Elizabeth line
A perfect start for the Elizabeth line Inside Track talks to Richard Schofield, one of the key people responsible for getting the new line ready for opening day
T
wo days after the opening of the Elizabeth line, Richard Schofield is sitting in Plumstead, looking to
Image: MTR
the future. The group infrastructure director at MTR UK has just described the first couple of days of operation as “near perfect”. Figures released by Transport for London (TfL) on 25 May, the day after the official opening, revealed around 260,000 journeys were made on the new 21km (14.2 miles) central section between Paddington and Abbey Wood on the first day. By the end of 29 May more than one million journeys had been made. Performance was almost perfect on the first day apart from two minor incidents with a fire alarm activated at Paddington and a passenger falling ill on a train.
100 per cent success rate The following day, 25 May, performance reached 100 per cent. When Richard spoke to Inside Track on the third day, performance was around 96.6 per cent. “We almost couldn’t have hoped for better,” he said. The 100 per cent performance is also quite the achievement says Richard, because even during trial operations this was not achieved on a regular basis. “Operating our trains with passengers brings an added level of complexity,” he added.
But how was that achieved? “A significant amount of work has been carried out to reach this point and that’s been going on for months,” Richard explained “There’s been extra resilience work. On a normal day you might have a couple of engineers out and about looking for failed doors, but for the first six months we’ve got eight of them on site at all times. “On the first day, when we had a passenger screen door that started to go slowly around 13:00 there was somebody there within three minutes
to isolate that door and then somebody else to request that passengers use adjacent doors for the rest of the day. It was then returned back to service overnight.” Richard joined MTR from Network Rail in October 2017. He was appointed as programme director with the remit of getting MTR ready for the opening of the Elizabeth line. His experience includes readying HS1 for service and ensuring the railway was ready for the Olympic Games in 2012. He said: “I like to join projects, but I’m not so excited by tunnelling or construction on their own. I’m excited by turning them into a transport system.” His initial tasks included ensuring there were enough drivers, that Romford Control Centre was ready for the operational side to begin, ready for the original planned 2018 opening.
Image: Paul Bigland
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Former Crossrail chief executive Mark Wild, who left his post on 27 May, asked Richard to join his team in the early part of 2019. There he was to look at everything on the new railway, including resequencing construction, testing and assurance, so that more could be done concurrently to give options on earliest opening. Decisions were then made including perhaps opening without Bond Street finished.
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