Crossrail/Elizabeth Line: Central Section Asset Handover

[59CosG95]

According to this video, 30 major assets need to be handed over by Crossrail to TfL prior to the Central Section's EiS (Entry into Service). So far, 5 have been handed over:

• Royal Oak Tunnel Portal
• Victoria Dock Tunnel Portal
• Pudding Mill Lane Tunnel Portal
• Mile End Shaft
• Custom House Station

Which leaves the following assets still requiring handover:

North Woolwich Tunnel Portal
Plumstead Tunnel Portal
Connaught Tunnel

Woolwich Station
Canary Wharf Station
Whitechapel Station
Liverpool Street Station
Farringdon Station
Tottenham Court Road Station
Bond Street Station
Paddington Station

Limmo Shaft
Stepney Green Shaft
Eleanor Street Shaft
Fisher Street Shaft

plus 10 other assets I'm not yet aware of.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

That sounds quite a bit to do. Should we be concerned?

 

[Jorge Da Silva]

That sounds quite a bit to do. Should we be concerned?

Nope. Most of which should be handed over by the end of 2020.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Nope. Most of which should be handed over by the end of 2020.

That is really good news - and I like good news - especially at the moment.

 

[pdeaves]

plus 10 other assets I'm not yet aware of.

Presumably some of those assets are the actual tunnels (not just the portals as per the list), track and signalling. Depending on how they are defined, that could be the ten.

 

[matt_world2004]

One thing to remember is that it needs assurance documentation to be signed off. This would almost certainly have not been considered a priority when tfls safe stop procedures came in. So while the asset may be finished there may have been no one to physically sign off on the work yet due to all non essential works finishing. There is also the strange situation where some stations will be signed off by London Underground and some by rail for London and some by crossrail limited. You might find that some hand over sign offs may happen in batches or in rapid succession of each other.

 

[Taunton]

• Custom House Station

If they think that Custom House station is finished then I'm a banana.

What about all the scaffolding on the DLR side, which I really believe must have now rusted into position?

 

[Dstock7080]

Nope. Most of which should be handed over by the end of 2020.

Welcome to Crossrail

Crossrail Ltd has delivered the Elizabeth line - a new railway for London and the South East, running from Reading and Heathrow in the west, through 42km of new tunnels under London to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east. The Elizabeth line has 41 accessible stations including 10 major new...

www.crossrail.co.uk

Mike Brown MVO, London’s Transport Commissioner, said: “The Government and the Mayor have given clear instructions to stay safe and to stop travelling in all cases other than critical workers making absolutely essential journeys.

“In line with this, TfL and Crossrail will be bringing all project sites to a temporary Safe Stop unless they need to continue for operational safety reasons. This means that work on all such projects will be temporarily suspended as soon as it is safe to do so. Essential maintenance of the transport network will of course continue.

 

[route:oxford]

If they think that Custom House station is finished then I'm a banana.

What about all the scaffolding on the DLR side, which I really believe must have now rusted into position?

Are they definitely using steel scaffolding?

A fair amount of scaffolding is made out of aluminium as it's considerably lighter (and won't rust), also often where there is electricity involved Carbon fibre or composite materials will be used for safety.

 

[59CosG95]

Welcome to Crossrail

Crossrail Ltd has delivered the Elizabeth line - a new railway for London and the South East, running from Reading and Heathrow in the west, through 42km of new tunnels under London to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east. The Elizabeth line has 41 accessible stations including 10 major new...

www.crossrail.co.uk

Much of the handover process is based upon documentation, which is easily completable from home.

 

[59CosG95]

If they think that Custom House station is finished then I'm a banana.

What about all the scaffolding on the DLR side, which I really believe must have now rusted into position?

The handover process for Custom House refers only to the Elizabeth Line station, not the DLR one (which, AIUI, is already owned by TfL).

 

[Taunton]

The works at Custom House are wholly for Crossrail, in an integrated station. If some idiot has signed them off as complete (especially if, as suggested above, they have been signed off from home without visiting the site) then presumably the remaining outstanding items will not get done without someone finding further fresh money.

Some years ago (I think it was in the 1990s) the government made an announcement that for major rail tunnelling projects, of which several were proposed, there should only be one in progress at a time. Stated that this ensured competition for scarce skills did not end up driving up their prices and down their quality. It was also an issue that they would leave a project prematurely to go on to a new opportunity, leaving problems with the first job.

Looking at Crossrail, this is exactly what has happened. HS2 tooled up and firstly the management and design staff moved away, including of course a couple of the top names, and then the operatives as well. If they had been told they would not be allowed to start on B until A was finished, I think it would have had a salutary effect on Crossrail getting finished.

 

[plugwash]

It's a difficult balance, on the one hand if you over-demand rare skills then you can drive up the cost and down the quality, on the other hand if you under-demand them by holding off project n+1 until project n is totally complete you risk people leaving either the industry or the country.

 

[59CosG95]

Latest developments on certification; Whitechapel, Liverpool St & Woolwich have all been certified to support Trial Running (intensive operational testing).

 

[Mikey C]

Welcome to Crossrail

Crossrail Ltd has delivered the Elizabeth line - a new railway for London and the South East, running from Reading and Heathrow in the west, through 42km of new tunnels under London to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east. The Elizabeth line has 41 accessible stations including 10 major new...

www.crossrail.co.uk

Coronavirus hit the Crossrail project back in 2018, that's why it's so late

 

[59CosG95]

Another update from NCE (https://www.newcivilengineer.com/la...-over-to-tfl-earlier-than-planned-27-05-2020/):

Crossrail central stations to be handed over to TfL earlier than planned
27 MAY, 2020 BY ROB HORGAN

Key Crossrail stations in central London will be handed over to Transport for London (TfL) earlier than planned, TfL board minutes reveal.
Stations including Tottenham Court Road, Farringdon, Liverpool Street and Whitechapel will be handed over to TfL under the revised plan, the minutes state.
NCE understands that the stations were earmarked to be handed over in the autumn this year. The minutes do not detail how much earlier the handover will now take place.
“We have identified an opportunity for [Crossrail Ltd] to transfer the [London Underground] interface stations early (Tottenham Court Road, Farringdon, Liverpool Street and Whitechapel) to us as the [infrastructure manager],” the minutes state.
“This collaborative approach has required the assessment of tradeoffs to focus efforts on what is needed to support operations.
“The early transfer will facilitate an early start to station familiarisation and allow us to draw on our extensive experience in accepting and operating stations.''

It adds: “Due to current site access restrictions, we are unable to start staff familiarisation though detailed planning is underway to assess mitigations.
“Our engineering teams are developing a process to assist CRL in the review of the remaining assurance paperwork being prepared by the Tier 1 contractors.
“The intention is for our teams to complete the remaining paperwork where possible without relieving the Tier 1 contractors of their accountability. This will accelerate the handover delivery and remove this risk from the critical path.”
Crossrail Ltd will need to transfer nearly 200,000 documents to TfL for safety and handover purposes before the Elizabeth Line comes online, it was revealed in December last year.
Earlier this month, Crossrail Ltd completed its first handover to TfL of a central section station at Custom House, as well as handing over the Royal Oak Portal.

Crossrail chief executive Mark Wild detailed the work left to do on the project during an appearance on The Engineers Collective podcast at the start of the year.

 

[hwl]

Another update from NCE (https://www.newcivilengineer.com/la...-over-to-tfl-earlier-than-planned-27-05-2020/):

Unsurprisingly no mention of Bond Street or Paddington* that are somewhat more problematic than others.

*Still major connection to existing LU stuff to sort (had just started before lock down)

Handed over doesn't mean complete! and Custom House is good example of that.

Handover was/is effectively linked to 2 critical paths, a certain level of physical completion and completion of documentation hence at some stations good progress on the former and the later has been able to continue despite lock down.

 

[InOban]

Reading the document it seems that they have found some legal way of handing over the assets as complete without absolving the contractor's liability to rectify any issues that appear. AIR?

 

[Taunton]

Reading the document it seems that they have found some legal way of handing over the assets as complete without absolving the contractor's liability to rectify any issues that appear. AIR?

That's normal, there is a Defects Liability Period, commonly 12 months, in most construction contracts I have ever seen. For building works far and away the most likely area to give rise to return work being needed is with the plumbing.

It is of course incumbent on the client, TfL/Crossrail, to actually start using it all within that period to find if there are any issues. It's not much good to let the 12 months expire to then find the heating doesn't work.

 

[InOban]

I assumed that all contracts had something like that, but the specific mention in the article made me think that there was something extra in this case.

 

[Taunton]

I think it's a reference to the contract stating that specified paperwork has to be signed and exchanged, and an inability to do this in the current situation. The article is a bit of a mish-mash for, despite what you might think that New Civil Engineer has staff who understand what is being written about, it comes over as having been wholly written by the Crossrail PR department.

 

[InOban]

That sounds reasonable. In Scotland house sales also depended on signed paperwork, but they managed to create a secure digital mechanism quite quickly.

 

[quantinghome]

I think it's a reference to the contract stating that specified paperwork has to be signed and exchanged, and an inability to do this in the current situation. The article is a bit of a mish-mash for, despite what you might think that New Civil Engineer has staff who understand what is being written about, it comes over as having been wholly written by the Crossrail PR department.

You'd think so, but alas NCE has not had that for a while. Its business case has been scuppered by job adverts moving online. It has shifted from weekly to monthly and from the look of it runs with a skeleton staff. Unfortunately much of its content is now rehashed press releases.

 

[matt_world2004]

Don't the handover documents require a physical inspection by TfL to ensure what is being handed over fits in with the original design soecification. Which may require physical inspection of the assets

 

[InOban]

That sounds reasonable. In Scotland house sales also depended on signed paperwork, but they managed to create a secure digital mechanism quite quickly.

 

[mrmartin]

Seems the old big one is now closed, so starting a new one.

I'm amazed that the Chairman is saying it is going to open on time; despite being shut for construction for 3 months for COVID, and according to the Jacobs reports was already 2-3 months behind before COVID.

Perhaps a lot of the work can be done at home for handover (though seems optimistic to me, even if 95% can I imagine you'll end up with loads of small blockers that need to be done in person)...

 

[59CosG95]

Seems the old big one is now closed, so starting a new one.

I'm amazed that the Chairman is saying it is going to open on time; despite being shut for construction for 3 months for COVID, and according to the Jacobs reports was already 2-3 months behind before COVID.

Perhaps a lot of the work can be done at home for handover (though seems optimistic to me, even if 95% can I imagine you'll end up with loads of small blockers that need to be done in person)...

Yes, lots of the paperwork for handover can be done remotely (i.e. at home). It's often the case that major projects may have achieved some degree of physical completion without having the paperwork sent to the client to verify it.