The Heathrow Express is both a good and a bad thing. Bad, simply because it’s expensive. Good, because it gets you very rapidly from central London (well Paddington) to Heathrow.
But with security checks in place it’s going to take a bit longer to reach Heathrow, and some of the speed advantage of the system over the tube is going to be lost. I assume we won’t have to arrive two hours early.
But really, what’s the point of this? The transport secretary himself has admitted that full scale checks on the rail network are impossible, with many (most?) stations not even having staff at barriers to check your tickets, never mind go through your baggage.
I’m guessing, and this is just a hunch mind, that any terrorist planning a public transport atrocity, would simply switch plans to another line which didn’t have high-profile security checks, and is likelier to be carrying more people than the average Heathrow Express.
The only terrorists we know who’ve caught trains recently, used a commuter line from Luton, a train which was packed with people going to work, and exactly the kind of line these checks couldn’t be enforced on.
[UPDATE]

The Standard had this seriously over the top headline at the tube station on the way home this evening. Commuters are expected to feel really scared and buy a copy.