Crossrail opening delayed (opening date not yet known)

[hwl]

Thought it was known ages ago there was a big overrun ?

Yep, the question was just how much, we now seemingly have CR's official answer.

 

[hwl]

There usually a number of complex reasons for delays so those tutting and drawing conclusions over the cause are almost certainly doing so without much insight.

Don't expect much of an explanation now, every single company involved in the project will now be issuing statements via their solicitors.

Agreed but there will be a good books worth of story at the end of this and a lot of complexity that RF comments don't handle well...

 

[sprunt]

I tell you this, in my line of work, any delay means heads will roll. It should well be the case with Crossrail and this latest news.

Google search for "pipeline delays", the first page has three articles this month about three different pipelines:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...n-oil-pipeline-delayed-minister-idUSKCN1L801K
https://www.worldoil.com/news/2018/8/6/delay-puts-37-billion-marcellus-pipeline-at-risk-of-overhaul
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-...p-Record-US-Natural-Gas-Pipeline-Exports.html

It's a wonder anyone in your line of work still has a job.

 

[coppercapped]

This country just can't build anything on time can it?

Keeping to railway topics the Reading station rebuild took nearly a year less than the initial prognostications following a re-phasing of the stage works.

I may be reading more into your post than you intend - but the sub-text is that you imply that these things are done on time abroad. Again, staying in the transport world I would point you at the Stuttgart 21 and the Berlin-Brandenberg Airport sagas, both in Germany.

Building things is difficult - and building complex systems is even more so. You should try it some time.

 

[3141]

After the Thameslink timetable problems I'm very glad that TfL have sensibly announced now that Crossrail is going to be late, and not waited till shortly before the planned opening date, or even the day itself.

As to when to make such an announcement, every option has its downside. Do it early, and the grumblers say the project must be a total shambles if they already know it won't be ready on time. Do it later, and they say the project must be a total shambles because they must have known earlier....

With a project much of which is tunnelling underground, it does not surprise me that there are cost and time overruns. Test boring can never give a complete picture, especially in a densely built-up area. Then there's the shortage of certain skilled workers and the competing projects, which others have alluded to.

 

[PR1Berske]

Manchester Airport Metrolink line opened about a year ahead of schedule.

There's always an exception to prove a rule though, isn't there?

 

[YorkshireBear]

Keeping to railway topics the Reading station rebuild took nearly a year less than the initial prognostications following a re-phasing of the stage works.

I may be reading more into your post than you intend - but the sub-text is that you imply that these things are done on time abroad. Again, staying in the transport world I would point you at the Stuttgart 21 and the Berlin-Brandenberg Airport sagas, both in Germany.

Building things is difficult - and building complex systems is even more so. You should try it some time.

Also trains in Germany are always on time, except when they really are not.....

Hyperbole isn't necessary and helps no one. Sacking people will help no one. This is not some massive cock up, it is progressive issues with various parts of the scheme combining. One of which is the planning of resources for construction nationwide!

 

[3141]

in my line of work, any delay means heads will roll. It should well be the case with Crossrail and this latest news.

I doubt that rolling whatever number of heads would make you feel better will help the job of re-phasing the work that remains and getting it completed.

 

[westv]

When does it officially become The Elizabeth line?

 

[plcd1]

When does it officially become The Elizabeth line?

When the service through the core opens - so not until Autumn 2019.

 

[plcd1]

Modern Railways (September, p95) reflects that the original Crossrail Chairman and CEO left earlier in the year, before cost overrun and delays were acknowledged.

I've not yet seen MR for September but Terry Morgan remains Crossrail Chairman and certainly hasn't been replaced. I believe Terry has taken on an additional role with HS2.

Andrew Wolstenholme, the former CEO, left a few months ago. Simon Wright replaced him.

Looking at the Crossrail Ltd Directors I see there are two DfT nominees and three TfL nominees. All these suggestions that TfL and DfT "had no idea" about the delays are either hopelessly wrong OR the governance structure is completely and utterly broken and the nominee directors are not reporting to the respective organisations. I don't find that credible.

 

[TwistedMentat]

I doubt that rolling whatever number of heads would make you feel better will help the job of re-phasing the work that remains and getting it completed.

What would make me feel better is at least not paying big bucks to leadership when it appears to make no difference how much they're paid and the results.

 

[tbtc]

Is there any chance they're underpromising deliberately and might actually beat their revised goal and open in June or something?

That sounds reasonable - much better to announce a "nine month" delay now (compared to opening in December 2018) and then try to do it sooner - the worst thing in such projects is to announce a two/three month today, then a further two/three month delay in a few months time, then another short delay... losing confidence with everyone involved - much better to give everyone (including the people planning the parallel bus routes, not just the rail industry) breathing space - and a "season" rather than a "month" deadline is nice and nebulous.

Might not be bad to have a "soft launch" independent of the six monthly railway timetable changes too.

Crossrail and many other recent rail projects have been both late and over budget. Where are the penalty clauses? What recompense are the financial institutions and governments (and therefore the taxpayer) going to get for the delays? I tell you this, in my line of work, any delay means heads will roll. It should well be the case with Crossrail and this latest news.

I do know that coming up with a budget and delivery schedule for such a mega-project seems to be a hostage to fortune - there's no simple benchmark for something of this size under central London (the Jubilee Line extension is the closest I guess, but that was mainly an extension outside of the centre, rather than mainly directly through the centre).

I don't know if there are penalty clauses - maybe there are - maybe not - but that's something to discuss internally - and often you find that firms "lawyer up" and it becomes incredibly expensive to reclaim money - you might sue them for a million, be awarded half that and find you've encountered hundreds of thousands of pounds in legal costs - so there's an element of it not being worth doing for the sake of maintaining relationships - especially as putting in big penalty clauses invites contractors to bump up their fees in the anticipation of having to pay out penalty clauses - it's not free money.

But, in our Scapegoat Society, I wouldn't be surprised if someone demands a pound of flesh from one of the contractors. It won't help, but it'll make us all feel better if we can get some "Fat Cat" to lose their job because the mob of angry people must be placated.

Also trains in Germany are always on time, except when they really are not.....

I'm going to report this post for a breach of Forum Rules (subsection ninety three - "thou shalt not criticise the perfect world of German/Swiss railways")!

 

[DarloRich]

I work in the real world - and a bit closer to this (and other) projects' coalface than you might think.

OK - so you will know how easily projects can very easily slip very close to a deadline.

One that sticks in my mind is a construction project waiting for a final structural member. The fabricators burnt down the day before shipping destroying the parts. We had to tell the client and sponsor that suddenly their completion date had slipped several months despite being absolutely bang on for several months hitting or beating every milestone. PR in full cry to open on an agreed date. Opening bash arranged, celeb booked, media lined up etc etc

We found an alternative fabricator but it took time to procure and deliver a replacement. Head in hands. Contingency ( both time and cost) gone in an instant and a claim from the customer for loss.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

Man, I work in the Oil and Gas Industry, on multi-billion dollar projects with investors from Governments, Financial Institutions, and many Engineering and Construction Companies all putting money into projects from Offshore Oil and Gas production platforms, Pipelines, Treatment plants and Cryogenic Facilities and Oil Refineries,

Very impressive; but what do you actually do in these massive projects? Are you senior management or do you just deliver the concrete?

 

[jfollows]

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?

For what it's worth, The Guardian reports Andrew Adonis predicting the opening may not be until 2020: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...rail-opening-postponed-until-autumn-next-year

Critics accused the government of smuggling out bad news before the return of parliament and questioned why Crossrail executives had been rewarded with new jobs.

Andrew Adonis, the former chair of the national infrastructure commission, said: “It’s clearly a further massive catastrophe for Chris Grayling, who didn’t say a word in public about the scale of the crisis. He himself moved Sir Terry Morgan to be chair of HS2 and that was soon after Andrew Wolstenholme, the chief executive, left.

“The biggest infrastructure project in Europe, in a state of crisis, lost both its leaders with Grayling being awol throughout. To me it’s utterly inexplicable. How can it give anyone confidence that HS2 will be delivered?”

Lord Adonis said the full scale of the problems had yet to emerge, with the industry talking of major issues with signalling systems, and predicted the opening could now be delayed until 2020.

Crossrail bosses, paid some of the largest salaries in the public sector, had long boasted that the complex project was being delivered on time and on budget, but this summer the government and TfL were forced to increase the £14.8bn budget by another £650m. Design, construction and engineering has lasted 10 years with different infrastructure contracts, new trains and three signalling systems.

 

[SamYeager]

I may be reading more into your post than you intend - but the sub-text is that you imply that these things are done on time abroad. Again, staying in the transport world I would point you at the Stuttgart 21 and the Berlin-Brandenberg Airport sagas, both in Germany.

Building things is difficult - and building complex systems is even more so. You should try it some time.

Absolutely, Berlin-Brandenberg Airport was originally supposed to open in 2011. The latest of many opening dates is now 2020 with talk already of 2021 being more realistic so nine to ten years late. Naturally it's massively over budget as well.

 

[Wivenswold]

Thought it was known ages ago there was a big overrun ?

Same here, maybe it was a known unknown. Think the "shock" announcement of George Michael being gay when my reaction was "I thought everyone knew, why is this news?"

 

[47421]

I assume this means for absolute timetabling chaos at Liverpool street as the new west Anglia and geml timetable would have been based around crossrail being operational in May

Not sure GA will be ready with their units by May will they ?

The GA changes are TSR 2 May 2019 then TSR 3 May 2020. The changes May 2019 are minor: (i) Southend V 3 - 4 TPH off peak, (ii) Hertford East 2 -3 TPH off peak, (iii) Norwich to Stansted Apt direct hourly, (iv) Liv St - Ips hourly semi-fast extended to Norwich, (v) Meridian Water opens and STAR 2 TPH starts.

So May 2019 changes at Liv St are minor - off peak only.

The big change is TSR 3 May 2020, when whole timetable due for recast. That needs some Liv St platforms to be extended which I read was planned for June/July 2019 when Shenfield to Liv St should have been thinned out after Crossrail opened. But what happens on GA is all up in the air anyway as Network Rail have not committed to any of the platform extensions that are needed to allow 10 car 720s to operate, and no proposed timetables for May 19 or May 20 have been published so whether they are deliverable at all is not clear.

But yes delay to Crossrail may well delay necessary infrastructure works at LivSt which will make it even less likely GA will deliver on franchise commitments

 

[Wivenswold]

Same here, maybe it was a known unknown. Think the "shock" announcement of George Michael being gay when my reaction was "I thought everyone knew, why is this news?"

Emirates Stadium was completed on time and within budget. Though some might add that their trophy room remains incomplete.

 

[DarloRich]

Emirates Stadium was completed on time and within budget. Though some might add that their trophy room remains incomplete.

it was cut from scope after a value engineering exercise B

 

[Sceptre]

How on earth can it be said that this is money wasted on London and the South East? What’s the betting that when it does open it won’t be long before we start hearing about overcrowding? London and the South East have only waited about three decades for this project.

The budget overrun on Crossrail is greater than the entire budget of the Northern Hub project, which, incidentally, has a better BCR.

Of course, the boiled egg is refusing to commit to completing one of the biggest pieces of the latter, the Piccadilly–Oxford Road Capacity Improvement, thus making the high-profile Ordsall Chord a white elephant.

 

[Senex]

The budget overrun on Crossrail is greater than the entire budget of the Northern Hub project, which, incidentally, has a better BCR.

Of course, the boiled egg is refusing to commit to completing one of the biggest pieces of the latter, the Piccadilly–Oxford Road Capacity Improvement, thus making the high-profile Ordsall Chord a white elephant.

The Northern Hub is very rapidly turning into a great non-event. We've seen that Grayling is certainly not committed to it, and there's not much evidence of great Network Rail enthusiasm either. Whereas that budget overrun on Crossrail will just be meekly accepted as part of the cost of giving London what it needs.

 

[Taunton]

I do know that coming up with a budget and delivery schedule for such a mega-project seems to be a hostage to fortune - there's no simple benchmark for something of this size under central London (the Jubilee Line extension is the closest I guess

From what we gathered the bits many ascribe to being difficult were completed OK a while ago. All the under-London tunnelling got done fine, and the station carcasses likewise. It's the bits that should be more straightforward that seem to be an issue.

This is not the first recent large project where the challenging technology gets done fine and the straightforward ancillary bits are the ones that let it down. This includes project management and reporting, which is a pretty standard skill. I do get the impression that a number of these items were not even started (dare I say thought about adequately) until far too late in the plan, including it seems a number of the issues on the existing railway.

There are continuing problems with the rolling stock as well. It seems we are still incapable of building trains that work out of the box. Seriously. Why ever is a train (and especially those delivered after the first ones) delivered by the manufacturer on Friday afternoon not in revenue service the following Monday morning? That's what happens with airliners.

 

[hwl]

The budget overrun on Crossrail is greater than the entire budget of the Northern Hub project, which, incidentally, has a better BCR.

Of course, the boiled egg is refusing to commit to completing one of the biggest pieces of the latter, the Piccadilly–Oxford Road Capacity Improvement, thus making the high-profile Ordsall Chord a white elephant.

The original budget on CR was £15.9bn cut in value engineering, lowering construction inflation rates*, descoping etc. to £14.8bn (but DfT put aside a contingency of £400m at the same time ) and the budget post July now at £15.4bn with Dft coughing up £450m compared to their contingency of £400m they decided on 7 years ago, so the cost to DfT is only £50m more at the moment.
Hence the overrun is arguably -£500m

If Northern Hub had a budget of -£500m it will of course had an excellent BCR!!!

* This produced a saving of a magic £300m which hasn't materialised given construction inflation levels being some what higher when the construction industry is in a huge recession compared to when the assumptions were made in 2010.

 

[HowardGWR]

Emirates Stadium was completed on time and within budget. Though some might add that their trophy room remains incomplete.

In fairness, it's a lot fuller than the majority of Premier League sides! (I am a neutral by the way).
Edit I see Crossrail have gone over to seasonal targets as, Roger Ford points out, is now the fashion.

 

[Clip]

There are continuing problems with the rolling stock as well. It seems we are still incapable of building trains that work out of the box. Seriously. Why ever is a train (and especially those delivered after the first ones) delivered by the manufacturer on Friday afternoon not in revenue service the following Monday morning? That's what happens with airliners.

Do airliners not get tested and accumulate mileage before they get handed over ?

 

[hwl]

From what we gathered the bits many ascribe to being difficult were completed OK a while ago. All the under-London tunnelling got done fine, and the station carcasses likewise.

Several station carcasses are/were very late and problematic e.g Whitechapel, Farringdon. Hence massive delays to starting fitout.
There were tunnelling delays especially around Farringdon (slight mention in one of the later BBC documentaries)
Geology related as the starting point for the problems.
Needless to say CR didn't publicise the delays at the time.

CR always estimated the highest risk to really occur in 2017 and 2018 when trying to integrate all the systems and previous issue delays had snowballed later in the project.

 

[TPO]

I think the thing that makes this more of a big story is that Crossrail has been talking itself up as being wonderful, as being a shining example of how to run a project...... I have seen/experienced their people preaching to the smaller suppliers in other parts of the rail supply chain and it was very annoying as many of us by then had figured they probably weren't as great as they said they were.

Then they have to fess up what was quietly suspected (on the grapevine) for a while- that they have not only spent over-budget, but also over-running in time.

Perhaps if those involved in Crossrail had shown a less hubris and a little more understanding of the real challenges in the UK supply chain (starting from the poor payment behaviour of most main/large contractors) and waited until they were actually all running before bragging they would have been cut a bit more slack when the truth shows itself to the outside (media, industry etc). As other posters have said, some of the stages had risk, so there was always the potential for overrun of time and budget- but that was not the way Crossrail presented itself. Showing hubris is not a characteristic of a learning organisation.

It's easy to overlook that the backbone of UK industry is the small companies which get little or no support. If they overrun time or budget they frequently face penalties; when they don't it's usually because the buyer has misunderstood what the good/sevice was that they were buying, made mistakes in the specification or kept changing their mind.

TPO

 

[Alfie1014]

SilverStreet said: ↑
I assume this means for absolute timetabling chaos at Liverpool street as the new west Anglia and geml timetable would have been based around crossrail being operational in May



The GA changes are TSR 2 May 2019 then TSR 3 May 2020. The changes May 2019 are minor: (i) Southend V 3 - 4 TPH off peak, (ii) Hertford East 2 -3 TPH off peak, (iii) Norwich to Stansted Apt direct hourly, (iv) Liv St - Ips hourly semi-fast extended to Norwich, (v) Meridian Water opens and STAR 2 TPH starts.

So May 2019 changes at Liv St are minor - off peak only.

The big change is TSR 3 May 2020, when whole timetable due for recast. That needs some Liv St platforms to be extended which I read was planned for June/July 2019 when Shenfield to Liv St should have been thinned out after Crossrail opened. But what happens on GA is all up in the air anyway as Network Rail have not committed to any of the platform extensions that are needed to allow 10 car 720s to operate, and no proposed timetables for May 19 or May 20 have been published so whether they are deliverable at all is not clear.

But yes delay to Crossrail may well delay necessary infrastructure works at LivSt which will make it even less likely GA will deliver on franchise commitments

GA doesn't appear in the RDG list of TOCs making large scale changes in May 2019, so TSR-2 has by default already been delayed to Dec 2019 at the earliest. That said GA have yet to announce this officially (or much else about the detail of future plans) other than to say in correspondence that changes in May 2019 will be very limited and the details would be announced in August (2018), 7 hours to go I won't hold my breath!