
  8. The Class 332s, which had run the service since 1998, make their last journeys; the Class 387s take over the next day.
  9. The Elizabeth line opens. Heathrow Express managers say lower passenger numbers after the pandemic have coincided with its arrival: 4.3 million journeys in 2024–25, against 6.7 million in 2018–19.
  10. The Mayor of London and TfL ask the government to reconsider Heathrow Express when its contract ends in 2028; the DfT says a decision will be announced in due course.

Sources 20

How we source figures →

unverified the opening date: the Railway Technology project page says non-stop trains began running on 25 May 1998; Heathrow gives 23 June 1998 as the official launch, and IanVisits says the temporary station closed on 23 June (Wikipedia says 22 June), the unit numbers 387130 to 387141 (Wikipedia and enthusiast forums); the Railway Magazine names only 387130 and 387140, so the sub-class 387/1 is taken from those numbers, Porterbrook as the trains' owner: inferred from its contract to convert them (Rail Technology Magazine, January 2019), not stated outright, whether all six eight-car trains still run as pairs of four-car units: RailStaff stated it in March 2020, before they entered service, which three stations are managed: ORR gives only the number, and Heathrow's 2018 release says only that it manages the rail stations at the airport. They are probably Terminals 2 & 3, 4 and 5, though Heathrow Express no longer calls at Terminal 4