Crossrail/Elizabeth Line. From construction to operation - ongoing discussion

[whole diary]

[stuving]

Some this may be familiar ...

I still see comments about Crossrail being the biggest infrastructure project in Europe, but it lost that crown years ago to Le Grand Paris Express (to talk only about the railway element). This is meant to bring more city-centre transport to the banlieu (i.e. outside the périphérique), not just as a metro but an express one to cope with the greater distances. The lines are more tangential than radial -  the only extra link to the centre extends metro line 14 - so it will rely on the RER for that (which looks odd).

It really is big. 200 km of new lines, mostly tunneled, and 68 stations - all architect-designed! - and two big viaducts. And some parts have a deadline of 2024 for the Olympics, though fewer than at the start due to slippage. Given that work started in 2016, and tunneling only in 2018, getting any of it open by 2024, and the rest (bar one line not yet finalised) by 2030, is "challenging" (as they say).

The déjà vu is in the official reports that the cost (rising) was pushed up by that scary deadline. No doubt there will be more such reports later - unless the French way of managing grands projets really is much better than ours. And the cost? €19Md in 2008 prices at the start, but by 2017 it was €35Md (2012 prices) ... if it keeps rising like that then frogs may start jumping ship!  Now, what else could go wrong ... how about Siemens CBTC^▸ (Communications-based train control) on Alstom trains supporting headways of 85s?

The official Grand Paris Express site has a map plus some English words (don't try to understand the line numbering!), and Metro Report International has the news.

[Red Squirrel]

I know it's a tiny detail, but I presume you mean 'billions' rather than 'millions'? 

[stuving]

I know it's a tiny detail, but I presume you mean 'billions' rather than 'millions'? 

You're right of course - it is a tiny detail. But, being French, it ought to be milliards.

[Surrey 455]

Further contracts let for GWML^▸ (Great Western Main Line) stations: http://www.infrastructure-intelligence.com/article/may-2019/network-rail-announces-new-contracts-crossrail-project-1

HOCHTIEF will undertake the work at West Drayton, Hayes & Harlington and Southall, whilst GRAHAM will undertake the work at Acton Main Line, West Ealing and Ealing Broadway.

In 2018/19 Network Rail delivered the enabling works for the new station buildings by installing the foundations and steel frames for new accessible footbridges and lift shafts. The new ticket halls and step free access will be completed by December 2020.

Congratulations to Graham for winning this contract. Please start soon.
Oh, and Hochtief even sooner please. Those 3 stations are little more than construction demolition sites at the moment.

[Lee]

https://www.building.co.uk/news/past-and-present-crossrail-bosses-to-face-mps-all-at-the-same-time/5099376.article

The current and previous project leadership teams will be questioned next week

Crossrail’s long-serving ex-leaders as well as the new senior management team are set to face MPs^▸ (Member of Parliament) next week to answer questions about the £17.6bn project.

Ex-chief executive Andrew Wolstenholme and ousted chair Sir Terry Morgan are set to join their current counterparts Mark Wild and Tony Meggs at a Public Accounts Committee (PAC) inquiry next Wednesday.

It will be the first time the current and past leadership teams have been publicly questioned at the same time.

The session will also feature Bernadette Kelly, a permanent secretary from the transport department, and Matthew Lodge, the director within the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about)’s rail group responsible for the sponsorship and delivery of Crossrail.

[TonyK]

I know it's a tiny detail, but I presume you mean 'billions' rather than 'millions'? 

You're right of course - it is a tiny detail. But, being French, it ought to be milliards.

Is Billiards a word?

[didcotdean]

Yes. One billiard = a million milliards. Or ten to the power of fifteen.

[TonyK]

Well making a train work does not seem to be easy for some:

https://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/17615945.summer-opening-derailed-for-poole-park-miniature-railway/

And:

https://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/17606397.noddy-train-investigation-likely-to-last-all-summer/

The council has only just confirmed they will be "shortly going out to tender" for the track and engine shed, and a separate tender will then need to go out for the train and carriages.

Will there be a tender for a tender?

[grahame]

Diamond Geezer  from last Sunday.  Funny how there's not a peep from official channels when a slipped deadline is passed.

Today's the day.

Sunday 19th May 2019 was supposed to be the day that Crossrail connected up to Shenfield.

Crossrail east

Nah, not even close.

According to long-established timelines, purple trains should already have been shuttling between Paddington and Abbey Wood for the last 23 weeks. As we all know, this did not happen.

and

Today was going to be the day that Crossrail's second arm came into being, with trains bearing off after Whitechapel towards Stratford, Ilford and beyond. Technically speaking the day the Central Section Passenger Service linked up to the Great Eastern Surface Section. Proper Crossrail, with just the extension to Reading to go. Not a chance.

Today the platform indicators at Bond Street should have been showing alternating eastbound trains for the first time... Shenfield/Abbey Wood/Shenfield/Abbey Wood. Not only is that not happening, but Bond Street is so far behind schedule it could never have happened anyway.

I'd long been looking forward to hopping onto a train at Stratford today and disappearing through the Pudding Mill Portal to destinations like Farringdon, Tottenham Court Road and Paddington. No further, because the connection at Paddington wasn't due to happen until Sunday 15th December 2019, but of course that won't be happening either.

Today's also the day every Crossrail station from Stratford out to Shenfield should have been completed with upgraded entrances and step-free access, but this hasn't happened either.

[TaplowGreen]

Diamond Geezer  from last Sunday.  Funny how there's not a peep from official channels when a slipped deadline is passed.

Probably because a missed deadline on the railways is hardly news, it's Business as Usual 

[TonyK]

Wish our current PM would get on with her current project...

Just finishing up...

[stuving]

Some this may be familiar ...

... familiarly familiar, in fact.

From The Local:

The new high-speed link between Paris Charles de Gaulle airport and the city centre will be ready for 2025 - not 2024, the French government confirmed on Wednesday, meaning there will be no need for those pesky long summer closures.

The direct rail link between Charles de Gaulle airport and Gare de l'Est is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2025, one year after the Olympics, France's Transport Minister Elisabeth Borne has announced.
 
This is the final episode in a saga which has seen disagreements between political heavyweights over the programme for the ambitious construction project.
 
Valérie Pécresse, president of the greater Paris transport network Ile-de-France Mobilités had declared that the previous deadline of 2024 - which would see the work finished in time for the Paris Olympics - was "radically untenable".
 
French ministers were then asked to vote on two possible options.

The second option - the one chosen by French ministers - will see parallel tracks to the current rail lines built, which has the advantage of limiting disruption to passengers, but means the project will not be finished until the end of December 2025.

Option one was to press ahead with the 2024 deadline and open the link in time for the Olympics.
 
However, this would have necessitated much more disruption on the network and for a period of three weeks over the summer 2022 and another three weeks in 2023, the current RER line B service would have had to close completely.
 
This would have meant that everyone who currently uses it to get to and from the airport, plus commuters to and from northern Paris suburbs like Drancy and Aubervillers, would instead have been on buses.

[stuving]

Unless it's me that's missing something obvious, I think the context of the story is that had Crossrail not been running years behind schedule, the drivers would not be lying (somewhat) idle for so long at such expense?

Looking on the bright side, the project task labelled 'Employ some drivers' appears to have been completed on time...

Presumably at least some of them will be required to do the testing and integration of the new trains?

At the moment there are five practice runs out to Reading and back in the timetable, and they seem to run most days. Last Thursday I was surprised to see a 345 in P9 for its reversal, instead of the booked P13. I guess they (the drivers, perhaps, more than the trains) do need to know the way; on Tuesday one was allowed a go in P10.

[grahame]

from Crossrail[url] - project update.

A new plan to complete the outstanding works and bring the Elizabeth line into passenger service at the earliest possible date has been developed by the new Crossrail leadership team. This provides Londoners with a realistic and achievable plan to complete the Elizabeth line.

The remaining systems installation in the stations and tunnels will be completed this year. This will allow the new stations and rail infrastructure to be integrated with the rest of the railway. During 2020 we will undertake testing of the completed railway including an extensive period of trial running and trial operations to build absolute confidence in the safety and reliability of the whole system before opening to the public.

Due to the complexity of the remaining work, Crossrail Ltd has identified a six-month delivery window between October 2020 and March 2021 for the start of Elizabeth line services through central London. As the programme to complete and test the railway progresses, Crossrail Ltd will be able to provide increasing certainty about when the Elizabeth line will open.

The central section of the Elizabeth line will open between Paddington and Abbey Wood and link the West End, the City of London, Canary Wharf and southeast London with initially 12 trains per hour. It is expected that all stations on the route will open except for Bond Street which will not be ready to open until 2021.

Once the central section opens, phased services will be introduced across the entire route, with full services across the Elizabeth line from Reading and Heathrow in the west to Abbey Wood and Shenfield in the east, commencing as soon as possible.

Continues with
- CENTRAL SECTION PROGRESS
- MAIN DYNAMIC TESTING
- OPERATIONAL READINESS
- NETWORK RAIL

That latter giving news on Paddington - Reading section

Network Rail continued delivery of its infrastructure to support the Stage 5A TfL^» (Transport for London - about) Rail service between Paddington and Reading in December 2019. Extension of the platforms at West Drayton, Maidenhead and Slough continue, with installation of camera posts for driver’s CCTV^▸ (Closed Circuit Tele Vision) at eight stations between Reading and West Drayton expected to be completed next month.

Enhancements at stations between Hayes & Harlington and Acton Main Line are progressing. Programmes have now been submitted by the two contractors who were awarded the work for six of the stations in May and these programmes have been accepted by Network Rail.

[eightonedee]

So - fingers crossed and touch wood - this looks like Elizabeth Line trains to take the bulk of the strain of Reading - Paddington services by the time the new timetable starts, releasing class the 379s left after the pool has been raided for Heathrow Express for the remainder of the electrified Thames Valley services.

Will this release any more Turbos to be cascaded westwards, or is this still dependent upon 769s being available for North Downs and Oxford stopping services?

As an aside, if the cascade is delayed, are there single coach 153s available to recall form store to supplement 150/158s as extra coaches in formation in the meantime to ensure sufficient (and shouldn't Wabtec/Porterbrook fund this to make up for any delay in delivery)?