On Fri, 1 Feb 2019 11:06:30 +0000, Robin9
wrote:


For once I agree with Caroline Pidgeon. It's inexcusable that
until quite recently we were being told that Crossrail was on
schedule and everything was proceeding smoothly. I think the
flannel merchants - the more uncouth expression is better -
should be identified and their careers affected.

The FT had an analysis a month or so ago. One of the things it
disclosed, which I'd not previously heard, was that Crossrail Ltd was
structured to minimise the opportunities for political meddling.

So, TfL and the DfT only had one representative each on the board, and
basically the management was allowed to get on with its job so long as
the project was running well, defined as being on time and on or below
budget. What the cunning devisers of this structure had presumably
failed to anticipate was that it gave the management a very strong
incentive to keep saying that the project was indeed on time and below
budget long after that had ceased to be entirely correct. Only when
they couldn't hide the problems any longer did they start owning up to
the fact that it was at least months late, and that all the budget
contingencies had been used up.

Initially, they tried to blame it on the exploding transformer, but
it's now clear that at least some of the stations are many months
late, and that the tunnels only became ready for test running in
January, a month after the line was supposed to have opened. So,
although the 345s were late, and weren't capable of test running
through the tunnels until quite recently, that's not the main cause of
the delay.