The new Elizabeth Line (Victoria Jones/PA)
(Picture: PA Archive)Plans to open Crossrail by the end of June are “achievable”, according to the independent watchdog overseeing progress on the long-awaited scheme.
Stephen Hill gave his most positive update on the preparations to open the £18.9 billion Elizabeth line under central London in the first half of this year.
But he warned improvements were needed in the reliability of the £1 billion new fleet of 70 trains as well as “fine tuning” to enable it to open between Paddington and Abbey Wood in the first instance, and then with through-services to and from Reading, Heathrow and Shenfield.
Mr Hill, the Jacobs project representative, told Transport for London’s Crossrail committee on Wednesday: “We are encouraged that the majority of infrastructure works have completed, but the concentration is now about improving the railway’s reliability.
“While there are challenges associated with this… the indications are that the opening window for the first half of 2022 is achievable.”
Crossrail chiefs were confident enough that preparations were going according to plan to invite journalists to accompany Mayor Sadiq Khan as he travelled on a test train under central London on Monday.
TfL’s own documents state there is a 50 per cent chance the line will open in May and an 80 per cent chance it will be open by the end of June.
TfL commissioner Andy Byford is planning several weeks of “ghost” running of the trains, once all station and train upgrades have been made, to ensure the line can open “flawlessly”. He told the committee: “Opening reliably is the prize.”
There will initially be 12 trains an hour in the central section, increasing to 24 an hour at peak times by 2023.
Covid absences forced the “dress rehearsal” testing programme known as “trial running” to be suspended for two days between Christmas and New Year.
The committee also heard that a passenger managed to travel on a test train between Abbey Wood and Paddington on November 29 after a platform gate was accidentally left open. “It was not something that should have happened,” said Crossrail chief operating officer Howard Smith.
A number of drivers are having to be retrained due to the amount of time they have waited for the line to open.
The trial operations phase involves about 150 exercises, including five mass evacuation events, each involving 500 to 2,000 people, that are due to be held over weekends in February.
Sixteen of the 73 exercises that were planned before Christmas had to be cancelled due to problems with train reliability, resulting in “stage two” of trial operations being delayed by a fortnight until the end of this week.
However, Mr Hill said the work that was achieved over Christmas had put the programme in a “positive position”, with a further boost coming when Canary Wharf station was handed over to TfL on Tuesday.
He said demobilisation of the main station contractors has “gone well” and contracts were being closed.
“These all represent positive indicators that the railway is now nearing a position for entry into passenger service,” he said.
“However, while the commissioning works have largely delivered the anticipated benefits, the railway is not performing at the levels that are expected for trial operations.”
Bosses have also been hit by a “curveball” in discovering that the 1950s concrete slab under Ilford station needs to be replaced.
Two other key dates are a final upgrade of the train software next month and the download of an updated operating system known as ELR200 for the computerised signalling system that is due in April.
Passengers have been warned that there are likely to be weekend closures of the line after its official opening due to the amount of work still to be completed.
Crossrail, which was meant to cost £14.8bn, was originally due to open in December 2018 but this had to be abandoned when it emerged in the summer of 2018 that the stations were incomplete and the software that connects the trains and signalling system was full of glitches.
