We have been critical of the wall of silence that has enveloped Crossrail. In a welcome contrast, at the December 2018 meeting of the Programmes and Investment Committee, the public were treated to a full, frank and open presentation from Mark Wild, the new Chief Executive at Crossrail, about the current situation, the problems that lie ahead and the factors that will determine when Crossrail will open.
In this, the first of two articles, we look at what led to Crossrail getting into a state where the management and oversight of the project was, to put it politely, ‘lacking’. In a second article, which will be based on Mark Wild’s comments and other material originating from him, we will look at the steps being taken to remedy this and to get the project under proper management control once more.
The Soviet-style News Blackout
Construction projects are notorious for being late and over-budget, but equally benefits are generally understated. This means that a retrospective assessment in the years after completion will often show that even late and over-budget projects are hugely beneficial. What is unexpected with Crossrail is that, in a very short space of time, the project became extremely delayed and massively over-budget without any single obvious reason to explain why this should be so.
Unusually, one can now almost pinpoint the moment when Crossrail started on a path to future issues – issues which subsequently have resulted in the construction being neither on time nor on budget. The defining moment that initiated major problems in the management of Crossrail was a transformer explosion at Pudding Mill Lane on November 11 2017. It was not, however, the explosion itself that did the real long-term damage. It was how Crossrail handled the news about it, and how it reacted to this fairly catastrophic event.
Everything is rosy (green)
Whilst Crossrail had previously encountered problems prior the explosion happening, they were not generally publicised and did not appear to be that serious. They were the sort of problems you would expect during the construction of a new railway and when viewed individually they appeared to have a very high chance of being recoverable without major risk. Given the love of the Red, Amber, Green (RAG) traffic light reporting system, it could have almost have literally been said that all systems were go. The Crossrail website was full of positive stories and details of progress made. Negative stories such as early disquiet over some of the compulsory acquisitions or, later on, the death of a construction worker were generally not mentioned.
The explosion changed everything – or at least ought to have changed everything.
There has been an explosion. Shhh!
After the explosion, Crossrail initially failed to put much in the public domain. It was weeks before details came to light and even then it was in a roundabout way. This is usually the worst thing to do in such circumstances as it leads to wild speculation. More than this, as one of our commentariat suggested, Crossrail – and TfL by abstraction – missed a golden opportunity to play a ‘get out of jail free’ card. Publicise the delays, emphasise how completely unexpected the problem was and how it was (genuinely) down to one of their suppliers, and suggest that because of this the opening date was now in doubt. This didn’t happen, and a ‘GTR-Thameslink timetable’ style narrative became embedded, stating that this made the opening date more challenging but they were sure it could still be achieved.
The Mayor does himself no favours
Worse still, the Mayor, who had good reason to be deeply concerned by all this, cut short public discussion on the subject of Crossrail at a TfL board meeting late in January 2018. There were almost certainly issues that rightly and properly were not to be discussed in public. It was also probably inconvenient to have to separate the parts that were for public consumption from those that were not. Judging by his comments made at the time, the Mayor appeared to be concerned that a board member would inadvertently mention something in open session that quite rightly was not yet (or ever) to become public knowledge.
Regardless of the intentions behind it, what the Mayor did, if not unlawful under 1972 Local Government Act, was certainly not in the spirit of it. The relevant part of the act was brought in to ensure that discussions did not take place ‘behind closed doors’ unless there was a valid reason to do so. Avoiding bad publicity or fearing that someone might say something they should not would almost certainly not be accepted as valid reasons.
In the end the Mayor gained no favours. Had the exact nature and extent of the problems been publicised, experienced experts in the field would no doubt have been expressing great concern in public that, even then, the planned opening date stood very little chance of being met. In effect, the Mayor robbed himself of the ‘sanity checking’ that he has since claimed he never had. The sooner the issues had been flagged and appreciated, the less damaging in terms of cost and reputation it would have been to overshoot it.
No news is good news?
After January, the problem and the consequences arising from it were still being played down in TfL public sessions, and largely ignored on the Crossrail website. Incredibly, the Crossrail Quarterly Update for February 2018 manages not to mention the explosion at all, despite it being the most significant occurrence on Crossrail in the previous three months at that point. The update turned out to be the penultimate one to be issued.
We now know what this reflected. Instead of coming clean, the Crossrail Board seemed wedded to describing the situation to the Mayor (and beyond) as ‘extremely challenging’. In another situation reminiscent of the GTR Thameslink situation, it was almost as if no-one wanted to be the person who said that the opening date could not be met – even though one wonders now if individually everyone was thinking it. As recounted in Crossrail: Breaking down the Crisis the facts were laid pretty bare and it is hard to understand why, from late July 2018, neither the Crossrail board nor the Mayor thought that they ought to be planning on the basis that Crossrail wouldn’t open in December 2018.
What remains puzzling is what purpose was achieved by not facing up to the difficulty of meeting the opening deadline. If an outsider were present and felt able to speak their mind, they must have concluded that the odds of meeting the December 2018 target were very low. So low in fact that it would have been far better to announce to the world that the deadline was unlikely to be met, and that contingency planning should be made for an opening sometime in 2019.
Creeping increased risk
In such a situation it is hard to get to the truth but in LR towers there is a strong consensus as to the two main factors we think led to the ‘press on regardless’ attitude.
One problem is ‘silo mentality’, where departments do not fully understand how their problems affect others and vice versa. So, for example, construction delays at stations lead to delays in commissioning them. But there is contingency built into the programme and everyone relies on some of that to remain on schedule. Unfortunately, there is only so much contingency to be had – something that needs to be fully appreciated across all work streams, not just individually.
It seems apparent that this appreciation was missing from the project. Stations fell behind schedule, but this was not seen as a critical issue by those completing construction work – because they were unable to fully appreciate that system testing couldn’t really commence effectively until they have finished their job first. There was contingency built into the timetable (or was before the explosion), which they were aware of and already ‘eating’. Unfortunately system testing was also more problematic than originally thought, but the same confidence in the availability of contingency existed there. Those involved in systems testing hadn’t fully factored in delays that would be caused by delayed construction completion. And so it continued. It was ‘green lights’ individually all round, but the reality was very different.
Another problem, which is easy not to understand as it is not intuitive, is the cumulative worsening risk on a project of this size. We do not have any real figures here, so we will have to consider a hypothetical situation – a thought experiment if you like.
The thought experiment
Prior to the explosion there was clearly a risk of delay and going over-budget. Let’s assume that this was small – say 5% in each critical area. So there was a small risk that the stations wouldn’t be ready, a small risk that the trains wouldn’t be ready, a small risk that the power wouldn’t be ready, a small risk the signalling wouldn’t be ready and a small risk that the systems testing wouldn’t be finished in time. On top of that were unknowns which we will lump together. For example, in the past few years a number of construction firms have gone bust and others have been sources of concern.
Individually, this looked like a positive situation – six areas with a 95% chance of being ready. But that’s not how probability actually works. In fact cumulatively, in our scenario, the chances all of those six areas being ready on time roughly works out at 73%.
Now let us assume that because of the delay caused by the explosion the chances of every one of these areas not being met increased to 10% from 5%. This doesn’t seem too bad. Intuitively one might think of it as a 5% worsening. But the reality is that overall this would have taken the project from a 73% likelihood of succeeding to a 53% chance of succeeding – not much better odds than evens. Worse, if every one of those items had actually dropped to 85% – still a seemingly positive figure – then this would have dropped the project to a 37% chance of total success with just six discrete areas of concern. Not looking good.
Of course, our thought experiment uses hypothetical numbers. It is deliberately simplistic and designed more to illustrate a point. In reality, one looks at critical paths and how delays affect those paths but in a complex situation with so much happening (or not happening – that was the problem), it would have been hard to keep up with any critical path analysis. And that was assuming everyone involved had up-to-date facts. Some Network Rail over-running engineering works in previous years have shown how portions of the work supposedly done by contractors turns out not to be complete (or even started) when it comes to sign-off prior to handing back the railway.
What we knew then, what we know now
The above risk with cumulative worsening looks bad but in reality we have good reason to believe that it was actually much worse. And that is before we consider the concept of ‘optimism bias’ when applied to scheduling. The figures Crossrail were probably using (if indeed they were doing any such analysis) were based on what was known at the outset. To be fair to Crossrail, they had not shied away from talking about risky areas of the project and the initial planning sought to minimise this risk. This particularly applies to signalling which was recognised early on as an area with potential problems.
The problem then is that you have to update your risk assessment in the light of experience. You can’t just say you thought there might be a problem in that area and so you have factored that in. If you know that there is a problem you need to factor in the fact that you know there is definitely a problem and not the fact that you anticipated there might be a problem.
We do not know what the Crossrail board knew and when it knew it, but it is hard not to believe they weren’t aware of all the things happening around them. And the news from the UK and elsewhere was not good.
The Class 345 trains were still showing up new problems – remember delays with the first trains caused stage 1 to be late and initially only having one train in public service (contrary to the original plan). The ‘Beast from the East’ in April 2018 also highlighted how the trains’ windscreen wipers couldn’t cope with the cold conditions. Those responsible for the trains must also have been aware of major issues with the Class 710 train destined for the Gospel Oak to Barking line (a topic we will need to write about as well), a train outwardly very similar to the Class 345 on Crossrail.
Signalling issues – as always
The problems with signalling in the Heathrow tunnels must have caused concern over signalling issues later on in the project – or certainly should have done. The conditions were different, certainly, but in both cases you have propagating waves in tunnels. In Hong Kong, MTR (the parent group of the operating company MTR Crossrail) were encountering considerable problems and delays installing a very similar Siemens signalling system on the Central Link North – South Corridor. Even the communications problems with the Sub-Surface Railway (SSR) resignalling delayed this project going live in 2018 (when it was not perceived it would be a problem).
All were strong reasons for arguing that there was – and is – an increased level of signalling risk on Crossrail. SSR resignalling might have a different system supplied by a different manufacturer, but if they have underestimated train-to-track communication problems then what is the likelihood that Crossrail suppliers have done the same thing? And in both cases the trains involved were constructed (or modified) by Bombardier.
Why keep quiet?
The only obvious reason not to face up to the near-inevitable delay was pressure to deliver on time so as not to spook any potential ‘launch partners’, putting sponsorship money from that in jeopardy (just in case the line did actually manage to open on time). If this proves to be the case, it shows the dangers of launch sponsorship as it puts yet more pressure on those building a line to meeting a deadline, when the sensible thing to do is to admit it can’t be achieved and plan for an alternative.
There may be other reasons. As soon as you concede there is a delay contractors might regard themselves as ‘off the hook’ for any delay caused by them and not proceed with such haste. A pre-emptive announcement of a delay could make litigation against contractors more difficult to win in court. And the claimant in court has to show that he did everything he could to mitigate his losses by trying to make up time.
Keeping quiet to senior employees about the full extent of the problems and the delay caused could be for a similar reason to the one involving contractors. It could lead to Crossrail employees who believe that they are not on the critical path perceiving that the sense of urgency has gone away. The fact is that no full explanation has been forthcoming and the ‘we believed we could still meet the deadline’ explanation has been rigidly stuck to so far.
Exit Andrew Wolstenholme
From the Spring of 2018 Crossrail was in a bit of a state of disarray at the top, which must have led to the handling of the (worsening) situation not being as good as it could have been. The former Chief Executive, Andrew Wolstenholme had left abruptly in March 2018 and took up a new job at BAE Systems in May 2018. With Crossrail perceived as winding down, despite the emerging problems, his job was taken up by insider Simon Wright who was also expected to retain his existing role as Programme Director.
Exit Terry Morgan
Meanwhile, at the beginning of August 2018, Crossrail’s chairman, Sir Terry Morgan, became HS2 Ltd’s chairman – as well as continuing to be the chairman of Crossrail and also chairman of London City Airport. In hindsight, with what we now know, such an appointment to HS2 on top of his current responsibilities is inexplicable. Quite why Chris Grayling offered Terry Morgan the post and how Terry Morgan thought he could combine this with leading Crossrail through a very difficult period defies explanation. It wouldn’t have been so bad if Crossrail had a chief executive who was experienced in the job to make up for having a part-time chairman.
Shortly after taking up his post with HS2 it was widely reported that Terry Morgan would be stepping down from being Chairman at London City Airport ”to focus on HS2”. So, with Crossrail without an experienced dedicated chief executive and considerable challenges ahead to open on time, the Chairman was focusing on a different railway project with its own multitude of challenges, and, like Crossrail, many of these had not yet been resolved.
The problems behind the problems
It is easy to blame the transformer explosion or a whole host of other issues for the problems at Crossrail, but at a strategic level it seems to boil down to two things. One was a failure to be open and honest, at a management or contractor level still to become apparent, about what was going on. It is one thing not to be specific because the full picture is either not known or not yet fully understood, but it is another not to make people aware of the seriousness of problems at the first opportunity.
The failure to inform when serious problems started arising was compounded by Crossrail continuing to demobilise and wind down as planned, especially within management, despite it being clear that more than ever what was needed was for strong pro-active management to take charge. As we will see in the follow-up article that is starting to happen now, but it is clear that it should have happened much sooner.
Thanks to Jonathan Roberts for considerable assistance in preparing this article. Thanks also to ngh for detailed information on various issues.
On rolling stock the class 710 and class 345 may be similar externally. Under the skin the software, which I believe is part of the delay for the 710s, is very different to the 345 software, so getting the former fully debugged is no help for the latter.
Thanks for the article. I would take issue with ‘massively over-budget’ though. That may be correct in the big pile of money sense, but (at least as things stand) it is looking like being 10-15% over budget, which is pretty good if not miraculous for a project of this scale.
@HERNED And under, or at least very near to the original budget
Re Herned/Henry,
The problem is that no one was budgeting for the overrun and in the last few years Tfl’s ability to handle any overrun without massively cutting back in other areas has effectively disappeared with the DfT grant cut and the Mayor’s Fare Freeze. The cuts /delays in other areas are massive for those areas.
Re Kosmo,
“so getting the former fully debugged is no help for the latter.”
Not necessarily, not all the problems will be different and they will be some transferability of understanding in many cases.
@NGH
Yes, that is all true and is a undoubtedly a very big problem. But I would still argue that a 15% budget overrun after 9 years of construction is pretty good going
One has to wonder what the knock-on effect will be for later Crossrail money given that the anticipated revenue will be delayed for at least one year. I know LR has touched on this point before, but that was when a delay to the first fare-paying passengers through the central section was just speculation. Now it has come to pass, maybe a better forecasting can be done. What of TfL’s future plans will have to get cut instead?
As ever, a coherent and perceptive analysis. What evidence is there that the lessons that need to drawn from this project are being incorporated into future planning – say for Crossrail 2?
Kosmo,
But is is relevant. That was the whole point I was trying to get across. I find it quite concerning how many people can’t grasp this point. They might disagree with it but that is a different matter.
Time, I think, for another thought experiment
So the thought experiment is:
Imagine you have a car from a manufacturer (X) who produces models A, B and C. You have model C.
Model A is discovered to have a major safety fault relating to hardware. You are unconcerned because you have model C. Now news comes in that Model B has a major safety fault due to software. Clearly the two are unrelated. At this stage are you really not worried about the safety of your car (because you have a different model) ?
Now it is time to buy a new car. You could buy another one from manufacturer X. Or you can buy another very similar one from manufacturer Y (similar size, similar products, (including price), been around for about the same amount of time). Manufacturer Y has an unblemished record. Are you really going to say there is no reason to go with manufacturer Y on the basis that you had a good experience with your model C?
It is similar when buying trains. That is not to say Bombardier is any worse that other train makers problems but elsewhere from the same manufacturer are indicative of quality assurance and likelihood that you will have a problem. Even though the exact problem you have is completely different.
Kosmo,
On a similar and related issue, there is the fact that probability (and hence risk) depends on what you know and has to be updated in light of that.
So, not knowing anything about you, I can assume there is roughly a 1 in 365 chance that your birthday is 1st January. Now you know when your birthday is so to you the probability is 0% – unless your birthday really is 1st January in which case it is 100%. Now, if you tell me when your birthday is, I cannot any longer say that there is roughly a 1 in 365 chance that your birthday is 1st January.
So it is with potential problems on trains or signalling. If you know there is a problem you have to factor that in and reassess your statistical risks. The fact that it may have happened to a different class of train in a different part of the world does not totally negate the fact it may have some relevance.
In the case of project risks I have ignored the complexity of people being more inclined to report good news rather than bad. So silence should be weighted to make the assumption that things are less likely to turn out well. And this is a good reason to objectively predefine your milestones at the outset otherwise people will choose ones that have been achieved or look like they will be achieved.
Great article. As someone who works in engineering (not rail), I recognise all the symptoms regarding project risk.
Regarding knock-on impact to Crossrail 2, I’d have thought economic factors would also be significant. If the business case assumed increasing passenger numbers and these are flat or even declining (whether this is economic uncertainty, changing work patterns, Netflix and Deliveroo instead of going out…)
Re Reynolds 953,
Or whether the Tuesday-Thursday peak is still growing but off peak isn’t, a scenario which is very expensive to add capacity for.
It is worth remembering in large conurbations that employment growth tends to initially add travel on roads far more than on trains or underground and it takes several year to convert that to rail modes. Which is one reason the roads are more congested and bus perfromance is down. Recently in this growth cycle lots of the employment growth has been in gig economy jobs including lots of driving jobs (no rail use to commute).
The provision of lots more housing enabled by CR2 will be a key difference in the growth model over most other routes.
NGH
the DfT grant cut and the Mayor’s Fare Freeze. Last week, I think it was in the “Indy”, Khan was trumpeting about how his fares freeze was wonderful. Sigh.
Later – “gig economy”. I think this is due for a v sharp downturn, real soon now, for a variety of reasons, which will combine to hit it, all at once. The most obvious is that people like those
slavingworking for say Deliveroo or Uber will be determined to be employees by the courts. The others, I leave for the rest of you to deduce.There are two issues here. First, there is a widespread culture in the railway industry that encourages the suppressing of bad news. No one wants to be blamed. Secondly, there are few people at the top of the industry who know enough to ask the right questions and to understand if the answers are sensible.
“Quite why Chris Grayling… ”
Disturbing just how often that name appears in discussions about the root causes of transport related disasters. ‘Speaking truth to power’ clearly unsettles too many people. Once the purple line finally opens the public masses will forget the problems there have been, but in the meantime CR1, like the Thameslink and Northern problems, focus attention on the rail industry not in a good way. (cf. Ticket prices rises this week.)
London’s Cross Rail 1: Progress & Prospects Evening free seminar
with Geoff Hobbs & David Warner, Director of Public Service Transport Planning & Senior Business Analyst respectively at TfL.
5.30 – 7pm on 16 Jan 2018
Omega UCL
Central House (UCL) – Room LG01
14 Upper Woburn Place
WC1H 0NN
Register online.
Thanks to Nicole Badstuber for the heads up.
How much revenue is actually likely to be lost by the late opening? Surely most journeys through the core would have been made anyway, albeit using the Central, H&C line or Jubilee Line (indeed making those lines less congested, and therefore potentially reducing dwell times and operating costs), but TfL would get the revenue anyway. Some diversion from South Eastern’s services to Woolwich and Abbey Wood would be expected though.
@PoP
Re your thought experiment about whether you would buy trains from a manufacturer with a history of bad products: Wasn’t there some nonsense in procurement rules that meant previous performance couldn’t be considered and only the offered product could be assessed? I may be wrong and thinking of something else though…
Herned……. As I understand it, the prequalification stage is when a client can consider past performance. If a supplier makes it through that stage and on to the tender list, it is generally considered that the client is prepared to contract with the supplier is it offers the “best” bid. The only exception, I think, would be something really serious that only occurred or was discovered between prequalification and evaluation.
Herned,
Further to 100andthirty’s comment, I can see the logic in this. Suppose your existing trains haven’t got a good build quality for example. The tender specifies tolerances permitted and asks train builders how they will achieve this. The company with the poor reputation states categorically that it is intend to by new better equipment and will definitely do so if it wins the bid. It may then go from being the company with the worst build quality to the best.
Also, if you are too critical of suppliers, you will rapidly run out of suppliers. Suppliers of trains and signalling aren’t exactly numerous. You need at least one and, preferably, have at least two to ensure some competition.
More to the point, once the tender has been accepted, any problems with that particular company’s products have on the worldwide stage, whether related to the current project or not, may be looked at with suitable concern and a risk index adjusted accordingly.
Re 130 ,
“would be something really serious that only occurred or was discovered between prequalification and evaluation.”
Agreed the only time I can think of that being used recently was shortly before the end of Ansaldo-Breda. (now Hitachi Rail Italy
Re PoP,
The point was that for crossrail they wanted to procure a new generation of rolling stock hence reliability of preceding generations was less relevant with the trains having more software.
Reliability stats can also be manipulated (See SWT/R Holden Report) and depend on the maintenance contract structure. Outsourced maintenance tends to lead to higher reliability (if the contract structure is right) but you pay more for it. Hence there is danger of apples and oranges comparison unless you do a lot of detailed work and dismiss hearsay. Certain manufacturers are (or were in one case) very good at giving the perception of reliability.
Reputational protection is also part of the Crossrail silence and lack of issues coming to the surface.
One thing to consider is that if a supplier has problems with their software (or hardware) in another part of the world there is normally only a finite small team of people available to work on the fix. So the fix for a second problem on another train is likely to be delayed. This is a result of having ‘centres of excellence’ where the suppliers concentrate all their experts in the same place.
A trivial correction to the thought experiment, which doesn’t affect the power of the point being made. If one of six areas drops to an 85% probability of success, but the other five remain at 90%, the overall probability falls to 50%. It is only if the probability falls to 85% in all six areas that the overall probability comes out at 37%.
Marek,
Thanks for pointing that error out. It should have read ‘If any one … which is what is written for the 90% example. I am sure most people read it that way even if it wasn’t what was stated.
I realise there is still ambiguity there so have changed the references to every one of …
I don’t say this to throw blame around but, it should be remembered that whilst TfL are linked to Crossrail they are not running it or responsible for it (possibly until recently). The scheme is being delivered by a special purpose vehicle JOINTLY sponsored by TfL and the DfT.
I was always under the impression this was because the DfT & treasury didn’t particularly trust TfL but that is purely anecdotal and I have nothing to back that up. What it does mean is that TfL was probably more removed from being in control than they might have been (as were the DfT) and I can’t imagine this has helped. It is amazing how much criticism TfL is getting compared to the DfT though.
Sleepdeprived
That is because it is seen as a “London” project ( Look at all the usual provincial whingeing about the “huge amounts of money being spent on London” ). And TfL were very high-profile in promoting the upcoming service, complete with a TfL roundel of its’ own, no less. And successive London Mayors have deliberately associated themseleves with it.
Whether that is “fair” is another judgement entirely.
@ Keplerniko – as there has been a London Assembly Budget and Performance Cttee today where TfL’s budget has been “scrutinised” [1] the “delayed revenue” point came up again. IIRC the figure quoted by TfL’s finance chap was in the region of £300m in terms of the delayed uplift to TfL’s income from the delayed opening.
Despite trying about 20 different ways of asking when Crossrail would open TfL wouldn’t give any date. That’s entirely understandable in the wider context of stated next steps and reports due from reviews into the project. TfL also said that if they gain the ability to run Paddington to Reading services from Dec 2019 then that would bring in £180m over three years.
As has been stated in the Business Plan TfL are in negotiation with Network Rail, DfT and GWR over the assumption of surface services from December. Obviously that was the original plan but with services into the tunnel rather than the surface station. The Commissioner sounded upbeat on the prospects of this takeover but avoiding timetable problems is a key concern of Network Rail and that needs resolution. Based on unrelated comments on another forum it seems the timetable “bid” process for Dec this year closes very soon so the issue needs a resolution between the parties very soon.
Timbeau is quite right to say that the early revenue “loss” is a largely “within TfL” issue as early use of Crossrail was assumed to be largely transfers from tube lines. However as time passes growth and wider transfers kick in.
[1] not sure I’d really use that term given it turned into the usual tedious political bunfight at several points. Some actual in depth questioning would have been useful.
@ Reynolds 953 – the prospects for CR2 were discussed at the TfL Budget review meeting today at City Hall. I was daft enough to watch the entire webcast. While the Commissioner tried to be as upbeat as possible by saying that they still planned to deal with business case and route safeguarding issues this year it was the Deputy Mayor for Transport who was more downbeat.
Heidi Alexander said there was no prospect of a hybrid bill reaching Parliament this year. It’s clear that her experience as a MP is telling her that trying to get anything through Parliament this year is borderline impossible. No one needs to be a genius to work out why that might be.
It’s also clear that DfT expect TfL to repay any extra loans taken out to cover CR1’s cost overruns to be repaid in 10 years. While the final details haven’t been agreed with government that does put a very specific priority claim on the business rate supplement and CIL monies that might otherwise have supported part of CR2’s funding stream. The wider business case wasn’t discussed but I would concur that the external factors you cite must be causing concern about the project’s viability. Supporting housing is fine and laudable but it’s never going to justify a £25-30bn project. I note with interest that former Mayoral candidate and Minister for London Stephen Norris has gone into print about CR2 not being the right scheme for London. While some of his points are a bit weak or perhaps predictable from a Conservative I find the timing rather interesting. Is this part of “preparing the ground” for some imminent bad news from Mr Grayling?
@Sleepdeprived, @GregT
Please bear in mind that the original Crossrail scheme (2002 version) wasn’t a DfT-managed child except indirectly as Godfather! To start with, the Strategic Rail Authority represented National Rail interests, and TfL represented London. The Treasury was only supportive to the financial extent that Crossrail contributed to the national economy (net, after London gains).
We should possibly be grateful that DfT is apparently well behaved at this point in the project’s growing pains, in 2018-19, and able to loan money to the unruly child (but it is a loan not a grant). No doubt the behind-scenes financial and output-committing discussions between TfL and DfT are tough, but we are also certain that Crossrail 1 will be completed as a result. Everyone will be the winner.
Herned,
Catching up on an earlier point concerning Crossrail being ‘massively over budget’, I totally agree with you that in percentage terms it isn’t doing too badly. But if you look at the December 2017 situation and compare with the December 2018 situation it has gone massively over budget in the space of a year.
Also a billion pounds is a billion pounds whatever way you look at it. So all the more important to keep a tight rein on megaprojects – or at least be aware when you have an inkling there will be an overspend and react appropriately to mitigate the situation.
One problem, based on my experience in life, is that the bigger the project, the more challenging it is to get even close to percentage accuracy when budgeting. Yet small cost projects can sometimes be predicted practically to the penny. I don’t know how you solve that. Breaking the large project into lots of smaller projects never seems to work.
PoP
Breaking the large project into lots of smaller projects never seems to work.
Indeed, the exact opposite happened with the first railway mega-project, the London & Birmingham. A lot of the smaller sub-projects & contractors ran into trouble or actually went bust ( Kilsby being the ultimate in that respect. ) And Robt Stephenson had to re-take overall charge & re-organise the remaining contrcts under his own overall direction, to get the scheme back on track. Even so, it was late & suprise, over-budget, but once the trains started running, no-one cared at all ….
P.S. I agree with WW that CR2 prospects don’t look good at all.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the CR2 team are even now sitting on a “bare bones” plan to save a initial part of the scheme, leaving provision for completion of the original plan eventually. This would be a drastic pruning, to squeeze as much revenue out of the first trains. One suggestion I’ve seen recently is to tunnel from Clapham to Euston, missing out Chelsea, and trains reversing after Euston, in the over-run tunnels. (I assume the TBMs would complete the basic line to the eventual northern portal, as it would save no money to stop them dead at Kings Cross.) Trains from one or more of the South Western lines would provide extra revenue from the start of operations. Whether the Southern portal could be positioned to give Clapham Junction surface platforms for CR2 I’ve no idea, but would save a few million pounds, as would leaving the St Pancras half of the Northern terminus to some future date, when the plain tunnels toward Angel and Tottenham Hale could be finished off.. (Is there an antonym for the word “Crayonista”?)
Alex McKenna,
Funnily enough Jonathan Roberts and myself had a long discussion about this issue about a year ago in a London pub. We didn’t get very far because we had different ideas as to what to prioritise. I am sure that conversation has been going on for a long time at a high level, unofficially at any rate, simply because Crossrail 2 will be so expensive. ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet’ as they say.
I think one problem with omitting Euston St Pancras is that is seen pivotal to HS2 loadings and the one vital part of the project. Graham H will say that HS2 passengers can be accommodated without CS2 but Jonathan pointed out to me that is not the problem.
If HS2 passengers formerly used the East Coast Main Line (ECML) into King’s Cross (as will happen after phase 2 of HS2) then slots will become available into King’s Cross and, undoubtedly, those will fill up – whether with long distance or commuter trains isn’t clear. And Euston St Pancras will be needed to disperse those passengers.
I could write masses on this but don’t want to as I am hoping we will have an article about Crossrail 2 and implications of the Crossrail 1 delay soon – not by me.
@ Alex McKenna – Well that certainly is a radical restructuring of how CR2 could be done. Interestingly it “fixes” (sort of) two of the issues that have caused considerable local controversy – the proposed Chelsea station (nimbys ahoy) and the huge reconstruction of Wimbledon. I’d love to say more but I am conscious this a CR1 article so I’ll stop now.
@ PoP
Absolutely agree that a billion pounds is a billion pounds, and the sudden need for such a big pile of money is disastrous, especially from the PR/perception point of view. A drip-feed of delays, and the odd few hundred million added to the budget here and there would have been much more honest, and far less newsworthy.
The problem with such big projects is surely that the ‘unknown unknowns’ are so significant, and in reality it’s as much luck as judgement as to whether a project comes in on budget. Clearly larger contingencies, both financial and temporal, are required. None of which does affordability any good, but neither does pretending there is nothing wrong.
Also surely the biggest lesson for CR2 is to keep it simple – one signalling system for the initial segment!
Herned,
Also surely the biggest lesson for CR2 is to keep it simple – one signalling system for the initial segment!
Absolutely. Hopefully by then ETCS will be a worldwide standard and the signalling of choice almost throughout the UK (maybe not London Underground). I am sure Crossrail would have kept it simple if they could have done.
@Alex McKenna
“(Is there an antonym for the word “Crayonista”?)”
Eraserhead? (cf Petrolhead)
Or maybe Uber-Beeching – closing lines before they have even been built.
@Alex McKenna, @Timbeau
Well, if you want an anagram as well as an antonym, you could have the “anti-crayos”.
Or Candlemaker?
On whether the size of the overspend is big or not, I think one important aspect to consider is the rest of your budget. Both £1bn and 20% overspend is much more problematic the project is 3/4 of your investment budget than if it is 1/4
Presumably the budget included a significant contingency. I would argue to blow than by over 10% is not good. IT would be very interesting to know which part(s) of the project the overspend is on.
As regards culture of silence, or not wishing to pass on, or hear bad news. This can come as much if not more from the management (in this case probably also the customers and politicians) and if they accept the delay, after reasonable challenge, or not. Culture is set from the top.
Some very strong words going round at the moment about who knew what, when on Crossrail
@SH(LR) Expect the strong words to come from NAO asking for the return of millions in management bonuses for ‘on-time in budget’ performance.
– – Chief executive Mark Wild told the London Assembly Transport Committee that there are “thousands of hours of construction work still to be done.” Construction work on the stations is now scheduled to be completed this summer before full fit-out work and testing of the line gets underway. – –
So how does that square with the declaration that train testing through the core will begin next week? Was that an objective imposed by TfL?
‘The scheme is currently £2.5bn over budget’ – (or £2.8bn in the Standard) rather more than used by LR commentators.
source http://www.constructionenquirer.com/2019/01/09/crossrail-costing-30m-a-week-as-delays-continue/
There is for example evidence of a lot of finishing work still to be completed at Custom House station. Yet it must have been like that for 6 months now, with scarcely an operative ever visible on site (there were a couple around in the week before Christmas).
And ( Thanks to Ian Visits ) we now have this depressing piece of overt pessimism about CR2.
Well, what an eye-opener. Thank you all for the article and comments.
IMHO this is not just a case of incompetence, at the highest levels, but there must have been corruption as well.
It seems obvious that not only have top executives been paid for work not done but contractors must have been also. I assume that as of December 2018 contracts had been let for the vast majority of the work, and the total value of these contracts added up to the total Project Cost. Yes, of course, if a contractor is delayed by factors outside his control he will be entitled to additional payments, but not to the sums now being talked about. The amounts being talked about here imply that contractors have been paid far more than the value of the work carried out to date.
Who has been acting as ‘The Engineer’, or equivalent, on these contracts? Who has been signing off payments of millions of pounds without any actual check that work to the value claimed has been carried out? Would it ever be possible to prove that illegal payments have been made?
@RogerB
Never ascribe to malice (or corruption) what can be explained by incompetence.
I’ve been involved in a few of public sector tenders on the supplier side, both in the UK and abroad — this is IT stuff rather than construction, but I could easily see the same classes of errors being made.
the client is a generalist procurement officer and doesn’t understand the intended purpose of what he is procuring, as if a bespoke IT system was just a really big box of staples.
the client has been given a very rigid spec to procure which someone proficient in the field can tell is not what is required, but we don’t know in what way it isn’t what is required
the combination of the two is that the procurer doesn’t have a clue how the spec is wrong and therefore insists that it isn’t
due to the competitive nature of the tender, it isn’t feasible to bid for a solution that is flexible enough to provide the solution that the project actually requires, so the bid goes in for the exact spec given
because we know that there will be changes through the project (because it’s obvious to us that as specified the solution doesn’t solve any feasible problem), we can lowball the initial project quote and make it up on T&M [time and material] when someone finally tells us what the requirement really is and we can come up with a proper solution
Lowballing the initial project is a tricky balance to strike; in IT where you’re using in-house staff, you can generally get away with it by trimming the transfer rate for staff working on a project — I know I’m charged out to other parts of the business for 2-2.5x the cost to my group of employing me and this is quite normal — so if a project ends up “only” paying 1.5x my costs then it’s a paper loss to one part of the company but still an overall profit: if you’re paying external subcontractors, you don’t get that nice little cushion so it’s far riskier.
I suspect that the likes of Carillion and Interserve got into trouble — at least in part — by hitting the lowball too hard and then either ending up not getting enough T&M to make up the losses on the initial project, or seeing the project cancelled/transferred away to another provider so that the T&M either didn’t happen or went elsewhere (where it was cheaper due to not subsidising a loss-leader project).
@Moosealot
Point taken on IT contracts, but here I understand we are talking about relatively straightforward items like cabling and fit-out of stations.
RogerB,
Take your point entirely but part of the problem is that Spons Estimating Cost Guides don’t have a section for megaprojects. It suffers from the oft found problem that the sum is (much) greater than the sum of the parts.
If you book a large table at a restaurant you often get a surcharge and certainly don’t get a discount. Not saying the situations are comparable.
As discussed in the pub last night, surely one person visiting all station sites in person (internally as well as externally) would have clearly seen there was a disconnect? This is all reminiscent of Goblin electrification where people were reporting from visiting overbridges etc that the project clearly wasn’t going according to plan yet TfL express surprise when they finally found out. When will people learn there is no substitute for visiting a location in person to check that the reports fit the facts on the ground? And, dare I say, a task for scrutinising non-executive directors, who mustn’t be allowed to be fobbed off with the sites people want to show them?
Re Aleks,
The stations are now at suitable stage for train testing to begin, they don’t need to be finished for this to happen, just the right things finished. ~ Two thirds of the stations will be in snagging by the end of the month.
The approach last year was for construction to continue Monday-Friday but testing to occur at weekend but that was completely flawed as construction wasn’t complete enough and lost of time spend making safe for testing.
Some commentators (“LR towers”) have been rather publicly quiet about real sums while we came up with estimates, my November estimate was monthly cash burn at £150m very close to Mark W’s £30m /week which will continue to till late spring and then start droping off. 100% of budget spent will have been about September 2018.
Re Mr Beckon,
Custom House – A perfect very simple example. contractors paid virtually all the money under the contract, work agreed under contract has been verified by surveyors monthly and contractors paid accordingly, but the contractors have been paid virtually all the money under the contract so there is no incentive to complete and lots of work to do! This is being addressed by lump sum contracts to finish stations so expect activity to complete.
The core issue is that the tasks and quantity of work required was under estimated originally. It appears they were only capturing about 90-97% of real world work.
Extra work involved in alterations was significantly higher than CR allowed for and the contractors have evidence to prove that. There were so many changes at 3 stations that one key subcontractor went bust (“surprisingly”) because they weren’t being paid for all the work (including manufacture & prefabrication off site which had to take place a long time in advance was wasn’t captured by CR in the cost of changes).
Right from the beginning NR and Crossrail couldn’t agree on costs for surface works, needless to say the real tendered cost of surface works aligned with NR (also see Carillion wins so under bidding in reality?) not CR budget estimate costs (and then throw in step free access without any increase in budget). WIth the NR contracts typically awarded far later with costs having crept up faster than general inflation in the interim. Which will explain £350-400m alone.
The system integration costs weren’t properly estimated.
Lots of the 2011 cost rebasing also involved removing contingency.
Re PoP,
“As discussed in the pub last night, surely one person visiting all station sites in person (internally as well as externally) would have clearly seen there was a disconnect?”
Mark W made the comment on Wednesday that the contract management wasn’t sufficient staffed up to do that i.e. the feet weren’t on the street and there was too much reliance on other reporting mechanisms.
I’m sure TfL won’t want to be reminded about the Goblin disconnect but the assembly committee members will! The reason for the Goblin problems were some what down to a key contractor /supplier outsourcing the engineering design to their cheaper global location with none of those doing the actual design ever having been on site (getting visas out of the Home Office would have caused a lot of project delays). Hence significant ping-pong between senior UK and junior overseas staff when what was designed very obviously didn’t actually work in the real location. This issues was also replicated in some of the North- West Electrification scheme involving the same supplier.
NR quite like Site -Eye (that eventually ends up in NR time lapse videos) and similar to keep a good passive eye on real site progress and TfL are following.
The problem is I wouldn’t be surprised if all the TfL projects have had site time (for those in Palestra and Stratford) reduced as an efficiency measure!
PoP
When will people learn there is no substitute for visiting a location in person to check that the reports fit the facts on the ground?
Or have forgotten entirely, because they used to do just that.
IIRC, It used to be the case that the “UndergrounD” had someone walk the entire above-ground route of all of their actually-underground lines at quite frequent intervals ( Once a month? Once a week? ) to check that all was well & that nothing untoward was going on, such as someone digging a “big hole”, & then taking appropriate action.
Of course this fell down when the GN&C line was handed over to National Rail and then this happened
LTC Rolt’s book on the Stephensons notes that Robert rode or otherwise traversed the entire length of the “L&B” several times.
Oh yes: Stephenson’s estimate: £2.4 million – actual cost £5.5 million – and finished at least 6 months late, if not more …
Greg: Walking above the line might well have worked effectively when the only way of digging a big hole was, err, to dig a big hole. Now things have moved on, and there would be no way that anyone walking the line and noticing a piling rig, or the sort of giant twisty thing which your link highlights a picture of, could possibly tell how deep it was going.
But I agree that proper oversight of any physical project is bound to be incomplete if everything is done sitting on a comfy chair in a warm office somewhere.
Greg Tingey, ngh,
Phil Hammond as transport secretary is reputed to have walked the entire route of HS2 (maybe really stage one and maybe really the truth is somewhat exaggerated). But that is the sort of thing that has to happen to understand a project. I am sure ex-army officers (like Andrew Wolstenholme) on the project would have found it second nature to visit the front line to make sure the messages they were getting back matched reality.
What baffles me with a lot of the stuff it is the sort of stuff loads of people know about replicated on a large scale. We had problems with our builder because he kept going back to make progress on his previous job. The problem there was that the structural engineer’s beautiful plans assumed load bearing floors not beam and block. It turned out the structural engineer had never visited the property. ‘Never assume’ as they say.
Or alternatively ‘Believe nothing, trust no-one, check everything’.
@Pedantic
“Phil Hammond as transport secretary is reputed to have walked the entire route of HS2”
Ditto in the telecoms industry. In the early 2000s, when lots of start-up telcos went bust, and a potential buyer came along a year or two later, the practice was to make someone walk the entire route of the fibre (which could easily be a long way, such as Amsterdam to Brussels) to check no one in the mean time had JCBed a trench through it.
It still happens in big cities such as New York, London and Frankfurt around data centres, where companies such as Netflix want to ensure route diversity and integrity: someone walks the streets and checks the state of the route. I talked to someone in the industry at a conference last year who did just this and found someone had built a multistorey car park over his fibre route.
Re. Walking the Line – being aware of what’s on the ground is one thing; actually signing a certificate so that someone gets paid is completely different, and if you certify for more work than has been done then it’s potentially criminal.
Take the Customs House example of NGH 11:29 above: if the majority of payments have been made and there is still ‘lots of work to do’ then someone has been paid too much. Bear in mind there would normally be a 5% retention for a year specifically to motivate the contractor to complete. (And don’t try to tell me that brown envelopes have never changed hands on UK construction contracts.)
@RogerB
I’ll be the first to admit I know approximately nothing about construction, so you may well be quite right about them being “relatively straightforward,” but I can’t help feeling that there will be complexities that the contractors understand but that I — and the procurement team — don’t. Again, with IT projects (because that’s what I know about) things that a layman would consider should be simple/trivial are very much not so, and there are significant non-linearities*; I would be really surprised if there was nothing involved in fitting out a station that had any similar characteristics.
Now, I have done a bit of data cabling in my time, and given how advanced the Crossrail stations are I would expect there to be a lot of it in a station. Standard maximum run length for Cat5e/Cat6 cable is 100m, but bundle too many together, especially if using them for PoE [power over ethernet] for that distance and you’ll start getting heat issues, especially if your bundle of a hundred of the things is neatly tucked away behind some panelling where there isn’t any possibility of airflow. Heat issues with data cables can manifest themselves in all sorts of ways and will have lots of expensive people scratching their heads for weeks. Both Cat5e and Cat6 can use anywhere from 22-26AWG** wires internally and meet the relevant spec. Voltage drop over 100m on a 26AWG will be horrendous, to the point that if it is attempting to deliver more than a minimal amount of power it will either straight-up fail or periodically drop out; 22AWG is likely to be just fine for most loads. However, I would not be at all surprised if ‘Cat6 cable’ is all that is specified (while good quality Cat5e would do the job better but hey, bigger number) and the lowest-bidding contractor uses the cheapest cable which ends up causing intermittent issues that are horrendous to troubleshoot and will cost many times more to rip out and replace than using decent quality cable in the first place. And after being replaced, the new – now larger – bundle of cables doesn’t fit on the cable trays properly, or behind the decorative fixtures…
*For example, scaling a service from 100-200 users might be free to all intents and purposes, but going from 200-300 users might require an additional server plus a load-balancer to allow both servers to run in parallel plus an external database to make sure they are kept in sync, etc. which could easily quadruple+ the cost.
**American welding gauge – effectively the thickness of copper in a cable – bigger number=thinner cable
RogerB 16:19,
Just to be clear, although I don’t think anyone would deny corruption is present in the construction industry, this is highly unlikely to be the case with Crossrail Ltd given the level of scrutiny – and also experiences of the Jubilee Line Extension not being forgotten.
@PoP
Or alternatively ‘Believe nothing, trust no-one, check everything’.
Great… provided the person doing the checking has the relevant skills to know what’s going on. With civils it’s relatively easy to see – “is there a great big hole here or not?” is a question anyone can answer – but as soon as you get to systems integration and testing it gets a lot trickier. Yes, the CCTV cameras appear to have been wired up, but until some other part of the project is complete we won’t be able to test whether they have been wired up *correctly* – or indeed whether they’re actually CCTV cameras or just boxes that have been made to look like them.
Re Roger B,
Part of the issue is that they can have been paid for “95%”, have done “97%” but the actual work required comes to “110%” as the original scope wasn’t complete or accurate and/or variations were required (compared to a nominal “100%” as budgeted).
On the civils side the biggest known over run was about 80% for the Farringdon station box when they found a whole load of geological faults that didn’t show up in the all the survey work (of which there was lots for Farringdon) which necessitated a big redesign and lots of extra work (some of which can be seen in one of the documentaries).
As I have been saying for while on LR (2017?) The on time on budget mantra – the later couldn’t really be true as delays were obvious accumulating and variations were be paid for but it was still “on budget” in their thinking because it was still “on spend profile” but not budget when you add in the right shifting going on.
Re Moosealot,
@1624 Data Cabling – I suspect the bookies have long since stopped taking bets on that being an issue at certain stations!
You also need to keep the stuff at least 2″ from any mains cabling or you get few surprises as well but the installers tend to forget about that too.
Interestingly at some of the problem stations the main contractors appear to have run into issues by not going with the most highly regarded sub contractors because they were too expensive.
@1634
“but as soon as you get to systems integration and testing it gets a lot trickier. ” Oh yes most people have no idea when it come to testing, I’ve found a few ISTQB handbooks are quite good for scaring common sense into people especially that it is going to take way longer than expected and they should have know better (resets “yes we can” cool-aid)
Taking a sightly existential look problems with stations contracts -vs- issues/delays (excluding unknown geology etc):
1) those contracts that were awarded earlier have been more problematic all round
2) the involvement of certain firms in design work has a correlation with three firms and problems
3) those main contractors from a more civils /structure only background have had more issues
4) those contractors with plenty of background in Airport and Metro contracts (not just UK) have been more problem free.
Which suggest many of the problems have their roots starting a very long time ago.
Class 345 – If the two semi-fast Reading services are indeed transferred to CrossMTRliz-rail will they be run by additional Bombardier units, or is the idea to keep the existing rolling-stock rebranded into Paddington – maintained by GWR with the Heathrow Expresses?
The 345s have performance records of
Shenfield line 95.8 per cent PPM (public performance measure)
Paddington to Hayes and Harlington 96.1 per cent PPM
13 September: the first chief executive of Crossrail Rob Holden blamed a decision to delay procurement of rolling stock for the scheme’s failure to hit its December 2018 opening date. A TfL spokesperson denied this saying: “The procurement of the trains has had no impact on the delayed opening of the central section.”
8 January 2019: TfL finance boss Simon Kilonback reveals “significant parts” of Crossrail remain unbuilt and that the transport body’s business plan had factored in delays of up to 18 months.
8 January 2019: Mark Wild said there was “thousands of hours” of construction work left to do and that Crossrail’s leadership had not had a “a clear understanding of the work still to do” in the weeks leading up to the delay announcement.
24 January: TfL says it is disappointed in the efficiency of teams pushing to complete the Crossrail tunnels, noting that finishing the tunnels was still a significant problem and that “productivity has been disappointing”.
In November 2018 the NAO (National Audit Office ) announced it will begin an investigation into the cause of the £16bn scheme’s delay in early 2019.
“Our investigation will examine the causes of the cost increases and schedule delays, the terms of the additional funding, and the governance and oversight of the programme.
Announcement https://www.nao.org.uk/work-in-progress/investigation-into-crossrail/
Re Aleks,
They will be run by Crossrail with 345s the order quantity was upped from 65 to 70 units (in 2 stages) and one of the reasons was going to Reading at 4tph.
The Crossrail service pattern is covered by LR in detail here:
https://www.londonreconnections.com/2018/crossrail-timetable-for-success/
A simple thought experiment would have answered you own question: Do the door spacing on 387s and 345s match? The answer is No , hence no GWR 387s in the tunnels!
GWR will actually be left short of Rolling Stock overall so as part of the direct award agreement with DfT they are getting 19x rebuild 769s (319s with diesel engines) to cover the loss of 12x 387s dedicated to HEx and to add capacity and services on the North Down Line by replacing DMUs and allowing their cascade further west. (GWR theoretical have a hand full of 387s spare due to delays to Didcot – Oxford electrification)
“The blame game”
Can be simplified to ex Crossrail management blames TfL who were in charge of procuring the rolling stock for the delays rather than accept they have tonnes of problems of their own making too. The moral is those in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones lest someone will reverse up with a 24t tipper lorry full of aggregate…
My mk1 eyeball survey early today of several core stations agrees with the two 8th Jan and 24th Jan comments you have highlighted.
@Ngh – thanks. The LR link has the previous information including a 2tph GWR service – off-peak only service. The 345 fleet has 4 tph to Reading.
I was not aware of the resolution of the remaining odd twice hourly GWR service to Padddington GWR. Given that TfL are still hoping to take control of the line this December I would expect to see a plan.
Stage 3 core RAP2 Dec19 won’t be linked with TfL West Dec19. The plan was still to migrate LivSt services to the core before Western.
The Glass House is City Hall – is it right for TfL to passively pass on service dates from outsourcers? Like Woolwich Dec18 xx, Feb19 maybe xx, TfL has been routinely issuing your X will be rebuilt month Y then month Y+3 with no progress and oversight.
[The second 8th Jan comment should be corrected to 9th Jan – my typo.]
With the blame game, start of NAO audit, reduced resources, and completion needing more managing it strikes me that 2019 is not a good time to load yet more plans.
Re Aleks,
As regards the fully open service pattern, the LR article is still correct at the moment it isn’t “previous”. The only potential change is those 2tph Off Peak GWR semi-fasts Paddington – Reading and v/v, as it has since been discovered that running those services is very inefficient for GWR as things stand (driver diagrams very inefficient*). Hence there are on going discussions for those to become Crossrail run as well.
*also knock on effects from delayed electrification of Didcot – Oxford
With the GW services currently transferring to Crossrail (at some point planned for Dec ’19 still) there will be a net reduction in GW turnover by in the region of £200m which will ultimately see DfT taking a hit, the 2tph off-peak would have enabled GWR to reduce this with a sanctioned ORCATS raid (sorted at the time of Reading extension announcement so quite along time ago), however with the later agreement for GWR to run HEx for HAL and the original GWR concept (killing many bird with one stone) for the 2tph off peak being Paddington – Oxford (stopping west of Reading but semi-fast to the east) which is no longer possible using 387s. Hence GWR suggesting to DfT a change to the original plan as it nolonger works operationally for them.
Glass House – No Crossrail is the glass house and City Hall have far more ammunition than Crossrail ever would. CRL were being very hypocritical in only blaming TfL organised contracts when far more of their own weren’t performing.
@Ngh – that was my query about the odd 2 tph that GWR don’t want and the customer offer of an ‘integrated’ service by one operator of London – Reading stoppers. I understood that it would remain a surface route.
Separately what arrangements are being made for December with TfL wanting to takeover route revenue and GWR losing the franchise. Is the intent to swap to Class 345s from Paddington GWR? All discussions had been about Stage5 Crossrail core extension.
The point about contractors being the money affects the ultimate sponsors being the taxpayers, but more directly residents and travellers rely upon TfL as the provider or not of service information.
Re Aleks,
GWR aren’t losing the franchise the routes are being changed, no different to the Thameslink / Southeastern changes over the last few years.
I understand discussions on the off peak are on going.
345s from Paddington from December, the plan was that 4tph to Heathrow T4 would already have been operating with 345s and all the Crossrail drivers are trained to use Paddington High level any way (first and last services of the day and engineering work /mishaps). Hence using high level instead ins’t really “news” as it has always been the back up plan
@ngh – should have said ‘contract to operate’ 🙂
“GWR’s contract for the route ends in December 2019 — one of the reasons the changeover was initially planned for then. GWR would continue to run fast services stopping at some of these stations, for example, Paddington to Oxford, stopping at Reading and Slough, but the bulk of the services — i.e. the stopping trains — would be handed over to TfL.”
Given it may now be for 3 to 4 years is the fall back ready to go for TfL Rail Western?
As planned timetable using 9 car 345s from High Level?
At what point (if ever) does it become worth upgrading Plumstead sidings to maintain trains and avoid signal changes to OOC? A 2 year delay? 3 year? I know no one actually can be sure of the delay right now.
Plumstead sidings has 13 tracks I think and was due to carry out light maintenance and heavy work was at OOC.
Assuming enough stations are complete to run a service could Plumstead run a good enough service with trains stored there if the sidings could operate heavy maintenance? No signal changes then needed I believe?
That’s assuming the sidings are complete. They didn’t last time but who very hard to tell from passing SE train.
Just looked into Plumstead and it’s 11 tracks and apparently 8 trains to be stabled there. Not sure if space to stable more at approach. Though the temp site adjacent could be used if electrified. Probably not worth the cost but then how much will 2-3 years revenue loss cost?
There’s a lot of land nearby that Crossrail used for construction and installed temp tracks.
Re From the Murky Depth,
Getting trains to/from OOC while out of service (i.e. a limited Abbey Wood – Paddington LL service) isn’t a big issue as you could stop to transition at Westbourne Park (as they do currently). With the Heathrow / Reading services using the HL platforms this won’t be a problem.
As I have said before circa 16 trains would be need for Abbey Wood – Paddington so no changes would be needed at Plumstead as it would be easy enough to rotate them via OOC overnight / off peak (and store a few at Abbey Wood with small army of security guards).
About 57 of 70 units complete along with most of the extra cars for the 7 car units complete so the physical side of the rolling stock is looking well on target.
Re Aleks,
Fall back plan in this case has always have been fairly prepared because the signalling transition at Westbourne Park was seen as a big risk, provided they get enough of the 345 software issues sorted then yes. It is probably the most likely “opening” you could currently pencil in.
The Abbey Wood leg is the part of Xrail without a parallel alternate. The construction can be completed and the line to Canary Wharf is ready for testing.
We’ve only discussed skip stop core running but what about a limited reversing SE service as far as Canary Wharf crossing back over at Custom House. Could stabling be augmented sufficiently with swaps back to OOC when needed?
Crossrail deputy chairman Nick Raynsford at the City of London Corporation’s planning and transport committee annual dinner last week said: “There can be no hiding from the fact that mistakes have been made and trust has been lost. We need to earn that trust back.
We won’t do that by making more promises we cannot keep, and so Tony (Meggs) and I, and the board together with Mark (Wild) and the whole leadership team have made the decision not to commit to a new timetable until we have the absolute confidence it can and will be delivered.”
Crossrail would only confirm a new opening programme once it had established a “robust and deliverable plan” to open the railway. “We hope to be in a position to give more information on this by early April.”
Sounds like RAP (Remedial Action Plan) is being reworked to EOP ( Earliest opening Programme). Silence is a combination of disbelief, denial and helplessness.
The project went off track in 2016. The Pudding Mill explosion in November 2017 was not a cause of delay but a symptom. Contractors blame designers and suppliers blame installers. The whole program was pressuring everyone for recovery.
Already in January 2017 it was being reported that “electricians are taking more stuff out than they are putting in.” A 100 electricians were stood down as new installation work at Paddington Station halted while previous problems were rectified. The chaos was due to incompatible drawings. No one was sure who screwed up but it took months to make progress. Similar M&E problems were discovered at Woolwich and Bond Street.
Bernard McAulay, national officer of Unite union, said: “Productivity levels went to pieces while the management were all over the place and Crossrail leaders in denial. The whole thing was in meltdown.”
The Costain Skanska Joint Venture M&E contractor on the Paddington site re-planned works at Paddington in order to meet key milestones.
If you enjoy reading or listening about monumental infrastructure cock-ups – I can heartily recommend this podcast http://www.radiospaetkauf.com/ber/ about the Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER) debacle.
There’s plenty of parallels between it and Crossrail – but BER makes Crossrail look perfect!
[Minor editing for language. Note to all: If you use unacceptable words your comment will go into a pending pile to be approved/rejected/modified. PoP]
James S. Thank you for these links. Listening to the first one now. Sadly I started thinking about the transport operation and construction expertise of the TfL Board, especially it’s Chair(s).
Re. Berlin
Tegel airport is bursing at the seams …Arriving isn’t too bad, though the amount of space outside to disgorge onto is very limited.
Couple that with the repeated refusal to extend either “U” or “S” bahn to Tegel, because “Willy Brandt is going to open next year” – back in 2011 …. The airport buses manage – just.
As for dpeartures – no, horrible, simply no space at all. One has to stand in a corridor for about half an hour minimum, simply because … there’s no space.
They have a whole set of interconnected ongoing problems there.
130 / J Scantlebury
Some “Picturesque” language in that Berlin airport ‘cast … but highly amusing.
The Public Accounts Committee yesterday received testimony in line with previous comments here but now public domain
Departing Costain chief executive Andrew Wyllie “Bond Street ‘not-late’ and will open a year after service starts”
https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/crossrail-stations-started-to-slip-in-2016/10040757.article
Mark Wild “the range of opening dates to be taken to the DfT at the end of March could be quite large”.
The programme for building Crossrail’s central stations “started to slip” in 2016. The impact of this was critical to delaying the line’s opening, as stations needed completing before the systems testing could start. It’s clear now with hindsight, that the management team did not have a good enough grip or understanding of the work to do and particularly the adjacency of work between the stations and trains and the amalgamation of different work streams.
Crossrail bosses have been working up a revised programme where systems testing completion would now happen before the completion of the stations.
In the 2010 baseline the stations should have been completed before the signalling system. Now we’re in the exact opposite situation that the stations have slipped beyond the signalling system. That’s very, very important because the stations themselves supply the signalling system, so you really wanted to get all of the stations out of the way and then do the railway signalling system.
“This is a lesson for the future because really you want the stations completed before you put the trains through the tunnel for obvious reasons.”
Mark Wild, Crossrail chairman Tony Meggs and permanent transport secretary Bernadette Kelly were made to squirm by the public spending watchdog, which demanded to know who was “responsible for this screw up”. Meggs said a “culture of over-optimism” had led to the “poor reporting of information upwards”. Kelly said there should have been a “greater injection of railway expertise” when it came to the systems integration stage.
Asked by Nigel Mills MP if this challenge could have been predicted, Wild replied: “You’d have to be a historian.” Citing 50 pages worth of reports that pointed to the fact the project was in trouble, Lee Rowley MP said: “It’s incredible, incredible for senior people to sit here and tell me you were not clear this was going to fall over. It was perfectly clear it was going to fall over.”
The Crossrail bosses were also asked how confident they were that the costs baseline would be correct, to which Meggs replied that while he didn’t have a specific costs estimate, he expected it to be within the funding envelope agreed last year.
I have now visited the TfL Eastern branch and despite all the line possessions and closures there has been no progress. The stations are still the same abandoned construction sites from three years ago. Why are the GLA councillors not all over TfL about this?
Aleks,
Your final comment is at odds with this TfL press release:
Step-free access arrives at four eastern TfL Rail stations.
Whilst I always encourage people to be sceptical when reading TfL press releases this one does seem very specific and factual and indicates considerable progress.
POP, your link produces:
“Sorry, that page cannot be found”
[Cheers, fixed. LBM]
That even includes:
“Other station improvements include a refurbished ticket hall with a new accessible ticket window, new ticket machines, automatic ticket gates and improved customer information screens displaying live travel information.”
Accessible Ticket Window? Whatever next?
@SHLR
I guess that “accessible” means at wheelchair height.
And many of us wonder for how long ticket windows will remain on the Crossabeth before they go the same way as those on LU and LO.
I can confirm that lifts at Forest Gate and Manor Park are available, and Seven Kings appears to be very close to it.
@Nameless: That was my thought… Why even bother with ticket windows if all you’re going to do is to close them?
Work has been reopened. There was a report that Crossrail work had been scheduled as “part of plans to have step-free access to the Elizabeth line within five years.”!
The Tfl board papers confirm that the work is supposed to complete by December 2019 (admitting that some will not achieve that).
http://content.tfl.gov.uk/pic-20190306-agenda-and-documents-public.pdf
Extracting the latest:
On-network stations improvement programme focuses on 22 existing stations, ensuring improved customer experience and step-free access, and a consistent station environment across the Elizabeth line.
On the Great Eastern lift schemes at Maryland, Manor Park and Seven Kings, the final inspections for handover are due to be completed by 13 February 2019. This will enable all new infrastructure relating to the step-free works (bridges and lifts) to be brought into public use.
Ahead of this, a section of the new footbridge at Manor Park was opened on 19 December 2018 which permitted, during the Christmas closure, the removal of the temporary footbridge that had been serving the station.
On the Great Western section lift schemes at Hanwell, Iver, Langley and Taplow, construction is progressing well with piling completed at most sites and foundation and lift pit construction under way. Steelwork installation planned for Christmas was postponed
until mid-February following a review of the programme. Completion is still scheduled for December 2019.
MTR Crossrail is continuing its station refurbishment programme. Work started in January 2019 on platform refurbishment activities, such as painting and decorating, at Brentwood,
Harold Wood, Gidea Park and Romford.
The installation of new shelters at Goodmayes and Ilford started in January 2019 and was completed at Chadwell Heath in December 2018.
Missing from the schedule is information about the opening of toilet facilities.
Apparently Network Rail have been ‘surprised’ at the condition of the surface stations, crumbling masonry and corroded steelwork. The stations had little maintenance over 100 years. A Network Rail spokesperson said: “During the course of our works to deliver new lifts we have found that significant repairs need to be undertaken before we can finish the refurbishment works and provide the much-needed step-free access for passengers.”
Re Aleks,
NR and predecessors since 1996 lease the stations above platform surface level to the TOCs who the responsible of most minor maintenance. Hence they only normally see stuff when flagged as major by TOCs hence it is quite easy for stuff to be far worse than expected.
NR, RT and BR infrastructure Anglia region record keeping has historically been bad at times.
Aleks
The stations had little maintenance over 100 years.
Ahem … though note what NGH said about post-1996 systems (?) … all the stations between Liverpool St, Statford & Shenfield were given pretty thorough make-overs just post WWII – it was called: “the Shenfield Electrification”
@Aleks & GT
And some stations had additional platforms with associated buildings, during the course of the 20th century, to go with extra lines before the electrification project.
Howard Smith, Operations Director, Crossrail, TfL
Crossrail Services and Transition
http://content.tfl.gov.uk/board-20161215-item13-crossrail-services-transition.pdf
Item 7.5 All surface stations will have toilet facilities.
And two new core stations will not – Bond St and Canary Wharf where there are facilities outside the ticket line.
So 38 out of 40 stations will be served, not the stats being quoted elsewhere.
Surface stations on the east without current open facilities (some bricked up in the 1980s)
Maryland, Forest Gate, Manor Park and Goodmayes.
Mayors Question Time – GLA
In the case of the surface section, where Crossrail will service existing stations, Crossrail and Network Rail plan to upgrade stations along the route, reintroduce toilets at stations where they previously existed and provide toilets at stations that are being significantly rebuilt.
http://www.crossrail.co.uk/route/eastern-section/
Maryland Station
Transport for London is undertaking improvement work at the station, including:
a new accessible customer toilet and retail space
The main works at the station are due to be completed in 2018.
A number of improvements are being delivered at Forest Gate station due to be completed in 2018. No mention of toilets.
Manor Park Station
Transport for London has successfully completed the refurbishment and redecoration of the ticket office, installed new signage and refurbished the toilets. (Implying they already existed but not included on the TfL map? http://content.tfl.gov.uk/toilets-map.pdf )
A number of improvements are being delivered at Goodmayes station scheduled to be completed in 2018. No mention of toilets – it does look like sewer drains have been installed on the platform underneath the staircases.
Forest Gate station has one public toilet, which can be opened with a key.
Useful for people with mobility problems, but not for baby-changing, nor for most of us.
Crossrail are advertising engineering jobs ‘to December 2020’.
Network Rail strategy and planning director (south) Rupert Walker told the Commons transport select committee that work on the surface stations was “on time and in the context with what we said we’ll achieve by the end of next year”.
The budget for the upgrade work to the Network Rail part of the line was originally set at £2.3bn. But in July last year the government allocated an extra £290M to complete the work.
On the eastern section, “significant” work is needed to complete work on Ilford and Romford stations. Network Rail route managing director (Anglia) Meliha Duymaz said early contractor involvement with Walkers and its designer Atkins had started and a design had been approved by Redbridge Council.
@ Aleks – did they also appear in front of the Commons Cttee because what you’ve reported is almost word for word was said to the London Assembly Transport Cttee on Thursday?
Sadly not much else of any great light was revealed in over 3 hours of questions. It is so frustrating seeing Assembly Members get close to asking genuinely probing questions and then missing the point or getting distracted by a pet peeve. Despite many questions about the station of works on the eastern and western sections there was no in depth challenge as to why the work was so late and why procurement issues have been so appallingly protracted on the western stretch. Somewhere there is a real story to be dug out as to why work is years late. Similarly why, if as quoted, the “infrastructure for Crossrail is complete” on the Great Eastern Main Line (GEML) do we still have repeated weekend full closures between Shenfield and Liverpool Street. If it’s finished why the repeated closures?
At least former CEO Andrew Wolstenholme was decent enough to admit publicly that Bond St, Whitechapel and Liverpool Street had been problem sites for a long time. First time I’ve seen an admission that ground condition issues at Moorgate delayed the main shaft for a year as it had to be redesigned to cope with the ground conditions which were totally at variance with survey results. Also Howard Smith told Ms Pidgeon that the class 345s are NOT late and are not a major cause of the programme slippage. A whole pile of other things are late which has prevented their effective testing in the tunnel. About time the fiction about the class 345s being 18 months late was put to rest.
I was less impressed by the excessively stout defence of having a “positive working atmosphere” (my words, not AW’s) at Crossrail. There was little acceptance that this could have caused problems in preventing bad news being passed up the organisation and blinding senior management to intractable problems as the Dec 18 date loomed large. Similarly there was rather too much dodging of the question as to how he (and other senior Crossrail people) met all their performance targets and yet we have a railway that may open nearly 2 years late.
It’s clear to me that there are agreed narratives between all the participants and no one is going to cause the “ship to sink” by speaking out of turn. Quite how everyone did everything so well and yet we have the problems that we have is a mystery to be solved another day – probably when the guilty are dead, at this rate. I suspect Mike Brown, when he appears in front of the Cttee at the April meeting, is going to have a *very* hard time about his apparent role in editing and removing contentious news from the weekly progress reports to the Mayor.
@WW agree with you. Not a great deal of inquiry from anywhere. I post anything relevant here as no service is imminent despite hopes. The committee may have been incorrectly reported.
The possession was required to erect a scaffolding footbridge at Forest Gate, so it makes sense they repeated it for the removal.
Someone suggested the schedule of possessions was required for OHLE renewal to Chelmsford. The sections are clearly isolated but the absence of through services on the Anglia mainline may have been a chance to work on footbridge lifts at Manor Park and Seven Kings. At least there is progress and they are working to Dec 2020 not the 2019 expected by TfL.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/20450249.2019.1621583?scroll=top&needAccess=true
A well constructed argument for restricting information and interference.
WW
Why do we still have repeated weekend full closures between Shenfield and Liverpool Street. If it’s finished why the repeated closures?
I suspect it’s to do with the integration & testing of signalling through the Pudding Mill Portal. And, it’s “easier” (for them, not us!) simply to close all the way to Shenfield – plus the removal of a platform at Liverpool St has to be done at some point.
ALeks
Indeed – a very well-argued report & commentary, especially where comparison is made with other “megaprojects”.
I see that no-one mentions Berlin (!)
A note on “separate contracts”
This is not a new problem – as always, lessons from the (distant) past are relevant.
Back in 1834-8, the London & Birmingham had exactly these problems, with contactors going bust, or losing the plot or having nervous breakdowns.
Robert Stephenson had to take over overall personal control & deal with the unexpected ground conditions that had been found, as well.
A re-read of L.T.C.Rolt’s classic biography of the two Stephensons is recommended, if not compulsory, under the circumstances.
Past four Sundays, not Saturdays, involved TfL rail trains skipping Maryland, Forest Gate and Manor Park to test signally through the Pudding Mill Lane portal.
Today, not running between Stratford & London Liverpool Street.
Hardly “full closures”.
Sunday service is now all stations, every 15 minutes, except for the 2nd last and 4th last terminating at Gidea Park.
The Stratford Liverpool St closure this weekend is due to track renewal work inside the Bishopsgate tunnel, as advertised on the @TFLRail twitter page.
Christian Wolmar’s ‘apology’ in a column that appeared in Rail
” It pains me to say it but I have to confess to a bit of mea culpa here. ”
http://www.christianwolmar.co.uk/2019/05/rail-879-the-crossrail-mystery-what-went-wrong/
Our discussion has been very silent.
Can we speculate on the latest Jacobs that Bond St is even more delayed and Mark Wild’s newly created 2023 ‘completion’ stage.
[We don’t generally encourage speculation, but some extrapolation of facts is oft allowed. LBM]