Coronavirus: How Realistic Is Crossrail Opening Next Year?
The title of thispost, is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
The article takes the form of the BBC’s Transport Correspondent; Tom Edwards interviewing Crossrail’s Chief Executive; Mark Wild.
This is an extract.
But the big challenge is the 40% of work left to do on the safety checks known as “assurances”.
The management team say it is working to the opening date of the summer 2021 for the Paddington to Abbey Wood section under central London.
To make up for lost time, Crossrail wants to carry out blitz testing in August and September.
I asked Mr Wild if he could guarantee 100% if Crossrail will open in summer 2021.
He said: “I guarantee that this project team and myself, will do everything humanly possible to do it.
“I must say we are working pretty effectively – 2,500 people working off-site and we are making great progress on the assurance work.
“Clearly we have to do that safely but there’s no doubt Covid has had an effect and we are working now on a plan to recover lost ground.”
Having watched many projects, that were in dire straits, being recovered by top class project management, I feel that there is a good chance that if Mark Wild and his team, are up to scratch that Summer 2021 could be a realistic possibility.
I remember the tale of British Leyland’s MiniMetro plant, that was recalled in Michael Ewardes‘s book.
- The complicated machine, that assembled the bodies wasn’t working.
- It was then found out, that it had hit a motorway bridge on the journey from Germany.
- Good project management saved the day, by reorganising and accelerating the commissioning of the second line, so that it came into production early enough to save the day.
As British Leyland were Artemis customers, I do wonder how much the software, I wrote in a Suffolk attic, played a part in that episode.
Let’s hope that Mark Wild and his team have some good project management software on their team.
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The Anonymous Widower 
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