Crossrail opening delayed until further notice

The opening of the Crossrail core has been delayed to Autumn 2019. No word yet what that means for subsequent phased openings but this is a serious but not unexpected delay.

 

Breaking News: Crossrail opening delayed until autumn next year

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...rail-opening-postponed-until-autumn-next-year

 

Announcement today that Crossrail’s opening will be pushed back until autumn next year!

https://twitter.com/skynewsbreak/status/1035453997329645568?s=21

 

That's not just a couple of weeks late then, but a hefty overrun of almost a year.
Certainly a massive project, but also quite a hyped one, so there's going to be some embarrassment.

 

Paddington - Abbey Wood delayed till autumn '19 with LST -Shenfield to operate as currently (was meant to change in May '19) and they hope to have 345s to Heathrow (was planned for last May) by then.

This screws up the LST high level platform works planned for next June-July so they can take 9 car.

 

No surprise I hear they have trainee drivers sitting at home doing nothing due to lack of di's like gtr did.

 

Crossrail Press Release:

 

Not really surprising. Apart from persistent rumours, the stations look nowhere near ready, the trains are nowhere near as bedded in as they should be this close to December, and testing has barely started.

Shades of the JLE all over again...

However, to be fair, it’s a massive project and a few months delay in the grand scheme of things isn’t the end of the world.

 

Guess it's now the turn of TfL to get the media attention. Must be good news for GTR, especially on a week where GTR is announcing more trains from the original May timetable being restored in the coming weeks.

 

I think everyone was expected a few months of delay but 9+ months is pretty surprising, especially given it's also pushing back the Shenfield and Reading branch services even further. Is there any chance they're underpromising deliberately and might actually beat their revised goal and open in June or something?

 

I wonder if they're saying autumn but really are planning for the May 2019 timetable change

 

Not remotely surprising, just disappointing they didn't give any public impression things were behind, though we could visibly see that was the case...

 

First rule of Project Management, if you miss your original delivery date, it's better to vastly pad the remaining time and surprise people, rather than set an aggressive revised date and miss it a second time.

 

None of the core stations look remotely ready on the surface - that's not work you can do in 3 months!

 

Just Abbey Wood - Paddington is new for Autumn 2019 it doesn't rely on any NR TT changes.

The May '19 Shenfield- Paddington has got delayed and this does have NR timetable impacts and means the defeerrment of the LST high level platform works from June -July '19 to after whenever the Shenfield trains go through the core (so December 2019 at the earliest). Just as well the 315 lease was extended. Delaying the GWR to CR transfers from Dec '19 till May '19 at the earliest also leaves plenty of room to sort out the issues more sensibly there (769s, 387 for HEx, Heathrow tunnel signalling and all the station works)

 

Journalists are claiming TfL and the DfT only found out yesterday that it would be late.

I find that hard to believe. Well, not that Grayling found out yesterday but TfL. If they hadn't planned for this they're more stupid than they look. It's been expected by everyone.

Indeed, I was at Whitechapel the other week. It's at least a year off.

 

Twitter rumours say TfL and the DfT were only told yesterday:
https://twitter.com/catneilan/status/1035459461392031744

 

It was the same with the new Spurs stadium, everyone could see it was well behind schedule, but the club only admitted it at a pretty late date

 

I imagine that is a gross simplification. Rather, perhaps it was only yesterday that Crossrail Ltd officially informed TfL and the DfT that the central core wouldn't be ready for December - but TfL and the DfT would have been increasingly well aware that things were not on course. Apart from anything else, various TfL people are deeply integrated into the Crossrail project. And Crossrail Ltd is a wholly owned subsidiary of TfL.

I smell the scent of DfT / Grayling blame avoidance!

 

Ultimately it's probably for the best. Somewhat miffed I have to wait a few extra months, but given the scope and scale of the project it's hardly a devastating delay.

Is there any indication of the factors that ended up pushing this decision? I get the impression from the PR that it's mostly down to station fit-out running behind schedule, as well as issues with signalling.

 

Actually, I would put that as a second rule, the first being that you don't wait until just three months before a major launch to assess the facts and decide it's not sensible!

 

Indeed "I'm not an expert in rail matters."

 

me, finding out about this news

 

Geoff Marshall has put up a rather speedy vlog which has some Q&A in it around his previous vid (and some more discussion of the service pattern), but also mentions the delay. Speedy recording... unless he had confirmed rumours from insider sources. He says 'Summer 2019' several times in the video whereas the actual press release says Autumn.

 

I love this (underlined) part of this Londonist post
https://londonist.com/london/transp...l-delay?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

 

900 Million over budget I hear and delayed a year. More money being thrown at and wasted in London and the South East. Are there no penalty clauses in the contracts for being over budget and delays to finishing the projects? I bet there are no resignations over this further debacle. Dreadful.

 

Neither of those are true.

There is a good business case for the project, and it would be difficult to realistically call that money 'wasted' in any sense.

There are obviously a huge number of contracts in place and many of those will have conditions tied to on-time completion.

Good. There should be no resignations over this.

You are wildly overstating this.

 

Told (Officially) and known ( unofficially) are two different things - especially where government types are concerned!

 

I suspect 'only told yesterday' was the detail on the length of the delay, not the fact there was a delay as these will be reported monthly.

In the end the system will be there for decades, so apart from cost and inconvenience the opening date isn't time critical.