黑洞社区

Crossrail won鈥檛 be completed until March 2021 鈥� more than two years after it was first supposed to open.

Chief executive Mark Wild said the company had earmarked a six month delivery window for the 拢17.8bn scheme 鈥渨ith a midpoint at the end of 2020鈥� meaning it will open some time between October that year and the following March.

But even then the route will open without its planned stop at Bond Street in London鈥檚 West End which, Crossrail said, 鈥渋s delayed because of design and delivery challenges鈥�.

This is being built by a joint venture of Costain and Skanska which Crossrail said it is 鈥渨orking closely with to ensure the station is ready to open at the earliest opportunity鈥�.

Crossrail said the new plan had been based on identifying and re-sequencing over 100,000 interdependent tasks.

It said four major tasks remained to be completed: build and test the software to integrate the train operating system with three different signalling systems; install and test station systems; complete installation of the equipment in the tunnels and test communications systems.

It added: 鈥淲hen this is done, [we have to] trial run the trains over many thousands of miles on the completed railway to shake out any problems.鈥�

Crossrail said it didn鈥檛 expect costs to up any further 鈥� although a Department for Transport minister earlier this month said it still doesn鈥檛 know what the final bill for the railway will be.

Wild said: 鈥淭his new plan will get us there and allow this fantastic new railway to open around the end of next year鈥�

But he admitted: 鈥淭here will be challenges ahead particularly with the testing of the train and signalling systems.鈥�

London Assembly transport committee chair Caroline Pidgeon said: 鈥淭he project has been pushed back twice already, so the question has to be asked, 鈥業s the six-month window a hedge-betting exercise to avoid disappointing passengers once more?鈥�

鈥淚t is also incredibly frustrating that no senior executives will accept any responsibility for the litany of failures that have led to this delay.鈥�

Wild was brought in towards the end of last year to replace Simon Wright who had only been in post a matter of months.

Wright replaced Andrew Wolstenholme who had been in charge of the scheme for seven years by the time he left last March.