Services as part of the new £15 billion Crossrail project may not stop at Heathrow because of a legal row with the airport’s owners.
Heathrow Express trains run partly on a five-mile stretch of track built by the airport for more than £1 billion.
But the service will be upended by the arrival of Crossrail next year.
The airport’s owners — a consortium of mostly foreign investment funds — want to recoup its past spending on the private train line with an “investment recovery charge” of £570 for every train that uses the track, plus extra fees of about £107 per train, The Times reported.
Transport chiefs and the rail watchdog argue there is no justification for such a historic charge, and fear it could mean higher ticket prices.
The Department for Transport reportedly estimates the extra charges would cost Crossrail £42 million a year.
A High Court judge is expected to rule imminently on the row after Heathrow challenged the watchdog’s decision to reject the charges.
Under contingency plans drawn up by Transport for London, Crossrail trains could terminate a few miles short of the airport, with passengers forced to transfer onto other trains at a suburban station. The trains would then head back to central London, dodging the £700 fees.
Called the Elizabeth line, London’s newest route was funded by taxpayers and businesses in the capital and is due to carry 200 million people a year.
Four Crossrail trains an hour will start running between Paddington and Heathrow from next May – though not to Terminal 5 as Heathrow Express has an exclusive deal to run services there until 2023.
Crossrail is expected to be completed by December 2019, stretching from Reading in the west to two eastern terminuses of Shenfield, Essex, and Abbey Wood, in the London borough of Greenwich.
The company is believed to have identified a location near the airport where trains could be redirected back towards Paddington or continue west.
Transport for London declined to comment.
Heathrow said: “We need to ensure that track access charges are fair, and are waiting on a ruling from the courts.”