On 31/10/2013 19:14, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at 13:23:14 on
Thu, 31 Oct 2013, Paul Corfield remarked:
The PAC report acknowledges that the first stage of Thameslink was
delivered on time and under budget which seems a reasonable
performance to me.

Which timetable though? In 1996 they said construction would start in
2001 and be finished by 2006. Railtrack was still promoting the 2006
date in 2000.

The end of the WAGN franchise was even delayed to 31 March 2006, to
synchronise it with the new service pattern (and the merger of the GN
and Bedpan services). Oops.

The project timetable as per the current project - i.e. the one that the
previous government gave the go-ahead for in 2007.

Previous project timetables were aspirational only - they were all
reliant on the government saying yes, which it didn't actually do until
six years ago.