Behind the Headlines: Crossrail still on track

So much so, in fact, that members were advised not to wander out of the room for too long for fear of sinking the panel below "quorum".

Crossrail won't solve all of London's problems if it arrives in 2017 as planned, especially if your house is buried under a permalayer of snow. But the project has certainly taken on mythical status in the capital's transport plans.

For starters, the £15.9billion budget is bigger than your everyday gas bill. Secondly, it's a daunting feat of engineering, linking Maidenhead to Shenfield in a cross-capital magical mystery tour taking in Heathrow, Canary Wharf, Liverpool Street and Tottenham Court Road. Also, it's been talked about in reverent tones for roughly as long as Moses.

It's no wonder that the committee are keen to fill their boots with Crossrail updates, and why the scope of the meeting is so broad. In just over two hours last Wednesday, board chair Terry Morgan and chief executive Rob Morgan are grilled on subjects such as funding, station location, legacy, compensation, capacity and even the impact on other rail lines.

Chief executive Rob Holden said: "We're not going to get everyone on board, but there's a tremendous amount of enthusiasm for this project. We have to keep that going and build on it."

Within just over eight years, Crossrail's team will have to get 24 trains an hour running on 118 kilometres of track, some running through unfamiliar territory under central London. It will also have to negotiate a general election, with talk of new administrations and project cuts fluttering in the air.

Chair Terry Morgan, however, claims all three major parties have offered private or public support for the project, and are sent regular briefings as to its progress.

He also adds: "This isn't a project waiting for approval. It's approved."

Much of the debate stems from the £15.9billion price tag, to be split between government, businesses and future fares. But Mr Holden said: "It's important to state the £15.9billion is not the cost, it's the maximum funding the sponsors have committed to find for the project."

He added that the budget was being set up "to deliver the project well within that amount", but that a contingency is being built in to the budget to cover unforeseen issues. Terry Morgan later placed that figure at about 20 per cent of the budget at this stage.

Mr Morgan said: "There will be things that will happen that we don't know about today."

On this theme, Mr Holden later revealed that Crossrail had been "very conservative" with its tunnelling estimates and "if we replicate what we did with the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, we'll get through several months ahead of schedule".

Fellow panel guest Joe Weiss, director of transportation for the Corporation of London, even added that central government could "get a very good deal out of Crossrail".

He estimated that fares and business taxes stemming from Crossrail could raise up to £23billion for the treasury in ten years.

However, it will be up to Transport for London, and not Crossrail, to determine fares when the time comes.

Mr Weiss claimed that Crossrail would also "open up jobs" to those around the route.

He said: "If you had a job in Canary Wharf, it would be difficult to go through Paddington to the other side. This opens up the opportunities and opens up the jobs."

While suggestions for adding and removing stations continue among locals in London - such as another one in Kensington and Chelsea - Mr Morgan claimed that, while it would look at proposals, "from our point of view, our scope is now frozen".

Mr Holden added: "If anything's going to happen there, it's got to happen very quickly."

Committee chair Caroline Pidgeon pushed her guests hard on the subject of compensation, claiming that several business owners in Soho were faced with the prospect of paying their own re-location costs due to problems with receiving compensation.

She said: "In a time of recession, that's not good at all."

Mr Holden countered that claims needed to be filed for compensation to be paid, and that problems had emerged when "a significant number of people believed Crossrail wasn't going to happen until it was too late".

He claimed 90 per cent of the assessed amount of compensation is paid to those with claims on the day possession is taken of the site, and that on "two or three occasions" Crossrail helped out with bridging funding.

Ms Pidgeon argued those affected may benefit from more one-to-one help, saying: "I think you might need to do more."

Assembly member Valerie Shawcross, mindful of the Jubilee line flare-up between Transport for London, Tube Lines and Bechtel, asked what powers Crossrail would have to deal with unruly sub-contractors.

Mr Holden revealed they had talked to Bechtel - the Crossrail delivery partner - "to make sure the people representing them on the Crossrail project are people that will work collaboratively with our own people and the chemistry is right.

"We need to keep the situation under constant review and as issues arise, identify them and deal with them. If you don't, you have what's going on elsewhere in the TfL family right now."

Mr Holden also confirmed Crossrail was in talks with the Olympic Delivery Authority and LOCOG as a number of works around Stratford will need to be done before 2012 "so we can close our activities for a number of months and resume after the Olympic period".

Mr Morgan confirmed that the Newham site had been chosen for the Crossrail tunnelling academy to meet the demands for skilled workers during and after the project.

Commitments to social projects will also be written into "big contracts" with companies signed onto the project.

He said: "We have to have a legacy. It's a huge opportunity."

The central route including Canary Wharf is set to open in 2017, with a full service to be underway in March 2018. Room for expansion is also being built into the service.

Platforms will be built for 12 cars even though the original trains will only have ten, and the central section will be designed to accommodate 30 trains an hour. The move will allow it to meet projected passenger demand until at least 2026.

Mr Holden said: "We're confident of delivering 95 per cent punctuality, and when the Great Western Line is upgraded, that should increase further."

When asked about his approach in the next year, Mr Holden said: "It's about being honest with the issues and dealing with them so they don't become as much of an issue as they would otherwise be.

"It's easy to lose momentum on a project, and when you do it's a real problem."