Crossrail - Construction updates and progress towards opening (now expected 24 May 2022)

[ctom_s]

Putting 2 + 2 together, a back-up date in late June presumably is not so much use given the big event being planned for the big birthday of the individual who is lending her name to the line?!!!

Isn't that next week?

 

[JonathanH]

Putting 2 + 2 together, a back-up date in late June presumably is not so much use given the big event being planned for the big birthday of the individual who is lending her name to the line?!!!

Firstly, the birthday is later this month. Secondly, there is no pressing need at all for Crossrail to be open for the Jubilee Bank Holiday weekend.

 

[Horizon22]

Yes the Jubilee weekend is nice to have, but nothing will be dictated by it.

A clearer/firm idea of which opening date is more realistic will come next week.

 

[matt_world2004]

They won't have it's first weekend being jubilee weekend . Imagine if technical issues caused the service to fall apart

 

[JonathanH]

They won't have it's first weekend being jubilee weekend . Imagine if technical issues caused the service to fall apart

Clearly that is true but it is equally true that any failure or even a closure due to maintenance or testing after opening would be embarrassing.

It should not open until the operators have completed all testing and they are confident there is an infinitesimal chance of a closure for any reason. It has taken such a long time to open that a few more weeks to get it perfect won't matter.

 

[matt_world2004]

Clearly that is true but it is equally true that any failure or even a closure due to maintenance or testing after opening would be embarrassing.

It should not open until the operators have completed all testing and they are confident there is an infinitesimal chance of a closure for any reason. It has taken such a long time to open that a few more weeks to get it perfect won't matter.

The first weekend it opens is always going to be a quiet weekend. Opening weekend is going to stimulate a lot of demand from train spotters in itself and starting on a quiet weekend allows for staff to become more familarised with how people behave during a quieter time instead of being thrown in at a busy event weekend.

 

[ctom_s]

The first weekend it opens is always going to be a quiet weekend. Opening weekend is going to stimulate a lot of demand from train spotters in itself and starting on a quiet weekend allows for staff to become more familarised with how people behave during a quieter time instead of being thrown in at a busy event weekend.

Not disagreeing and more of a general question but do you really think there's that many train spotter types around to make a difference?

 

[AM9]

Not disagreeing and more of a general question but do you really think there's that many train spotter types around to make a difference?

There are probably quite a few of the public who would be inquisitive enough to check it out. The 'spotters' amongst them wouldn't bring the same sort of crowd-handling issues as ordinary passengers just using the line's advertised new travel opportunities.

 

[mrmartin]

Crossrail will win with a 16 minute journey time .

There is a 21 minute journey time on the central line

And a 25 minute journey time on the jubilee.

Crossrail will be air conditioned and have phone signal throughout (WiFi only at launch I believe with 4g later.)

WiFi on trains in the tunnels or just stations?

 

[Taunton]

The first weekend it opens is always going to be a quiet weekend. Opening weekend is going to stimulate a lot of demand from train spotters in itself and starting on a quiet weekend allows for staff to become more familarised with how people behave during a quieter time instead of being thrown in at a busy event weekend.

I was on the DLR on opening day, 31 August 1987, which I think was August Bank Holiday Monday. Despite the limited population of the Docklands at the time, and limited publicity, it was mobbed by the general public and crush loaded all day (with only 11 cars, there wasn't a lot of trainspotting to be done!). Of course, train sizes and capacity are different.

And a different world then. Reg Ward, chief at the Docklands Development Corporation, wanted it opened on a day when as many people from outside as possible had the opportunity to come and see it.

A good plan would be to announce opening at say 8 am but actually do it at 5.30 am.

 

[matt_world2004]

WiFi on trains in the tunnels or just stations?

WiFi on trains. There is aready WiFi on trains including in the Heathrow tunnels

 

[JonathanH]

A good plan would be to announce opening at say 8 am but actually do it at 5.30 am.

There was, by all accounts, a sizeable crowd at Battersea Power Station early on its opening day, even though that was very early in the morning. A soft unannounced opening is much more sensible.

I passed through Paddington mainline station yesterday and walked along Eastbourne Terrace. Behind the railings around the Crossrail station, I noted staff on the gateline even though no trains were running.

Frankly, if they are confident of the line opening by the end of June, with the trains already running, I don't really get why they don't announce Sunday 26 June (or even Thursday 30 June) now as the opening date and then have a soft opening mid morning a few days earlier where they just decide to open the entrances. There really isn't any need to have this speculation about an earlier opening when they can just go for the latest date possible. Is the issue that they might not make the end of June?

 

[Taunton]

I passed through Paddington mainline station yesterday and walked along Eastbourne Terrace. Behind the railings around the Crossrail station, I noted staff on the gateline even though no trains were running.

Am I correct that the staff at all levels have been fully employed for the last 4 years since 2018?

 

[matt_world2004]

Am I correct that the staff at all levels have been fully employed for the last 4 years since 2018?

They were redeployed to LU duties

 

[PG]

They were redeployed to LU duties

Does that mean we can expect to see a sizeable cut in staff presence at various LU stations?

 

[matt_world2004]

Unfortunately the opening will be taking place during a period of Westminster Government and Mayor of London being at loggerheads - might get a TfL organised opening ceremony with the Mayor and a DfT orgainised ceremony with Johnson & Shapps (though this might take place many years after the actual opening given how long DfT take to do anything)!

Grant schapps and the mayor opened Battersea power station station together

 

[ijmad]

Shapps lives in a Thameslink constituency and so is well aware of how well TfL manage railways compared with Govia and certain other private companies.

I seem to recall him advocating for the transfer of GN services out of Moorgate to TfL at one point. Although before he was Transport Minister.

 

[matt_world2004]

Shapps lives in a Thameslink constituency and so is well aware of how well TfL manage railways compared with Govia and certain other private companies.

I seem to recall him advocating for the transfer of GN services out of Moorgate to TfL at one point. Although before he was Transport Minister.

The relationship between shapps and khan is better than grayling and khan.

 

[Snow1964]

So has anyone heard if all the software updates at Easter went ahead, and if they are working properly.

My understanding was that an opening date decision would be made this week, once that software was rolled out, and it was checked if there were any significant problems

 

[Vespa]

I still think however the Elizabeth line will be subsumed under the Underground banner eventually though.

I hope not as the last underground strike caused chaos, the Overground and Tfl Rail was a godsend helping me to get around without getting on the bus, then there was no cross city line running, now with Elizabeth line opening we will have that option, I most definitely don't want it to be run by underground workers.

Keep it separate.

 

[drams1221]

So has anyone heard if all the software updates at Easter went ahead, and if they are working properly.

My understanding was that an opening date decision would be made this week, once that software was rolled out, and it was checked if there were any significant problems

And once the ORR have granted full authorisation for the line and stations which should, hopefully, be due imminently.

 

[yorkie]

Just a gentle reminder this is an Infrastructure update thread; if anyone wishes to discuss any spin-off topics, please feel free to create a new thread, thanks

Edit: some posts have been split into a new thread in General Discussion

 

[Class 170101]

The relationship between shapps and khan is better than grayling and khan.

Not much of a challenge to be honest, though to be honest I'm surprised its good as people say it is.

 

[Snow1964]

There is quite an interesting article on how a number of big construction projects are going wrong and being delayed because software development wasn’t commenced early enough, and it uses Crossrail as one of its examples

Although the project started in 2008, by 2012 all the reporting was on digging the tunnels with nothing about the software needed to make the trains run and control the safety systems when it opened, wasn’t until 2015 that this started to cause concerns.

It uses a number of diagrams, so not going to quote text without being able to include the illustrating diagram that it refers to

Why is my infrastructure project delayed by software bugs? - HKA

When we think of big infrastructure projects, we tend to focus on roads, bridges, tunnels and buildings. Traditionally, infrastructure upgrades involved civil and structural engineering, with most of the project costs related to this scope. Also, typically, it was the structural scope that...

www.hka.com

HKA is a global consultancy in risk mitigation with multi-disciplinary expertise

HS2 is a separate thread, but I haven’t heard anything about that projects software development for its tunnel safety systems and signalling either, but I will copy this into its thread so any comments are in correct place

 

[reddragon]

And this about 'heroic' agressive target driven management approaches

ICE: Crossrail-style ‘heroic’ leadership no longer fit for purpose | New Civil Engineer

The ICE’s second iteration of its A Systems Approach to Infrastructure Delivery report outlines eight principles for project clients to implement to

www.newcivilengineer.com

Construction’s traditional “heroic” style of leadership is no longer fit for purpose, according to an ICE review of major project delivery.
The ICE’s second iteration of its A Systems Approach to Infrastructure Delivery report outlines eight principles for project clients to implement to ensure major projects are delivered on time and budget.

It takes lessons from five projects at various stages of delivery including Crossrail, Tideway, East West Rail, British Antarctic Survey’s Infrastructure Modernisation Programme and Anglian Water’s Strategic Pipeline Alliance. The ICE also looked at the way Costain has implemented a systems approach to project delivery.

One of the main recommendations is an overhaul of outdated leadership models.

The report concludes: “Leadership was a recurring theme across all of the case study interviews and roundtable sessions that made up the second phase of the review.

“Construction’s traditional, ‘heroic’ style of leadership is not fit for purpose for modern infrastructure projects, but the solution is not to introduce swathes of new controls and processes either.


“Instead, the sector needs to adopt leadership models that spread authority and empower highly competent individuals to take the key decisions in their areas of a project, while ensuring that everyone involved is focused on maintaining the integrity of the system to deliver the outcome demanded by its users and owners.”

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

And this about 'heroic' agressive target driven management approaches

ICE: Crossrail-style ‘heroic’ leadership no longer fit for purpose | New Civil Engineer

The ICE’s second iteration of its A Systems Approach to Infrastructure Delivery report outlines eight principles for project clients to implement to

www.newcivilengineer.com

Indeed and Wolstenholme and his cronies earned a fortune in salaries and bonuses despite failing to deliver the overall project

 

[absolutelymilk]

Any word on whether the new software has improved reliability?

 

[coppercapped]

Yes, it would seem so.

The data published by Roger Ford in his monthly Modern Railways column show a jump after the Christmas/New Year software changes. The Miles per Technical Incident doubled between Period 10 (commencing 12 December 2021) and 11 (commencing 9 January 2021). One would expect the trains reliability figures to also be affected by changes in the signalling software so the two things have to be considered together although the TIN figures relate to the train only. An extract from Mr Ford's figures is in the table below (MAA - Moving Annual Average).

Period	Starting	No. of units	No. of TINs	Fleet miles	MTIN	MAA MTIN
9	14 Nov	53	180	245,368	1,363	2,033
10	12 Dec	53	160	248,149	1,551	2,110
11	9 Jan	56	87	267,333	3,073	2,297
12	6 Feb	58	67	253,766	3,788	2,441

Whether these figures will improve sufficiently over the next couple of months to enable TfL to offer a reliable service when Crossrail opens is outside my knowledge. Historically a 'reliable' train has MTIN values of 50,000 and above.

 

[kevin_roche]

Yes, it would seem so.

The data published by Roger Ford in his monthly Modern Railways column show a jump after the Christmas/New Year software changes. The Miles per Technical Incident doubled between Period 10 (commencing 12 December 2021) and 11 (commencing 9 January 2021). One would expect the trains reliability figures to also be affected by changes in the signalling software so the two things have to be considered together although the TIN figures relate to the train only. An extract from Mr Ford's figures is in the table below (MAA - Moving Annual Average).

Period	Starting	No. of units	No. of TINs	Fleet miles	MTIN	MAA MTIN
9	14 Nov	53	180	245,368	1,363	2,033
10	12 Dec	53	160	248,149	1,551	2,110
11	9 Jan	56	87	267,333	3,073	2,297
12	6 Feb	58	67	253,766	3,788	2,441

Whether these figures will improve sufficiently over the next couple of months to enable TfL to offer a reliable service when Crossrail opens is outside my knowledge. Historically a 'reliable' train has MTIN values of 50,000 and above.

Wow, it has a long way to go! getting above 50,000 would require a 21 times improvement.

 

[Skie]

Although the project started in 2008, by 2012 all the reporting was on digging the tunnels with nothing about the software needed to make the trains run and control the safety systems when it opened, wasn’t until 2015 that this started to cause concerns.

The link is dead.

Though I will say it’s incredibly hard to develop software for hardware and interfaces that dont yet exist. You can design everything to spec or design for a test platform but as soon as the real thing arrives then you find a multitude of issues rear their heads and then it’s a case of fixing as you find things.

That door sensor that the manufacturers documentation said would update every 40 milliseconds? In the real world the latency is between 20 ms and 400ms so now your polling functions need to change so the train doesn’t slam the brakes on because the doors appear to have gone missing.

The protocol for communicating between the various onboard systems have changed multiple times in the months and years since the software was written, so entire chunks of code need to be scrapped and rewritten. And whilst your doing that, someone else is updating the software modules too so it’s constantly moving goalposts.

And don’t even introduce humans into the equation. Those things are phenomenal at doing things nobody could expect.

Crossrail will have suffered from all these issues before you can even point the finger at any planning deficiencies. Though really, you should plan for them