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I will be arriving in London heathrow airport on 8.25pm, and I am looking for a train to Canterbury east railway station.

My search gives me this, however, On the status column there is a warning:

Ticket purchases & collections from London Heathrow. Through tickets from London Heathrow terminals to National rail stations where the journey begins on the Underground are not available to purchase or collect at London Heathrow.

What does this mean? And how can I purchase the ticket? I can't seem to purchase it online

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    For information, Canterbury has two stations, East and West. They are only about 1km apart, but are on different lines, both of which run from London. Don't automatically get a train to the East station, you may find that the West station is better. The West station is about an hour from London St Pancras, the East is about 1.5 hours from London Victoria.
    – Rich
    May 12, 2012 at 13:25

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Head to the National Rail station at Terminal 5, find the ticket office (station map; open Monday-Sunday 05:00-23:59), and buy your ticket to Canterbury from there.

(I'm not sure if you can buy the ticket online or not, but personally I'd just buy it from the station.)

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    Thanks, speaking from your experience, can it happen that the train is so congested that one cannot buy the ticket on the spot?
    – Graviton
    May 8, 2012 at 9:50
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    Theoretically, I guess, but frankly I wouldn't worry about that. There are trains from HWV to Canterbury East every 15-30 mins (until 23:42 on weekdays), and they won't all be full, at any rate.
    – Jonik
    May 8, 2012 at 10:28
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    I don't think the places are numbered on these local trains. If you manage to squeeze in and physically get on the train then it will be fine. Also I am sure it will be half empty at this time.
    – Grzenio
    May 9, 2012 at 11:50
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The warning message on National Rail site means, one can only buy tickets online for the trains on national rail network. London underground tickets can not be bought online.

In your search as per the link, journey form London Paddington to London St Pancras is part of London underground. Hence ticket can not be booked.

As Jonik suggested, you can buy tickets from the ticket office at LHR for complete journey instead of booking in advance.

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