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Your Train Is Nine Months Late

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jno | 10:49 Fri 31st Aug 2018 | News
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https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/aug/31/london-crossrail-opening-postponed-until-autumn-next-year

I appreciate that Crossrail is a huge project and has been in the making for years. But how can these cost overruns, and a delay of the best part of a year, possibly emerge so late in the day? They must have been burying bad news and crossing their fingers for quite some time.

Grayling does not come out of this well.
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This is exaclty why HS2 should be scrapped.
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since the former Crossrail boss is now the boss of HS2, that could well happen. Though why he was moved there before the first project was finished is beyond me.

"workers referring to the scheme as the “hokey cokey” line, after they were told to put things in and take them out; fitting out parts of stations and then being told they had been wrongly designed".

I don't trust Grayling. This doesn't seem to have been competently managed, at the political or managerial level. But at least HM will get a day off instead of opening the line in her own name.
For once we seem to be in agreement jno.
>>>This is exaclty why HS2 should be scrapped.

Yes lets cancel ALL rail projects and ALL building projects because they all overrun and go over budget.

Then as a country we can stagnate.

There was a program on C5 a few weeks ago about 3 major canals in the UK (Building Britain's Canals see link below).

And in EVERY case they cost MUCH more to build than first thought and overran, often by years, sometimes 10 years or more.

If we cancelled all projects because some overran or went over budget we would have no canals, no major rail lines, no motorways, no modern office blocks, no warships etc.

HS2 is vital to this country as we have a congested existing rail system and clogged up motorways. Other countries like Spain and France have thousands of miles of high speed rail lines and we have very little.

Link to Canal programs below. Well worth watching as they are really interesting.

http://www.channel5.com/show/building-britains-canals/
'This is exaclty why HS2 should be scrapped.'

I agree completely, YMB, in principle......but......(you knew there would be one, dintcha) these projects do generate hundreds if not thousands of jobs and thereby help to keep the economy 'fluid', so it's not quite the catastrophe which is being portrayed.
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I've nothing against HS2 (of course provincials should be encouraged to come to London, the rails are paved with gold) but if it's to be built, at least put a trustworthy minister and competent managers in charge of the project.

Most British building projects such as the Olympics go fine, even the millennium dome; the delays with Wembley Stadium were political/financial in origin. But this one looks like a mess, and it's been covered up.
"Yes lets cancel ALL rail projects and ALL building projects because they all overrun and go over budget. "

No one said that.

ZM, the money spent on these projects should be spent improving the current rail infrastructure, which having traveled on daily for the last 3 few weeks I can assure you is broken. I can count the number of times the train was within 5 mins of it's time on one hand and over an hour late 3 times (only for a 50 mile journey). This would still generate the jobs and the spend whist providing something useful for the many not the few :-)
From the link:
By Tom Edwards, BBC London transport correspondent
I have lost count of the times that Crossrail executives said to me the project would be delivered "on time and on budget".
Today that disappeared in a puff of smoke, and there is no doubt this is a blow for Crossrail.
I'm told it wasn't one specific problem. There were issues with three different signalling systems and also delays to the station fit outs.
—————
Given that a £600 million overspend is an eye-watering amount, the mind boggles as to what a mucking fuddle HS2 will become!
Fair point YMB
//the money spent on these projects should be spent improving the current rail infrastructure//

the current infrastructure is being improved, but there's only so much they can do with it. the problem with the west coast route (and the east coast, to a lesser extent) is that it is full. the slightest issue screws the service up for hours; a trifling signal fault at Wembley on Wednesday afternoon caused massive delays until the end of service, because the initially small delay snowballed as more and more trains were caught in the congestion. altering what's already there either won't do anything tangible, or would end up costing more than a "new build" railway.

of course, if instead of HS2 railway, the government were proposing a 10-lane wide "M1" bypass, nobody would have raised so much as a grumble.

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