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Crossrail opening delayed (opening date not yet known)

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USBT

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The FT is reporting that MTR Crossrail are seeking agreement from TfL for a two year extension to their concession contract. This is the extension permitted under the contract but is normally linked to demonstrated performance. This is because the construction delays have not allowed them to meet their obligations / demonstrate their ability to operate the service in the Core. The FT article is paywalled sadly - if you have a subscription or sign off then it is visible.

If you provide the headline then people can usually Google the headline and by following the link from Google can view the full article (as a minimum once). It works from a mobile better than desktop.

It’s obviously not surprising that MTR want the extension (subject to performance) because they’ve had no chance to demonstrate their performance.
 
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The BBC TV Series indicated that it was later when things started to go wrong. An article in the FT on December 20, 2018 (which is unfortunately behind a paywall) speaks very highly of Daniel Moylan, who was Boris's man on the crossrail project and deputy chair of TfL, says that things started to go wrong after Daniel Moylan was replaced.
https://www.ft.com/content/0d020876-ffc4-11e8-aebf-99e208d3e521

The FT is reporting that MTR Crossrail are seeking agreement from TfL for a two year extension to their concession contract. This is the extension permitted under the contract but is normally linked to demonstrated performance. This is because the construction delays have not allowed them to meet their obligations / demonstrate their ability to operate the service in the Core. The FT article is paywalled sadly - if you have a subscription or sign off then it is visible.

If you provide the headline then people can usually Google the headline and by following the link from Google can view the full article (as a minimum once). It works from a mobile better than desktop.

It’s obviously not surprising that MTR want the extension (subject to performance) because they’ve had no chance to demonstrate their performance.

https://www.ft.com/content/ce178f0a-6a62-11e9-80c7-60ee53e6681d
 

kevin_roche

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If you provide the headline then people can usually Google the headline and by following the link from Google can view the full article (as a minimum once). It works from a mobile better than desktop.

The headline is:
Crossrail: how Europe’s largest transport project stalled

Text I was referring to:

Politicians meanwhile had taken their eyes off the ball. When Mr Khan became mayor two years ago he dismissed TfL’s representative on the Crossrail board, Daniel Moylan, a Conservative politician who had kept a close eye on costs, and asked all “the difficult questions” according to one individual close to the board.
 

plcd1

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The headline is:
Text I was referring to:
Politicians meanwhile had taken their eyes off the ball. When Mr Khan became mayor two years ago he dismissed TfL’s representative on the Crossrail board, Daniel Moylan, a Conservative politician who had kept a close eye on costs, and asked all “the difficult questions” according to one individual close to the board.

Before we turn Mr Moylan into a "saint" a couple of comments. Whatever the rights and wrongs of an elected Mayoralty it is standard practice that political appointees to Boards change when the political party in charge of the Mayoralty changes. It is inevitable that a Mayor will want "their own person" in place. I can't see how Mr Moylan could ever work for Sadiq Khan. This would be no different to Shaun Bailey (if elected the next Mayor) being unable to work with Heidi Alexander (the current deputy Mayor for Transport). You'd expect these appointments to change. The TfL Board is also reconstituted when the Mayoralty changes.

Secondly did Mr Moylan ever get any answers to his questions? If he did who did he tell? The message under Boris was "everything on time, everything on budget" and yet it was obvious that it was not at certain locations. Informed comment earlier in this long thread of posts indicated problems were evident in 2016 which is just at the end of Boris's term. If Mr Moylan was as eagle eyed as suggested did he not spot these issues? There was also the failure to change governance arrangements or to at least start the process of changing them to reflect the transition from construction to system integration and operation.

This is not to excuse what has (or has not) happened since 2016 under Mayor Khan but I suspect Mr Moylan's recent studied silence is as much to do with politics and the "blame game" as anything. There has been no suggestion from him AFAIK that he spotted the flaws in Crossrail's procurement structure for the main works, the flaws in the project programme nor that he saw the risks in the "we can make it, we can do it" organisational culture in Crossrail that prevented "bad" news being properly reported, challenged and acted upon. Hindsight's a great thing but let's be challenging to everyone who has had a role in this mess.
 

hwl

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Before we turn Mr Moylan into a "saint" a couple of comments. Whatever the rights and wrongs of an elected Mayoralty it is standard practice that political appointees to Boards change when the political party in charge of the Mayoralty changes. It is inevitable that a Mayor will want "their own person" in place. I can't see how Mr Moylan could ever work for Sadiq Khan. This would be no different to Shaun Bailey (if elected the next Mayor) being unable to work with Heidi Alexander (the current deputy Mayor for Transport). You'd expect these appointments to change. The TfL Board is also reconstituted when the Mayoralty changes.

Secondly did Mr Moylan ever get any answers to his questions? If he did who did he tell? The message under Boris was "everything on time, everything on budget" and yet it was obvious that it was not at certain locations. Informed comment earlier in this long thread of posts indicated problems were evident in 2016 which is just at the end of Boris's term. If Mr Moylan was as eagle eyed as suggested did he not spot these issues? There was also the failure to change governance arrangements or to at least start the process of changing them to reflect the transition from construction to system integration and operation.

This is not to excuse what has (or has not) happened since 2016 under Mayor Khan but I suspect Mr Moylan's recent studied silence is as much to do with politics and the "blame game" as anything. There has been no suggestion from him AFAIK that he spotted the flaws in Crossrail's procurement structure for the main works, the flaws in the project programme nor that he saw the risks in the "we can make it, we can do it" organisational culture in Crossrail that prevented "bad" news being properly reported, challenged and acted upon. Hindsight's a great thing but let's be challenging to everyone who has had a role in this mess.
I think part of the point with Daniel Moylan was that he had been on the CR board or Deputy Mayor Transport or both for 7 years up to 2016 (and was also instrumental in getting CR2 going, the estuary airport thinking as well as Urban space initiates to encourage walking). At which point in 2016 he is replaced with some one without the 7 years of Crossrail insider knowledge. Hence any new people coming on to the board as non-execs faced significant challenges in not having the background with the project to inform awkward questioning. Mark Wild and even more recent arrival as non exec and now CEO has remarked several times on the the length of time he took him to get up to speed in both roles.

DM's involvement in asking awkwards question (a very necessary role) earlier could have been both positive and negative. In the negative case it could be that stuff was just brushed under the carpet so he couldn't find out!
 
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hwl

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I agree that it looks like the ingrained culture was a major part of the issue.
Or was the message in reality that it will be on time on budget not that it currently was on time, i.e. they expected to be able to catch up. The problem with that is bills also then some in later if the work is completed later.

Being willing to admit all was not well might have been healthier in the long run.
 

kevin_roche

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Or was the message in reality that it will be on time on budget not that it currently was on time, i.e. they expected to be able to catch up.

The first 5 TV programs the the BBC made were all like that. I don't know how much was artistic licence to create a bit of drama for the TV but in every one there was some aspect of the work that was going wrong and was fixed by the end of the episode.
 

Mikey C

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The first 5 TV programs the the BBC made were all like that. I don't know how much was artistic licence to create a bit of drama for the TV but in every one there was some aspect of the work that was going wrong and was fixed by the end of the episode.

It's an annoying aspect of otherwise excellent engineering documentaries that they feel the need to hype up the drama in this way, when you know that they aren't going to finish the episode with it going horribly wrong (especially when you would have heard about it if the bridge collapsed or the dam or tunnel was breached)

"This is a key part of the process...if this piece of the bridge/dam/tunnel/reactor isn't installed properly then the results could be catastrophic."
 

plcd1

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I think part of the point with Daniel Moylan was that he had been on the CR board or Deputy Mayor Transport or both for 7 years up to 2016 (and was also instrumental in getting CR2 going, the estuary airport thinking as well as Urban space initiates to encourage walking). At which point in 2016 he is replaced with some one without the 7 years of Crossrail insider knowledge. Hence any new people coming on to the board as non-execs faced significant challenges in not having the background with the project to inform awkward questioning. Mark Wild and even more recent arrival as non exec and now CEO has remarked several times on the the length of time he took him to get up to speed in both roles.

DM's involvement in asking awkwards question (a very necessary role) earlier could have been both positive and negative. In the negative case it could be that stuff was just brushed under the carpet so he couldn't find out!

OK fair enough but with a politicised system of appointments you will always get that loss of knowledge at the point that administrations change. It's unfortunate but it's little different to the regular nonsense you get in projects where those who do the development and thinking don't have roles on the implementation team and those doing the implementing walk away and leave the end result to other people. Ditto for things like franchise procurements where those who pull the bid together are not those who will be tasked with running the new contract and operating the services / implementing change / introducing new trains. I know different skill sets are needed for different tasks but you also need long term oversight and knowledge along with proper overlaps and communication between key activity phases.
 

Bikeman78

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I do not understand the issues or why we need these systems
Going back to the 60 s when I was working in London the central line ran trains so close to each other you could see the next one in the tunnel, If you stood at the end of the platform at Chancery Lane you could see the next train loading passengers at Holborn If that conventional system worked 50 yrs ago why not use red and green lights now
It still does on the underground. For example, Baker Street to Liverpool Street and Tower Hill to South Kensington have 24 trains per hour all day. No doubt that increases slightly in the peaks.
 
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Bikeman78

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No they did an assessment fairly early on that showed what level of performance was required and this was reflected in the tender.
For example ETCS would have met most of the requirements but was not sufficiently developed at the time to be certain of meeting all of them (e.g. stopping precision for PEDs). Hence the chosen route of a Metro CBTC system of which TfL had already procured 4 modern systems at the time.

The tender price of £50.6m from Siemens was an absolute bargain...
How accurate was the original Victoria line system? Occasionally it would brake too early so the train would creep along the platform a few metres but I never went on a train that overshot.
 

kevin_roche

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"This is a key part of the process...if this piece of the bridge/dam/tunnel/reactor isn't installed properly then the results could be catastrophic."

That's why I liked the last two better. Things did go wrong.

I do not understand the issues or why we need these systems
Going back to the 60 s when I was working in London the central line ran trains so close to each other you could see the next one in the tunnel, If you stood at the end of the platform at Chancery Lane you could see the next train loading passengers at Holborn If that conventional system worked 50 yrs ago why not use red and green lights now

It was mostly because of several really bad rail accidents. The law was changed so that all lines require some sort of train protection system. Since then the EU have introduced new laws which we have commited to which require the system to be ETCS unless you get special permission for it not to be ETCS.

On the choice of signalling system. The EU Rail people authorised the use of Trainguard MT only as a temporary measure and it must be changed to ETCS Level 3 once it is possible.

If you examine the details of how Trainguard MT works it is very similar to the drafts I have read about ETCS Level 3.
 
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kevin_roche

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There is a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee on Wednesday 15 May 2019 2:30 pm
Oral Evidence Session
Crossrail

Witnesses
Bernadette Kelly, Permanent Secretary, Department for Transport
Tony Meggs, Chairman, Crossrail Ltd
Mark Wild, CEO, Crossrail Ltd
Matthew Lodge, Senior Responsible Owner, Crossrail Ltd
Sir Terry Morgan, former Chair, Crossrail Ltd
Andrew Wolstenholme, former CEO, Crossrail Ltd

Location
The Boothroyd Room, Portcullis House
 

Ianno87

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It still does on the underground. For example, Baker Street to Liverpool Street and Tower Hill to South Kensington have 24 trains per hour all day. No doubt that increases slightly in the peaks.

Those 24 trains are shorter and slower than Crossrail trains.
 

kevin_roche

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It has been widely reported that Crossrail has lots of drivers sitting around doing nothing. How many drivers are actually needed for TfL Rail at the moment? Is it worth training some to drive on the Overground?
 

iphone76

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It has been widely reported that Crossrail has lots of drivers sitting around doing nothing. How many drivers are actually needed for TfL Rail at the moment? Is it worth training some to drive on the Overground?

It has been widely reported, but isn't accurate.

There is lots of training and testing going on. East drivers are learning the west route and new signalling systems. Plus west drivers have route retention diagrams on the East to ensure their knowledge isn't lost.
 

matt_world2004

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It has been widely reported that Crossrail has lots of drivers sitting around doing nothing. How many drivers are actually needed for TfL Rail at the moment? Is it worth training some to drive on the Overground?
The drivers on step back duties for Tfl Rail West to ensure reliability with the 7 minute turn round time
 

306024

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It has been widely reported, but isn't accurate.

There is lots of training and testing going on. East drivers are learning the west route and new signalling systems. Plus west drivers have route retention diagrams on the East to ensure their knowledge isn't lost.

Lots and lots of training. Look at what happened at Thameslink when sufficient training wasn’t complete before the timetable was introduced, no one wants to be in that situation.
 

HowardGWR

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Those 24 trains are shorter and slower than Crossrail trains.
??? Surely, if one is adjudging the throughput, the length of the trains is immaterial and the fact that they are slower only makes the signalling and platform efficiency more admirable?
 

Bald Rick

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??? Surely, if one is adjudging the throughput, the length of the trains is immaterial and the fact that they are slower only makes the signalling and platform efficiency more admirable?

Train length is crucial - a longer train takes longer to clear each block / point of conflict.

And a slower train needs shorter braking distances. Thereby shorter signalling sections, therefore the potential to run more trains per hour.

The Thameslink core works at 30mph; it wouldn’t at 60 mph.
 

kevin_roche

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At a session yesterday of Parliament's Public Accounts Committee dedicated to HS2 and Crossrail it was stated that the through running of trains from Reading / Heathrow into the tunnels is likely to happen one year after the tunnels open for service from Abbey Wood to Paddington. The service from Shenfield into the tunnels will be six months after the Abbey Wood to Paddington service.

Tony Meggs says in his evidence:
We estimate that it will take 6 months for stage 4... and another 6 Months for Stage 5.

https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/ad70c511-864f-4136-9343-d3fd0f92a85c?in=16:55:30&out=17:02:10
 

itfcfan

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At a session yesterday of Parliament's Public Accounts Committee dedicated to HS2 and Crossrail it was stated that the through running of trains from Reading / Heathrow into the tunnels is likely to happen one year after the tunnels open for service from Abbey Wood to Paddington. The service from Shenfield into the tunnels will be six months after the Abbey Wood to Paddington service.

Tony Meggs says in his evidence:

https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/ad70c511-864f-4136-9343-d3fd0f92a85c?in=16:55:30&out=17:02:10

Thanks for sharing that. In the same clip, the delayed "digitalisation" of the railway is discussed as a compromise to reduce work that needs to be done before the opening. It's described that this digitalisation will be introduced a year after the railway is opened - in the meantime, extra duties will be performed manually by operational staff. Does anyone know what this means? I'm pretty certain this does not refer to signalling. Is this something around operation of stations or similar?
 

kevin_roche

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Thanks for sharing that. In the same clip, the delayed "digitalisation" of the railway is discussed as a compromise to reduce work that needs to be done before the opening. It's described that this digitalisation will be introduced a year after the railway is opened - in the meantime, extra duties will be performed manually by operational staff. Does anyone know what this means? I'm pretty certain this does not refer to signalling. Is this something around operation of stations or similar?

There is actually a lot of interesting stuff on Crossrail and HS2 which raises even more questions in the two and a half hours of that meeting.

I have an image in my head now of a row of TfL employees along the platform with whiteboards putting up the times to next train to Heathrow.
 

hwl

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There is actually a lot of interesting stuff on Crossrail and HS2 which raises even more questions in the two and a half hours of that meeting.

I have an image in my head now of a row of TfL employees along the platform with whiteboards putting up the times to next train to Heathrow.
I suspect much more about interactions between Crossrail platforms and the existing stations they are linked to as the existing station all effectively have unique sets of equipment
 

jellybaby

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Interesting article in the Standard at https://www.standard.co.uk/news/tra...y-not-be-finished-for-two-years-a4143806.html

The now well known Bond Street is stuffed but further down:

Mr Wild also revealed previously unknown problems with Canary Wharf station, which was built for Crossrail by the landlord of Canary Wharf, the Canary Wharf Group.

He said: “We have spent nearly £80 million changing the equipment at Canary Wharf to make it the equivalent safety standards that are required for London Underground stations.

“It was built in 2015 but we have still not finished the work at Canary Wharf. We won’t finish the work at Canary Wharf until September or October.”

How can the spec be so wrong?
 

hwl

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Interesting article in the Standard at https://www.standard.co.uk/news/tra...y-not-be-finished-for-two-years-a4143806.html

The now well known Bond Street is stuffed but further down:



How can the spec be so wrong?

Canary Wharf were desperate for retail income from the top 3 floors so went ahead and built it completing it shortly before the final CR design was finished as it was 3 years (in theory and 4 to 5 in practice) ahead of the other stations.

Fire Alarm system not suitable for underground station use.

Escalators the cheapest they could find not the heavy duty ones LU use.
 

reddragon

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Interesting article in the Standard at https://www.standard.co.uk/news/tra...y-not-be-finished-for-two-years-a4143806.html

The now well known Bond Street is stuffed but further down:



How can the spec be so wrong?
Exactly as I said last October a few weeks before the announcement, see!

Builders cut corners and used cheaper items outside of LULs spec & hoped to get away with it, but shock horror, not only were they caught out but the stuff installed didn't work well enough!
 

reddragon

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Canary Wharf were desperate for retail income from the top 3 floors so went ahead and built it completing it shortly before the final CR design was finished as it was 3 years (in theory and 4 to 5 in practice) ahead of the other stations.

Fire Alarm system not suitable for underground station use.

Escalators the cheapest they could find not the heavy duty ones LU use.
Add to that control systems, pumps, drainage, the list goes on & on and not only at Canary Wharf!
 
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