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I always wonder about why infrastructure like rail isn’t delivered in a much more agile way. You could easily have useful stretches of rail working around the n

I always wonder about why infrastructure like rail isn’t delivered in a much more agile way. You could easily have useful stretches of rail working around the north of England by now, proving out the technology and adding and upgrading stations much later. Why we think of projects like this as you open all the stations at once is mad - for example with crossrail you could have aimed to open Liverpool Street to Whitechapel, then add in Tottenham Court Road, etc. etc. until you finish the whole line but 80% of it was opened at once which seems very high risk. As much as I love the Elizabeth line I’m pretty sure it is crazy over specified, the stations and tunnels are all gargantuan and they probably could have made everything 20% smaller IMO which would have saved them quite bit. I often think the politicians egos are the biggest pitfall for most infrastructure projects.

danpalmer 2y ago
I'd argue that the Elizabeth Line was delivered in an Agile way, at least as far as is possible for a project of that size. "TfL Rail" ran the line from Liverpool Street through Stratford out to the East, and I believe parts of the line out from West London to Reading. The first iteration of this was with old rolling stock, and then they even started running the new Elizabeth Line trains on the routes before the Elizabeth Line itself opened. This meant that by the actual opening they had proven out the trains, a bunch of stations, and a large portion of the line (by distance, not complexity), as well as trained many staff and operated it as an a separate group that ended up becoming the Elizabeth Line. Now they did still have to open 6-8(?) new stations, change the signalling, change the timetables, all on day 1 of opening, but there are still other ways in which they did an incremental approach. Trains didn't run end to end on day 1, they would run shorter, simplified routes, they decoupled Bond Street as an emergency exit from Bond Street as a station, etc. I'm not sure what more they could have done. Personally I felt the incremental "agile" approach worked here, kept them on target, and got value early on (I used TfL Rail for years!).
lmm 2y ago
> You could easily have useful stretches of rail working around the north of England by now, proving out the technology and adding and upgrading stations much later. Upgrading stations in-place is extremely expensive, far more so than building them in the first place. (In theory opening the railway without the station and then closing it for months to add the station might be better all round, but in practice passengers throw a fit if you try to do that). > for example with crossrail you could have aimed to open Liverpool Street to Whitechapel, then add in Tottenham Court Road, etc. etc. So you'd have to build a bunch of extra turnback facilities, resignal everything repeatedly, use those expensive TBMs for longer, and to what benefit? They did build one station early to prove things out and understand any problems (Canary Wharf). Not a lot of value in doing more than that. > As much as I love the Elizabeth line I’m pretty sure it is crazy over specified, the stations and tunnels are all gargantuan and they probably could have made everything 20% smaller IMO which would have saved them quite bit. No it wouldn't, that's exactly the sort of backwards shortsighted thinking that messed up HS2 (if we make the charitable assumption that Sunak wasn't just deliberately wrecking it). The most expensive part of building the Elizabeth line was demolishing and digging up a bunch of buildings in central London. Rebuilding an existing underground railway in London to be bigger is literally impossible to do economically, the size they built it was the size it will be forever, and even if building it to tube size had been a good idea (it isn't) it would have been illegal under accessibility regulations. Making the stations 20% smaller would have been penny-wise and pound-foolish in the extreme. > I often think the politicians egos are the biggest pitfall for most infrastructure projects. Well, yes, but the way that manifests is politicians thinking they can tell the people building it to just do x y and z and that will save money, rather than accepting that actually the experts know what they're doing. The same thinking as your comment, in other words.
- iggldiggl 2y ago
  > So you'd have to build a bunch of extra turnback facilities Not forgetting that in the central stretch we're talking about extra turnback facilities underground.
deleted 2y ago
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danpalmer 2y ago

I'd argue that the Elizabeth Line was delivered in an Agile way, at least as far as is possible for a project of that size. "TfL Rail" ran the line from Liverpool Street through Stratford out to the East, and I believe parts of the line out from West London to Reading. The first iteration of this was with old rolling stock, and then they even started running the new Elizabeth Line trains on the routes before the Elizabeth Line itself opened. This meant that by the actual opening they had proven out the trains, a bunch of stations, and a large portion of the line (by distance, not complexity), as well as trained many staff and operated it as an a separate group that ended up becoming the Elizabeth Line. Now they did still have to open 6-8(?) new stations, change the signalling, change the timetables, all on day 1 of opening, but there are still other ways in which they did an incremental approach. Trains didn't run end to end on day 1, they would run shorter, simplified routes, they decoupled Bond Street as an emergency exit from Bond Street as a station, etc. I'm not sure what more they could have done. Personally I felt the incremental "agile" approach worked here, kept them on target, and got value early on (I used TfL Rail for years!).

lmm 2y ago

> You could easily have useful stretches of rail working around the north of England by now, proving out the technology and adding and upgrading stations much later. Upgrading stations in-place is extremely expensive, far more so than building them in the first place. (In theory opening the railway without the station and then closing it for months to add the station might be better all round, but in practice passengers throw a fit if you try to do that). > for example with crossrail you could have aimed to open Liverpool Street to Whitechapel, then add in Tottenham Court Road, etc. etc. So you'd have to build a bunch of extra turnback facilities, resignal everything repeatedly, use those expensive TBMs for longer, and to what benefit? They did build one station early to prove things out and understand any problems (Canary Wharf). Not a lot of value in doing more than that. > As much as I love the Elizabeth line I’m pretty sure it is crazy over specified, the stations and tunnels are all gargantuan and they probably could have made everything 20% smaller IMO which would have saved them quite bit. No it wouldn't, that's exactly the sort of backwards shortsighted thinking that messed up HS2 (if we make the charitable assumption that Sunak wasn't just deliberately wrecking it). The most expensive part of building the Elizabeth line was demolishing and digging up a bunch of buildings in central London. Rebuilding an existing underground railway in London to be bigger is literally impossible to do economically, the size they built it was the size it will be forever, and even if building it to tube size had been a good idea (it isn't) it would have been illegal under accessibility regulations. Making the stations 20% smaller would have been penny-wise and pound-foolish in the extreme. > I often think the politicians egos are the biggest pitfall for most infrastructure projects. Well, yes, but the way that manifests is politicians thinking they can tell the people building it to just do x y and z and that will save money, rather than accepting that actually the experts know what they're doing. The same thinking as your comment, in other words.

iggldiggl 2y ago
> So you'd have to build a bunch of extra turnback facilities Not forgetting that in the central stretch we're talking about extra turnback facilities underground.

deleted 2y ago

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