[HN Gopher] Crossrail update on the Elizabeth line's opening plans
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Crossrail update on the Elizabeth line's opening plans
Author : zeristor
Score : 50 points
Date : 2022-03-26 08:23 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ianvisits.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ianvisits.co.uk)
| midasuni wrote:
| After the recent publicity testing, I was hoping to be riding it
| before Easter, now it looks like even the core part will take
| until June or even later.
|
| It's hilarious this is so many years behind schedule. It's also
| why I don't think nuclear is the answer - as a country the U.K.
| can't do big projects.
| PaulRobinson wrote:
| You know there will be immense pressure for it to open on or
| before the Jubilee weekend - in June - so I'd put my money on
| that being the later date.
| dazc wrote:
| The UK has done plenty of big projects just as well and often
| better than anyone else but I think the problem nowadays is
| twofold:
|
| 1) Health and safety legislation has evolved to an extent where
| construction companies can simply not take risks. Of course,
| this is a great thing if you're a construction worker who
| enjoys going home to his/her family each night but it does mean
| that big projects become bogged-down in planning and ensuring
| that nothing can possibly go wrong from a safety aspect.
|
| 2) Sub-contracting of specialist roles where you (as a main
| contractor) are reliant on multiple partners all being on top
| of their game and focused on the end goal when, in reality,
| everyone is out for themselves and happy to sabotage progress
| for the sake of an easy profit, ego boost or backstabbing
| opportunity.
|
| From the outside these kind of projects always look easy but
| from the inside it's a wonder that anything actually gets done.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| > in reality, everyone is out for themselves and happy to
| sabotage progress for the sake of an easy profit, ego boost
| or backstabbing opportunity.
|
| Oftentimes these sorts of problems aren't due to malice but
| occur because of unintended consequences of poorly-defined
| service-level agreements and KPIs for separate contractors
| whose services have to integrate for overall success.
|
| I was embedded once at a UK Army base that ran in effect a
| military college for different trades. The on-site restaurant
| was part of a UK-wide contract that had nationally agreed
| contracted opening times. These inflexible eating hours were
| actually the main constraint on when physical education could
| occur. A single supplier company had two separate contracts
| to supply instructors and equipment maintenance staff. The
| maintainers had KPIs that were (again) part of a national
| level contract that worked against the instructors when
| important things needed to be quickly repaired.
| dazc wrote:
| Interesting insight and, yes, appreciate this is also a
| factor.
| 7952 wrote:
| It is a few years late, but on a 10 year program. And it is
| only around 25% over budget. That is a lot of money to be sure.
| But compared to other government or corporate programs it seems
| pretty good. And it will deliver real measurable benefits to
| people. Both in terms of travel and economic stimulus. The UK
| is probably spending more on failed corporate ERP systems every
| year than the over spend on Crossrail.
|
| And we can do manor projects because we are doing major
| projects. There is Thames Tideway, London Power Tunnels,
| several offshore wind farms and interconnectors, Great Western
| electrification, 2012 Olympics.
| mrlonglong wrote:
| Let's not forget Hinckley C being built and possibly the go-
| ahead for Sizewell C later this year. Both projects are vital
| in the fight against climate change. I'd sleep easier at
| nights if we could build two more in addition and mini
| reactors dotted around the country.
| nickmyersdt wrote:
| Being 25% over budget when the programme is already
| extortionately expensive compared to similar infrastructure
| projects in other countries. And each time we do "another
| one" it's even more expensive than the last. There is an
| entire industry purpose designed for ripping off the tax
| payer.
| jhugo wrote:
| > extortionately expensive compared to similar
| infrastructure projects in other countries
|
| Can you make a few comparisons to similar infrastructure
| projects in other countries to illustrate this point? Make
| sure those countries have similar safety protections for
| workers, and labour rights, of course.
| lostlogin wrote:
| I'm not the OP, but New York subway work might be a good
| one to compare t?
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-
| subway-...
| smilespray wrote:
| 20 years ago, I shared a flat with an architect who was
| working on this project.
| zeristor wrote:
| The original High Speed rail from St Pancras to Paris seemed to
| have gone quite well.
|
| Crossrail appears to have had bonuses to the original
| management for constructing the tunnels, I'm not too sure on
| the details but what is far more galling that the illusion of a
| Dec 2018 carried on to a few months before.
|
| Warning I've just read snippets following this, so following
| could well be wrong:
|
| Seemingly enough time had been scheduled to run the trains to
| shake out systems, as well as finish building.
|
| Bond Street build was delayed due to the site being tight, the
| original contractors were replaced by TfL itself.
|
| Enough time to run tests on the fittings so that the could be
| proven to be in compliance hadn't be catered for. If this was
| an issue I would have thought that could have been started much
| earlier.
|
| Signalling issues, as mentioned. The trains have to integrate
| with three different signalling systems.
|
| I believe Project Management itself grew from the UK government
| having early issues with delivery. Systems aren't getting any
| simpler.
|
| A society that can plan, fund, build, and maintain large to
| huge infrastructure projects would have a huge advantage.
| danpalmer wrote:
| I find the reasons for the delay interesting. The "root cause"
| is arguably not signalling or station fit out, it's the fact
| that the senior management essentially didn't understand the
| processes or how progress was being made or not made.
|
| Under the original CEO it was going to be delivered in 2018
| right up until mid 2018 when they were like "oh sorry, maybe
| early 2019?". This was a CEO with basically no construction
| experience who rarely set foot on site.
|
| They replaced the CEO a few years ago with someone who has a
| long career in construction, who understood what it takes to
| build a railway, who really knows the details, and who is on
| site, in the weeds, understanding the progress at a very
| granular level. Since he's taken over the communication has
| been much better, much more consistent, and felt much more
| honest. He wouldn't commit to a date, but has progressively
| shortened the window again and again as they've got closer to
| completion, and maybe this is naive, but I fully believe that
| they'll hit the goal of "first half of 2022".
| kmlx wrote:
| > it looks like even the core part will take until June or even
| later. > It's hilarious this is so many years behind schedule
|
| it's 4 years behind schedule, 2 of those were covid. not bad,
| not good.
|
| > It's also why I don't think nuclear is the answer - as a
| country the U.K. can't do big projects.
|
| crossrail was the biggest european construction project. huge
| undertaking, and with only 4 years behind schedule. for a
| western project this is pretty good actually.
|
| hinkley point c is just 6 month behind schedule.
|
| but usually if you're building something huge in a western
| country then expect huge delays.
| ggambetta wrote:
| > crossrail was the biggest european construction project
|
| The Gotthard Basis Tunnel [0] (delivered 6 months _ahead_ of
| schedule after 12 years of construction) would like to have a
| word :)
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_Base_Tunnel
| Reason077 wrote:
| Building the physical tunnels (and the trains for that
| matter) isn't why Crossrail is behind schedule. Those were
| both pretty much delivered on schedule.
|
| Apparently the delays are mainly due to station fit outs
| (Bond Street station will still not be ready for the
| initial opening), and issues with the signalling systems -
| including software delays.
| Narretz wrote:
| This was the same with Berlin's latest (and currently
| last) subway project, U5 extension. While much shorter,
| the stations also were behind schedule, and the line
| operated for a few months without the intermittent
| stations being open.
| midasuni wrote:
| If you want to bring in Berlin then look at the airport
| for cockups
| shubb wrote:
| In fairness, rumour has it that the station fit outs were
| an avoidable screw up.
|
| Supposedly the detailed design work was behind schedule
| so they started the physical building work "at risk".
| Because it was not well planned, it was done in the wrong
| order - installing cabling before moving a wall so the
| new cables have to be ripped out along with the old wall
| for instance. It was alleged that this was done
| deliberately by the subcontractors to create additional
| paid work.
|
| A few years ago, recognizing that the project management
| was a huge mess, there were a lot of big changes and the
| project management team have been running a events in
| london showing off the real time project tracking they've
| put in place.
|
| Presumably, Covid hasn't heled either.
|
| I remember these radio problems from when I was
| interviewing for rail automation jobs 20 years ago. They
| were having this exact problem on the jubilee line. The
| tunnels seem to be an amazingly harsh environment, and
| the safety requirements seem much harsher than for self
| driving cars or human train drivers.
| kmlx wrote:
| > The Gotthard Basis Tunnel [0] (delivered 6 months ahead
| of schedule after 12 years of construction) would like to
| have a word :)
|
| crossrail is by far the biggest european construction
| project.
|
| it's the most complicated, required the most people, cost
| the most.
|
| just by length it's double the size of the gotthard tunnel.
| globular-toast wrote:
| > as a country the U.K. can't do big projects.
|
| Which countries are better at it? The UK has very little (if
| any) greenfield development opportunities left. You really have
| to keep things in context. This is a tunnel under London, not
| some viaduct across bare meadows. One thing you learn in
| engineering before long is the enormous cost of existing
| development/infrastructure. You can't always wipe the slate
| clean and start again even if we'd all like to sometimes.
| robga wrote:
| > It's hilarious this is so many years behind schedule. It's
| also why I don't think nuclear is the answer - as a country the
| U.K. can't do big projects.
|
| Maybe they're great at building, poor at scheduling. If they'd
| +4 year'ed the initial timeline, they'd be "on time"?
|
| We see this in the world of IT. A team will be set an X month
| timeline by a sponsor who is well in the knowledge that it will
| take Y months, but who strongly hold some belief (which I do
| not share) that giving less time, which will have to be
| extended through painful negotiation, will result in a shorter
| timeframe than if they'd given Y months expectation.
|
| For major projects like Crossrail you also run into the
| politics of it. Politicians are short term incentivised. They
| have budget cycles. etc.
| mhh__ wrote:
| I think a lot of cultural arguments for xyz can't "build"
| (that word really grinds my gears as it reminds of me of smug
| pseudo-classicists on twitter) are basically bullshit.
|
| The issue the UK has as far as I'm concerned is that we have
| a political and managerial class who are basically
| disinterested in the grand scale.
|
| We don't spend much money, we try to shelve what little we do
| spend (e.g. we have two aircraft carriers rather than the one
| that was rumoured for a while, has the world blow up?), Our
| government is one of the happiest to sell off state assets
| ever, and now our current government ran out of ideological
| steam about 7 years ago so we are stuck with a collection of
| lunatics and retards in power.
|
| I used to be pretty firmly in the "don't tell people they're
| voting against their own interests" camp, but I was wrong.
| Our electorate is given a sword to fall on (FPTP), but
| chooses to jump on the sword rather than make a fuss.
| 7952 wrote:
| Politicians love big projects. It is much more tangible
| than most government programs. Your draw a line of a map
| and then a real change happens in the world. And this
| government have put much more money into infrastructure
| than you might expect given their ideology. In fact
| industry have trouble getting enough capacity to support
| projects like HS2. And often in less sexy areas like rail
| electrification, smart motorways etc.
|
| Also in my experience the human aspect of projects is
| always the most difficult part. The most amazing thing
| about a company like SpaceX is not the technical
| achievement. But getting thousands of people to work
| together on a single goal. And arguably this kind of thing
| is _less_ problematic in large projects than in the rest of
| society. But the effects of bad communication is far more
| visible and explicit. Engineering cuts through and delivers
| because it actually simplifies things.
| lozenge wrote:
| "And this government have put much more money into
| infrastructure than you might expect given their
| ideology... And often in less sexy areas like rail
| electrification, smart motorways etc."
|
| On what basis? They've scaled down HS2 and the Northern
| Rail Plan. Smart motorways is purely a way to avoid
| expensive, complicated, often necessary road widening
| with an unsafe technological solution. A lot of the
| safety issues of smart motorways has also been due to
| cutting costs - less frequent emergency refuge areas,
| less cameras than are needed to detect accidents. Now the
| press has caught up to them they have stopped rolling
| them out entirely.
| dazc wrote:
| Bear in mind that the average motorway user already has a
| death wish, safety has already gone out of the window,
| what we're adding is just capacity.
| midasuni wrote:
| The stats don't reflect your assertion. KSI of car
| occupants is far lower per mile and per hour on motorways
| than other roads
| dazc wrote:
| You are correct, you much more likely to be killed on a
| regauar A road. My comment was really about the attitude
| of drivers rather than the statistical/actual risk.
| 7952 wrote:
| Its more that I am surprised they started these projects
| in the first place.
|
| I agree that smart motorways are less safe, and there are
| better ways to reduce demand (like road pricing). Having
| said that motorways are still very safe compared to other
| roads, even after being made "smart". I think a modest
| reduction in safety is an acceptable price to pay if
| billions can be saved. Invest that money in reducing
| death from emissions, pedestrian safety, or even our far
| less safe A road network.
| mrlonglong wrote:
| I absolutely hate smart motorways. Dangerous and a proven
| killer at the worst possible time. Even emergency
| services can't get through quickly if the traffic is
| backed up and there's been a bad traffic collision as
| there's no hard shoulder for them to use.
| mhh__ wrote:
| The UK desperately needs a change in managerial class.
| lambertsimnel wrote:
| How much of the change the UK needs could it get without a
| change in its managerial class? As you as say here (
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30810537 ), FPTP is a
| factor in the UK's problems; without it, wouldn't the current
| managerial class have more of the incentives and the scrutiny
| they need to make good policy?
| StephenAmar wrote:
| I wish the US was as efficient as the UK ...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Subway
| cameronh90 wrote:
| I feel like we have quite a lot of big projects on the go.
| Crossrail, Thames Tideway, HS2 phase 1, Hinkley C, Hornsea and
| Dogger Bank offshore wind farms and likely Sizewell C and
| Heathrow expansion soon too. Plus there are a ton of smaller
| but still big projects going on up and down the country.
|
| Obviously major projects often run into issues. Being that
| we're a democratic, densely populated country with a lot of
| history buried under our feet, we perhaps face more political
| issues than most. Nevertheless, I think saying we can't do big
| projects is a bit of an exaggeration.
| benblack86 wrote:
| The more you do something, the better you get. The UK should do
| more big projects.
| Reason077 wrote:
| > _"it looks like even the core part will take until June or
| even later."_
|
| If it goes beyond June then it will be extremely embarrassing
| for all involved. They've repeatedly promised "first half of
| 2022", and reaffirmed that very recently.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| The UK can no longer do nuclear, anyway. New projects (inc.
| Hinckley C) all rely on foreign tech and foreign contractors to
| lead the projects.
| agd wrote:
| Rolls Royce are developing small nuclear reactors. Doesn't
| rely on foreign tech or contractors.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| 'developing' is not the same as 'having'.
|
| They still have some know-how based on legacy nuclear power
| plants and military reactors (which I'm guessing is what
| Rolls-Royce will build on) but at the moment they cannot
| build a civil nuclear power plant from scratch by
| themselves.
|
| This is actually tricky beyond the design and
| certification. You need the whole industrial capacity as
| well. For instance, the French government has repeatedly
| made sure that a specific steel mill in the country remains
| operational because it is the only one large enough and
| with the required equipment to manufacture the huge steel
| domes encasing the nuclear reactor cores...
| zeristor wrote:
| Radio interference around Stratford being one issue it seems.
|
| Although it'll be several months I thought before trains from
| Stratford will delve into the tunnels.
| ajb wrote:
| The entrance to the tunnels isn't where the interference of
| happening. The tunnels start at Liverpool Street
|
| What's a bit strange is that they've been running the same
| trains with passengers on from Liverpool Street through
| Stratford for more than 2 years, with passengers, as TFL rail.
| But I guess they had to upgrade the signalling around Stratford
| to work with the trains coming through the core, and that is
| still buggy
| tobylane wrote:
| The current service is to Liverpool Street high level,
| staying on one signalling communication system. The problem
| is about changing to a different one for the core (which
| includes Whitechapel before Liv St). They had a similar
| problem on the other side but it was resolved easier.
| blibble wrote:
| it's quite amusing to hear Liverpool Street's mainline
| railway station described as high level when it's buried
| 30ft underground
|
| it was originally buried so that it could connect up with
| the Metropolitan Railway (today's metropolitian line on the
| London Underground)
|
| this was so that in 1875 the Met could use the mainline
| railway station as terminus (whilst their own was under
| construction)
| tobylane wrote:
| The low level is buried 34m underground.
| https://www.crossrail.co.uk/route/stations/liverpool-
| street/
| matthewmacleod wrote:
| The tunnels do actually start immediately to the west of
| Stratford station, around Pudding Mill Lane. The new line
| follows a different route from the existing main line into
| Liverpool Street - meeting up with the other branch in
| Stepney and then via the new station at Whitechapel. When
| trains start travelling through to Paddington they will take
| this route.
|
| This means that the boundary between the mainline signalling
| and the new CBTC signalling in the core is at Stratford. But
| this only applies to trains taking the new route; services on
| the existing GEML/Shenfield Electric lines continue to use
| mainline AWS/TPWS signalling, which is why there hasn't been
| any impact on services to date.
| ajb wrote:
| You're right. I should have realised it couldn't follow the
| same line, because I knew about the new stop at
| Whitechapel.
| zeristor wrote:
| The entrance portal is at Pudding Lane:
|
| https://anonw.com/2021/08/12/the-crossrail-tunnel-portal-
| at-...
|
| From there the train will travel underground to the Liverpool
| St - Moorgate station.
|
| There'll still be Elizabeth line trains travelling into
| Liverpool St station but there'll be terminating.
|
| Fun fact there's the large ABBA venue going up at Pudding
| Mill Lane.
|
| https://www.ourbow.com/abbas-virtual-comeback-show/
|
| The things one misses when not commuting.
|
| No one has called it the ABBAtoir yet, but I'm waiting to see
| who'll be the first to come up with that name.
| llimos wrote:
| > The entrance portal is at Pudding Lane
|
| I think you mean Pudding _Mill_ Lane?
|
| Pudding Lane was where the Great Fire of London started.
| bencollier49 wrote:
| If they're struggling, they should put a shout out to UK radio
| hams to help diagnose the problem, they'd get loads of expert
| help.
| DocTomoe wrote:
| Or maybe use something that's less dependent on radio
| frequency in one of the most populated, thus most frequency-
| polluted areas on Earth. Radio not always is the best choice,
| sometimes, cable is worth it.
| matthewmacleod wrote:
| The issue is interference at the interface between the
| train and the fixed signalling system.
|
| I'm sure you can appreciate the impracticality of building
| a train to signalling system interface that uses cables!
| micropunk wrote:
| At first blush I can but thinking a bit further, these
| are electric trains right? And I know there have been
| "use your home electricity wiring for network" things
| around for decades...
|
| So can't they use the power cables for comms?
| matthewmacleod wrote:
| It's an interesting idea and not without some merit. Some
| signalling systems do actually use the rails as a
| conductor already, although that's just basically "is
| there are train on me or not" detection.
|
| I'm getting out of my depth, but I'm sure I've seen at
| least one signalling system that uses the track circuit
| as a data signalling channel to the train to provide in-
| cab signalling, so I'd guess it's at least theoretically
| possible.
|
| I'd imagine it would have much the same challenges as
| radio in practice though - interference from poor
| connections and ambient noise, not to mention your
| channel is basically a massive antenna.
| zeristor wrote:
| You'd have to keep plugging it in.
| teget wrote:
| Shouldn't systems Like LZB or ETCS bei mostly protected
| against radio interference as only the Last section
| (centimeters) needs to bei transmitted wirelessly? Are
| they used in the line or did they opt for something else?
| jonp888 wrote:
| LZB uses cable loops.
|
| ETCS can use cable loops, but for full functionality a
| radio data connection is required.
| matthewmacleod wrote:
| Yeah, generally that's true - it's certainly not a long-
| range system. I'm not clear on what the actual problem is
| at Stratford, but I do know these systems can be quite
| sensitive and it can be tricky to ensure they operate
| reliably alongside each other.
|
| In the case of Crossrail the core (new tunnels) use CBTC
| signalling, I think based on Siemens TrainGuard - I think
| the specification of the project predates ETCS being
| proven as a viable solution for this particular kind of
| service. The services leaving Stratford to the East use
| TPWS/AWS in common with most services on the UK mainline
| network.
|
| The challenge is in the transition between the two
| systems, as I understand it - anything out of the
| ordinary and the train will of course come to an
| immediate halt.
| heavenlyblue wrote:
| Are you assuming radio hams are better at this than engineers
| getting paid for it?
| bencollier49 wrote:
| No, but I _am_ assuming that in their multiplicity and
| range of interests, they might quickly stumble on a
| solution in a way which a smaller population of well-
| trained professionals wouldn 't.
|
| Reminds me of Feyerabend's "Against Method".
| antihero wrote:
| When I lived in Stratford I always had lots of really weird
| intermittent problems with WiFi and 4G. Probably not related
| but would be interesting if it was
| lostlogin wrote:
| I've only watch the first season of the BBC documentary on the
| line, but it was great.
|
| https://www.crossrail.co.uk/news/crossrail-documentary-the-f...
| [deleted]
| cm2187 wrote:
| Do we know when the link Heathrow-Paddington is meant to open?
| Along Abbey Wood to Reading?
| matthewmacleod wrote:
| Heathrow to Paddington is effectively already open (and has
| been for some time) - the existing service that's branded as
| "TfL Rail" is the precursor to the "Elizabeth Line" branded
| service, using the same train and track. The same applies to
| Reading to Paddington.
|
| After the Paddington to Abbey Wood service settles down most of
| the Heathrow and Reading services will start to run through the
| tunnels as well, and that becomes the full service.
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