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

[whole diary]

[bradshaw]

Looks interesting

RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website) Stratford Tfl for this Sunday

Apologies, when modifying the link it seems OK but changes when posted.

Suggest go to RTT, enter Stratford, TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) XR^▸ (Crossrail) Tfl, time 1023-1953, date 12/09/21

Crossrail trial running through the tunnels

[GBM]

Looks interesting

RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website) Stratford Tfl for this Sunday

(Strategic Rail Authority - about)/2021-09-12/0200-0159?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt&toc=xr" target="_blank">https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/search/detailed/gb-nr:SRA/2021-09-12/0200-0159?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt&toc=XR^▸ (Crossrail)

Crossrail trial running through the tunnels

Link not working - just a page saying the SRA has now closed!

[bradshaw]

Have modified the post taking out the link and instead suggesting search terms on RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website).

[GBM]

Still only seeing the SRA^» (Strategic Rail Authority - about) link (which is still closed!); no link visible to the RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website) site.  Apologies if only me

[bradshaw]

Opening up the link did get to the SRA^» (Strategic Rail Authority - about). That part of the link is hidden when you copy and paste from the RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website) web address.

However if you go to the RTT site
Enter
Location  Stratford
TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) XR^▸ (Crossrail) Tfl
Time they run from 1023 to 1953
Date 12/09/21
That opens the page and should show trains running east from London Paddington

[grahame]

Still only seeing the SRA^» (Strategic Rail Authority - about) link (which is still closed!); no link visible to the RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website) site.  Apologies if only me

Issue is our system for expanding abbreviations on the forum - with an abbreviation in the URL it causes trouble.

Abbreviations are only expanded once in a message so if I mention SRA, WVS and XR^▸ (Crossrail) before I give the URL , it works:


https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/search/detailed/gb-nr:SRA/2021-09-12/0000-2359?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt

[grahame]

You could also try

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/search/detailed/gb-nr:TCR/2021-09-12/0000-2359?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt

[JayMac]

The left hand side of London Paddington has now been opened out in preparation for the commencement of Elizabeth Line services through Paddington.

[stuving]

There was a London Assembly Transport Committee meeting yesterday, with a detailed situation update from Mark Wild. There's a three-hour video of proceedings, but if you feel too time-poor to cope with that there is a summary on IanVisits. Here's a few highlights from that:

Crossrail aims to start Trial Operations “within days”
Published 16 November 2021 By Ian Mansfield Transport News

The final testing stage before the Elizabeth line opens to the public is due to start within the next few days, Crossrail’s CEO^▸ (Chief Executive Officer), Mark Wild has confirmed.

The Crossrail project has been in a phase known as Trial Running since April, which tests the railway with a timetabled service similar to the one the line will have when it opens to the public, and was used to shake out the final bugs in the complicated software needed to run the line and build up the reliability of the service.
...
Earlier this year, there were thousands of small things to fix, and now they’re down to the final 620 items to fix to open the line.

Trial Operations

The railway is now ready for the final stage before it opens to the public, the trial operations where hundreds of TfL^» (Transport for London - about) staff will carry out passenger drills and safety evacuations to prove that the line is perfectly safe to open to the public.
...
Trial Operations will take 3-4 months, depending on the reliability growth of the systems. That means that at the moment, they are aiming to open the line as soon as possible between Feb and June 2022, but it’s down to those final tests and the “tuning up” of the systems.

The wide range for the opening date is also expected to narrow in the New Year, mainly once the final updates are made to the ventilation and trail control systems are completed over the Christmas period.

Stations

Out of the two stations left to hand over to TfL, Canary Wharf station is expected to be handed over by Christmas.

Two years ago, Bond Street was running 18 months behind the rest of the line, but over the past two years, they’ve almost caught up with the rest of the project, and the station is now, if not totally finished, it is revenue ready. All of the physical installation work will be completed by February 2022, and then there’s the document assurance process to confirm what’s built matches what was ordered.
...
Ultimately, a decision has been taken that if they can open the Elizabeth line early in the opening window next year, they will do so without Bond Street station, and add it in later.

Financing

The project is working to keep close to the £825 million funding deal, but at the time they were asking for £1.1 billion, and at the moment it still seems likely that something will be needed between the two.

If you look at RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website), trial operations has been running a five-minute service (12 tph) and doing that within 5 minutes for an hour or two at a time most days. But it rarely lasts longer, and then a train gets ten or twenty minutes late. That takes a couple of hours to work out of the system without cancellations, and then it's back to regular running again. There's also quite often a train missing and a ten-minute gap. So, not like any clock I'd use, but probably good enough to progress to the next stage.

[stuving]

Got my jargon wrong! It wasn't trial operations up to last week, it was trial running. Trial operations started today, involving the same 12 tph for most of the day, and going on to near midnight (tapering off). As well as more staff getting involved in training and dress rehearsal mode, there will be staged incidents for everyone to practice. So if RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website) shows massive disruption, it's all planned. Probably.

And then, the same plan says public service starts on 6th March. So if that falls flat on its face due to "unforeseen circumstances", there will be loads of embarrassment - but at least by now there's been a lot of rehearsal of that too.

While a visible (if not yet nailed down) end-point is welcome, the whole timescale does look rather ... unVictorian, doesn't it?

[stuving]

Having gone back to their 12 tph of trial operations last week, today for the first time trains were meant to pop out of their burrowtunnel and go somewhere. OK, it was only Acton Main Line, so "somewhere" is a bit over the top, and in any case a signal failure near Hanwell ruled it out for most of today. But at 17:03 a train from Abbey Wood got there - with a delay of six minutes getting past Westbourne Park (ribbon cutting?).

It was meant to return, and didn't - it seems to have vanished - and neither of the two more scheduled to do the same left the warm security of their tunnel. But another tiny step, at least.

Correction - I missed some this morning, before the signal sickness struck, so the first got in just before 10:00.

[broadgage]

Whilst a partial opening will no doubt be ultimately achieved, hopefully this year, I am very doubtful as to the longer term reliability of this railway.
Apart from the general issues of anything new tending towards greater complexity and reduced reliability, there seems to be a particular built in problem in this railway.

My understanding is that two different signaling systems are used, one for the core section and one for the outer bits. Both systems have to interface with the computer systems on the train.
If the changeover between these two systems does not work as intended then the brakes are automatically applied

[paul7575]

Whilst a partial opening will no doubt be ultimately achieved, hopefully this year, I am very doubtful as to the longer term reliability of this railway.
Apart from the general issues of anything new tending towards greater complexity and reduced reliability, there seems to be a particular built in problem in this railway.

My understanding is that two different signaling systems are used, one for the core section and one for the outer bits. Both systems have to interface with the computer systems on the train.
If the changeover between these two systems does not work as intended then the brakes are automatically applied

I thought three different signalling systems are used. The Crossrail specific communications based system in the core tunnels, AWS^▸ (Automatic Warning System)/TPWS^▸ (Train Protection and Warning System) on Stratford to Shenfield for the foreseeable future, but also between Westbourne Park and the Heathrow junction initially, and then ETCS^▸ (European Train Control System) in the Heathrow tunnels.  The GW^▸ (Great Western) stretch should have been made ETCS ready beforehand, but hasn’t been yet?

[broadgage]

I thought three different signaling systems are used. The Crossrail specific communications based system in the core tunnels, AWS^▸ (Automatic Warning System)/TPWS^▸ (Train Protection and Warning System) on Stratford to Shenfield for the foreseeable future, but also between Westbourne Park and the Heathrow junction initially, and then ETCS^▸ (European Train Control System) in the Heathrow tunnels.  The GW^▸ (Great Western) stretch should have been made ETCS ready beforehand, but hasn’t been yet?

Even more complication and risks of failure.

And of course opportunity for the train builders and the suppliers of the THREE different signaling systems to blame each other.

[IndustryInsider]

Whilst a partial opening will no doubt be ultimately achieved, hopefully this year, I am very doubtful as to the longer term reliability of this railway.
Apart from the general issues of anything new tending towards greater complexity and reduced reliability, there seems to be a particular built in problem in this railway.

My understanding is that two different signaling systems are used, one for the core section and one for the outer bits. Both systems have to interface with the computer systems on the train.
If the changeover between these two systems does not work as intended then the brakes are automatically applied

I agree that having more than one signalling system adds to the complexity, and I am sure there will be issues cropping up now and again.  However:

1)  Don’t the Thameslink Class 700s change signalling systems when they go through their core section which uses ATO^▸ (Automatic Train Operation)?  Do we hear of many problems with them?

2)  During the extensive testing programme for Crossrail, units are regularly changing signalling modes in real life now whilst coming on and off Old Oak Common depot to get to Royal Oak.