The Heathrow Express is the fastest, most frequent way to travel between Heathrow Airport and central London. With no traffic jams, taxi queues or stops to worry about, you can be in the centre of London, or right inside the airport, in just 15 minutes. Departing from London's Paddington station every fifteen minutes, Heathrow Express delivers an airline-style experience the moment you step through the doors.

Operated by BAA, Heathrow Express carries an average of 15,000 passengers every day and over 50 million people have travelled on the service since its launch in 1998.

After being approached by Optical Networks Ltd, the communications contractor for the Heathrow Express rail link, Penton UK developed a custom-made emergency loudspeaker for the platform and concourse areas of the project.

The brief given was that the new speaker should comply to a standard in keeping with what is now known as BS 5839 Section 8, 1998 (a new standard for Fire Detection and Alarm Systems for buildings). Penton came up with the CELL6/T projector loudspeaker, over 700 of which were to be used in the system.

Each was fitted with stainless steel flexible conduct, through which cables capable of operating at high temperatures were passed from the loudspeaker into a modular Termination Bracket. The units were coated in a zero-halogen epoxy paint to comply to the same safety standards, as laid down by the London Underground Ltd.

The termination arrangement was designed to mount onto a purpose-made extruded cable containing unit, allowing for easy access for maintenence, and for relocation of the units as required. Penton also supplied ceiling loudspeakers for the project - RCS6/FTS model units, with steel fire domes and Modular Termination Brackets also compliant with BS5839 Section 8.

A number of the CELL6/T projectors were fitted with an end-of-line monitoring and mute relays for checking on the status of the speaker lines.