Originally Posted by Pax Vobiscum
... don't be tempted to take the Piccadilly line 'tube' from Heathrow unless you've got a lot of time to spare ...
I used to think this, until a spate of weekend trips ex-LHR had me experimenting.
My office is near Blackfriars. So my realistic public transport options to Heathrow are:-
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Late in the Friday evening peak hour (leaving the office about 7 pm), the Tube to Paddington was usually faster than a taxi. Using the Heathrow Express would usually be 60-65 minutes; my record was about 55 minutes. Much of the variation is due to the amount of time you have to spend at Paddington waiting for the next HEX to depart, ie anything up to 15 minutes.
Using the Tube all the way was fairly reliably about 75 minutes.
As the Tube is something like £3.50 on an Oyster, as opposed to the £16.50 one-way by Tube and HEX, I've concluded that I can afford to spend an extra 10-15 minutes on the Tube for that price difference.