Crossrail opening delayed (opening date not yet known)

[deltic]

Breaking news - Theresa May announces that after her Brexit triumph, and with time on her hands, she's taking over Crossrail, with Chris Grayling as her trusted deputy. What can possibly go wrong/right now?

At least she would see it through to the bitter end!

 

[HowardGWR]

This is beginning to make GWEP look quite cheap!

 

[HowardGWR]

We seem to have two threads on the same subject in separate forums.
I am old enough to remember the commentator Bernard Levin in the sixties, saying, on That Was The Week That Was, (a weekly BBC satire programme), that without any knowledge of aircraft building, or finance, that the estimate of the minister Anthony Wedgwood Benn about the Concorde project costing £250 million would be exceeded and in fact would be treble that figure. He also said it would be many years late. As it turned out, he was correct on both counts!
Nothing new under the sun.

 

[Bessie]

The political fall-out will impact HS2. Can't see any government (Con or Lab) sanctioning such high levels of infrastructure spend again. Cross-rail might be the pinnacle of the railways as was completion of the M25 for roads. Good day to bury bad news with Westminster cross and everyone railing at Mrs May

 

[Taunton]

This is beginning to make GWEP look quite cheap!

There certainly were comments when the GW scheme was in hand that they were poorly managed "compared to Crossrail, where it's all fine".

It really has been The Emperor Has No Clothes.

 

[Busaholic]

This is disappointing but these things tend to happen with this sort of project. I suspect there's always a bit of 'poetic license' when it comes to budgeting on these sort of projects in order to get the project authorised. Once started they can hardly stop.

Remember the Jubilee Line Extension - 3 years late in the end iirc and massively over budget.
I think the Victoria Line was also late and over budget.

No-one would seriously say these shouldn't have been built. It'll be the same with Crossrail - all will be forgotten once it's up and running.

The Victoria Line was approved in August 1962, with an expectation of opening six years later: it opened on 1st September 1968, although initially only from Walthamstow to Highbury, but the remaining section to Victoria opened in two further stages by March 1969, so comparisons to current and recent situations are misplaced. I believe London Transport had to repay an extra £9 million interest to the government not budgeted for: Sadiq Khan et al can only dream of such things!

 

[bionic]

Most of what is happening in London is unsustainable. Anyone who studies economics or history will know it's boom and bust, peaks and troughs. The housing market will crash, the job market will crash, trains will carry fresh air and services be cut back. Then it will all start again... Until the next system comes along.

Bottom line is: Crossrail will open. Eventually the scandal of its construction and management will be forgotten. Look at Charles Tyson Yerkes if you want to see some bad-boy crooked underground railway building. Doesn't stop punters using his lines today.

 

[AJW12]

This announcement is yet another lump of bad news for working Londoners.

Take Woolwich for example. Massive investment in new accommodation for people, sold basically with its main attraction of Elizabeth Line links. Now, on the week it was due to open for the first time, we're told actually the delay is indefinite and it needs yet another massive cash injection (I wonder how much of this will get spent on Consultants and KPMG Auditors).

• The Southeastern new franchise is now delayed for the umpteenth time - so all these people moving to the Woolwich area are expected to cram onto the already overcrowded services which have big gaps in the timetable and still don't have the promised Thameslink service at the weekend
• Northern have had their diesel trains moved on; despite them still needing them, because in turn the electric work has overrun and is not ready; so their services are now screwed with no end in sight.
• The Thameslink service has only just come up to the level of service they promised 6 months ago (I'll leave proper discussion on this to the relevant thread); but they're now saying they need further infrastructure work to reach the promised 24tph (I believe this was said)
• Trains for the East Coast line can't even run on half of it's route because of electrical issues; pushing their roll out date on the long distance journeys (where they are arguably most needed) indefinitely.
• Unions holding the public to ransom have now meant that there's been no Saturday service since god knows when, on the already shoddy Northern service; also causing disruption across SWR and the Underground. And their bullying tactics mean that we all have to shell out for their huge pay rise whilst everyone else suffers.
• The Overground Gospel - Barking line has massive gaps at weekends as their trains are packing up; with new trains massively delayed.

We can do so much better as a country with our railways. The money gets spent on expensive, impressive stations (LBG, KGX, STP...) But when things go wrong the world of Twitter are so quick to jump and make it political, shout "Nationalise" and blame the private operating Companies; but when are the relevant public sector organisations (Network Rail et al) going to be held accountable and scrutinised properly? I'd actually like to see some sort of enquiry where Network Rail and other organisations are made to explain their mess; and lay out the timeline of decisions/problems that led to this. I knew someone employed on one of the companies building infrastructure for Crossrail, and they said "there's no way it'll be on time" back in April. Who looked at the crumbling building sites in Bond Street etc. and thought 'yes, this is bang on time'?

 

[Giugiaro]

This is how civil engineering works in UK isn't it? You put in a low price then argue about extra money for everything that doesn't go like clockwork.

I don’t think anyone really objects too badly to the fact that it’s late and over budget - as others have said this often happens with these long and complex projects. What’s more concerning is the fact that the leadership seem to have been either blind to it, or kept it to themselves. That’s delusional and incompetent at best, contemptuous at worst.

It's not just in the UK, it's pretty much everywhere. These kind of projects are always set to go overbudget and fail deadlines. They're big and complicated, and projects are normally made to account to the lowest theoretical value. Even a single labour accident can cause serious implications to the project as a whole.

Just to name an example, the Tōkaidō Shinkansen was such an absurd endeavour, the huge slide in the budget and the constant delays forced JNR president Shinji Sogō and chief engineer Hideo Shima to resign. Yet the project was completed. Nowadays the Shinkansen is one of the biggest national symbols of Japan.

It will depend a lot of what sort of economical, social and cohesion benefits these sort of projects will bring in the short, mid and long terms. If Crossrail were to be completed already, I would have used it every single day I needed to go to ExCeL.

 

[infobleep]

The Department for Transport said

The government remains committed to the rapid completion of the project, in a way that is fair to UK taxpayers.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-46507417

Would there have been away of completing the project even faster that wasn't fair to UK taxpayers or would it take the same length of time regardless of how fair it was to UK taxpayers?

 

[a_c_skinner]

It's not just in the UK, it's pretty much everywhere. These kind of projects are always set to go overbudget and fail deadlines. They're big and complicated, and projects are normally made to account to the lowest theoretical value. Even a single labour accident can cause serious implications to the project as a whole.

Absolutely. You can never avoid things going wrong and the choices of how to deal with this are more from the client, the company doing it goes bust, insuring against over spends (!) or never finishing the projects or never starting them because of much higher initial estimates. The problem is that the way we do this (and it seems the only practical way) means poor execution of the works is covered in the same way as unexpected problems (and you could put mast bases for GWR and Northern electrification in either). A decade or more ago there was some noise about trying to find a different way, but frankly there probably isn't. The real issue is the way politicians describe the problem as "overspend" and "over run" but as politicians always want to gain cheap advantage from anything that too won't change.

 

[AM9]

Melbourne has named lines for the trains although they're just named after the destinations but they're still line names (the Frankston line to Carrum etc. )

Hong Kong has (geographically) named lines, - but the London lines' names are mostly derived from their locations or destinations. The nine lines of the Chicago 'L' have colour names but are also extensively referred to by their original location names.

 

[matt_world2004]

Separate the regions.
I would be tempted to privatise one, as a test.
The trouble with nationalised stuff is that it is too easy for politicians to demand X, but then not give them enough cash, and there is no punishment when the nationalised supplier fails - no shareholders get burnt, just the taxpayer.

The last time we had a private infrastructure owner the taxpayer got burned hugely.

 

[Meerkat]

Did the taxpayer buy Railtrack back for more than they sold it for? I can’t remember.
Personally I can’t believe the shareholders got anything.....

 

[infobleep]

Indeed. And even if they did decide to go ahead with Crossrail 2 anyway, it seems potentially likely that (as others have suggested) a final decision on whether to go ahead or not will be delayed until there's a year or two of data from Crossrail 1 performance. This would then push it back even further....

All in all a thoroughly frustrating situation for the rail industry (not to mention the passengers and businesses who stand to benefit from an improved railway network).

Definitely frustrating for those who use Wimbledon station. It could do with a second footbridge but my understanding was that Crossrail 2 would do away with the need for a second footbridge. In the mean time.....

The official connection time is 6 minutes and if you not on the right part of the platform to get off first, you can miss your connecting train if the train your on is slightly late.

Thats before you get to the question of trains from Surbtion to Waterloo.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

There certainly were comments when the GW scheme was in hand that they were poorly managed "compared to Crossrail, where it's all fine".
It really has been The Emperor Has No Clothes.

And GWEP started up with statements like "this won't be another WCRM" (by NR project managers who had transferred over).
Plus ca change...
There also seems to have been the same Crossrail attitude to progress reports as for NR's CP5 enhancements.
Eventually you realise no effort is going in to making them meaningful - in fact, the updates seemed designed to obscure the real situation.
The only surprise is that TfL has been found to be suffering from the same affliction and denial as NR.

 

[JamesT]

Did the taxpayer buy Railtrack back for more than they sold it for? I can’t remember.
Personally I can’t believe the shareholders got anything.....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4340794.stm says the shareholders eventually got 250p per share. Railtrack floated for 380p so some that held shares for the entire life of the company would have lost, those who bought at the peak would have lost even more. (I’m ignoring the effect of dividends.)

 

[Ken H]

Hong Kong has (geographically) named lines, - but the London lines' names are mostly derived from their locations or destinations. The nine lines of the Chicago 'L' have colour names but are also extensively referred to by their original location names.

most are from the names of the companies that built them

Great Northern, Piccadilly & Brompton Railway
Central London Railway
Metropolitan District Railway
Baker Street and Waterloo Railway

The Northern was an amalgamation of railways, and was the 'Hampstead tube' before it became the northern - even though it goes to Morden!

 

[matacaster]

Unfortunately cost overruns have been a feature of major railway (and other) construction since their birth. Generally, the smaller the project, the less risk of overrun.

You get a contractor in to replace your kitchen - gives you a price (but its very low profit margin as he wants to win the contract and price is the main factor), you can just afford it, give go ahead. usually works out ok. Now suppose that plasterboard wall you wanted knocking down to open up the kitchen turns out to have a solid brick supporting wall hidden behind it? It was unforeseen, but you only had what you accepted in quote, the contractor hasn't allowed to be on site for longer and wants to go to next job or leave as on temporary contract. So, you have to borrow some money, the contractor has to suggest a price to fix the problem (they often DON'T fully cost the remedial works and give off the cuff figures which are too low and cut into their margins and the work takes longer. Whenever I have encountered cost overruns on projects of whatever type, the 'extra' is NEVER the full amount of what the extra work costs - which is why cutting the initial cost to the bone to win the contract can be a pyrrhic vistory.

Now that can easily happen in your kitchen, try multiplying that up by hundreds of thousands.

The estimated cost of a project is just that - it is NOT the cost, its the estimated cost. When you give the customer the projected cost, the usual response is I never thought it would be THAT much. They then start a process of knocking out certain features they don't deem critical to get to the price - what can possibly go wrong? Well, if you were to have a project with 10 major elements, and you removed the estimated cost of 6 of them, the remaining parts would likely cost a lot more than originally envisaged because you haven't got the base core which was necessary and whose cost was shared between the various sub parts. This is often given cursory attention by Project Managers as they feel they've nearly got that vital contract and can absorb or maybe charge the extra costs, but they haven't properly reassessed them which they should..

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

I'm slightly disappointed that we don't even have an estimated completion date yet. At the moment it's just 'not in 2019'. At this point, if that means, say, the May 2020 timetable change, I really hope they introduce full through running from Abbey Wood/Shenfield to Reading/Heathrow at that point. And it had better be without the same shambolic performance as happened during the May 2018 timetable change.

Is the further delay to Crossrail going to impact timetable changes for other lines, and possibly rolling stock cascades (as, AIUI, a lot of Crossrail services are slated to replace services operated by other stock)?

 

[matt_world2004]

Did the taxpayer buy Railtrack back for more than they sold it for? I can’t remember.
Personally I can’t believe the shareholders got anything.....

Railtracks debt at the time of liquidation was 7 billion. In fact the shareholders sued the government for not bailing out railltrack. Even though they did and Railtrack then paid that bailout to shareholders in dividends

 

[AM9]

Unfortunately cost overruns have been a feature of major railway (and other) construction since their birth. Generally, the smaller the project, the less risk of overrun.

You get a contractor in to replace your kitchen - gives you a price (but its very low profit margin as he wants to win the contract and price is the main factor), you can just afford it, give go ahead. usually works out ok. Now suppose that plasterboard wall you wanted knocking down to open up the kitchen turns out to have a solid brick supporting wall hidden behind it? It was unforeseen, but you only had what you accepted in quote, the contractor hasn't allowed to be on site for longer and wants to go to next job or leave as on temporary contract. So, you have to borrow some money, the contractor has to suggest a price to fix the problem (they often DON'T fully cost the remedial works and give off the cuff figures which are too low and cut into their margins and the work takes longer. Whenever I have encountered cost overruns on projects of whatever type, the 'extra' is NEVER the full amount of what the extra work costs - which is why cutting the initial cost to the bone to win the contract can be a pyrrhic vistory.

Now that can easily happen in your kitchen, try multiplying that up by hundreds of thousands.

The estimated cost of a project is just that - it is NOT the cost, its the estimated cost. When you give the customer the projected cost, the usual response is I never thought it would be THAT much. They then start a process of knocking out certain features they don't deem critical to get to the price - what can possibly go wrong? Well, if you were to have a project with 10 major elements, and you removed the estimated cost of 6 of them, the remaining parts would likely cost a lot more than originally envisaged because you haven't got the base core which was necessary and whose cost was shared between the various sub parts. This is often given cursory attention by Project Managers as they feel they've nearly got that vital contract and can absorb or maybe charge the extra costs, but they haven't properly reassessed them which they should..

A kitchen refit is not a sensible comparison. A quote from a fitter is the price that he will do the work stated in the attached description. If there are unforseen issues, generally, it's his/her problem as by trading in the kitchen fitting market they are deemed to be experts. If there was something revealed during the work that an expert in the field wouldn't have expected (such as deliberately hidden faults/weaknesses), there would be an issue to deal with in negotiation, however, if the trader gave a low quote just to get the job then that's the trader's risk. If a trader wishes to itemise specific areas where the price may be impacted by potential unknowns, but a general get out of jail estimate that allows gaming of the customer's work (probably at the most inconvenient stage of the job) is not the way to do it.
If the customer accepted an estimate for the job, the customer is accepting the risk of unknowns that a competent trader should be prepared for. Many unscrupulous traders refuse to give quotes for quite ordinary jobs and only give estimates. Depending on the circumstances, I would move on to those who have sufficient confidence in their own estimating abilities to give the customer a quote that is for most purposes legally binding.
A major civil engineering proiject is a different kettle of fish though. There are areas that cannot even be surveyed before work starts so the bid submission will fully outline those. The conduct of the contractor will (or should) be a known quantity and be continuously monitored during the life of the project. There may even be bonds or insurance cove to fund parts of the work. Most failures of contracts can be largely attributed to inadequacies in the lessor's due diligence. That applies down through the chain to include prime contractor/subcontractor relationships.

 

[matt_world2004]

From the Tfl draft business plan:

Pursue implementation of Reading to Paddington services ahead of completion of the Elizabeth line to partially mitigate revenue loss

p22.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

From the Tfl draft business plan:

Pursue implementation of Reading to Paddington services ahead of completion of the Elizabeth line to partially mitigate revenue loss

p22.

Doesn't that basically amount to an attempt at an ORCATS raid? Given that if the trains only run from Reading to Paddington, they'll offer no advantage over existing GWR services (other than providing additional services).

 

[swt_passenger]

Doesn't that basically amount to an attempt at an ORCATS raid? Given that if the trains only run from Reading to Paddington, they'll offer no advantage over existing GWR services (other than providing additional services).

GWR will already have had the change to TfL or Crossrail factored in to their future financials from certain dates, by agreement with DfT, so it shouldn’t really be seen as a “raid”. I expect GWR’s rollingstock plans also assume Crossrail takeover as planned, so will potentially be short of stock if they have to keep running the service.

 

[JN114]

GWR will already have had the change to TfL or Crossrail factored in to their future financials from certain dates, by agreement with DfT, so it shouldn’t really be seen as a “raid”. I expect GWR’s rollingstock plans also assume Crossrail takeover as planned, so will potentially be short of stock if they have to keep running the service.

The 387s to HEX plan does indeed require Crossrail to assume operation of 2tph stopping service to Reading in the medium to long term. Short term that gap can and will be filled with Turbos temporarily transferred back from Bristol. It’s also a signed and done deal and the 332s have to be withdrawn by the end of next year as that’s when their depot shuts - with no other suitable site on ATP-fitted lines.

 

[MarlowDonkey]

The 387s to HEX plan does indeed require Crossrail to assume operation of 2tph stopping service to Reading in the medium to long term.

345s aren't that suitable really for the Paddington to Reading services, even the stoppers. 387s offer "inter-city" style amenities such as toilets, tables, power points and 2+2 seating.

 

[Jonny]

345s aren't that suitable really for the Paddington to Reading services, even the stoppers. 387s offer "inter-city" style amenities such as toilets, tables, power points and 2+2 seating.

They are a good fit though as, being 90mph units (the 345s that is), they will have a lot of 'kick' and will not be constrained by top speed on the reliefs (which are 90mph or less east of Reading anyway).

 

[matt_world2004]

Doesn't that basically amount to an attempt at an ORCATS raid? Given that if the trains only run from Reading to Paddington, they'll offer no advantage over existing GWR services (other than providing additional services).

Given that MTR are paying for the drivers and Tfl are paying for the leasing of the units it makes sense to do this. Better to have these resources earning revenue rather than sitting there doing nothing.

Also there would be some customer advantages like oyster ticketing and Tfl concessionary pass acceptance throughout the route.

 

[MarlowDonkey]

Also there would be some customer advantages like oyster ticketing and Tfl concessionary pass acceptance throughout the route.

That's another sign that it's nowhere near finished. How will Oyster work, particularly on the Windsor, Marlow and Henley branches and for anyone changing trains at Reading for destinations further west?