A grass fire next to the railway near Scrubs Lane in North Kensington has knocked out the electricity supply to the line into London Paddington, halting all train services to and from Heathrow Airport on Saturday evening, 5 September.
London Fire Brigade said six engines and around 40 firefighters were sent to the blaze after being called shortly after 4.10pm. National Rail said the fire caused "a failure of the electricity supply caused by a fire next to the track", blocking all lines between Paddington, Reading and Heathrow's terminals.
Heathrow Express confirmed no trains were running in either direction between Paddington and the airport. Great Western Railway cancelled its services to Reading, and the Elizabeth line was suspended between Paddington and Heathrow terminals 4 and 5, and between Paddington and Reading, according to Transport for London. The Piccadilly line, which also serves the airport, was running with delays, worsened by a separate earlier trespasser incident at Hammersmith.
National Rail warned passengers to expect cancellations and delays into the evening. Heathrow advised travellers to leave extra time for their journeys. The BBC reported that "major disruption" was expected to last until the end of Saturday.
The rail chaos compounds an already disruptive day at the airport. Earlier on Saturday, a separate grass fire broke out on the airfield itself, next to the southern runway, forcing Heathrow into single-runway operations before both runways reopened later that morning. Two long-haul arrivals were diverted, one to Manchester and one to Birming