Great Western Coffee Shop

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-57767064

Not enough money to finish the job

This behaviour is by design, of course.

From thee BBC report the NAO said -

The NAO should really be capable of been more accurate, surely;  its a bit like saying I'm going to do my weekly shop but I do not know if its going to cost me £30 or £218

The NAO are just quoting Crossrail Ltd.'s estimates, and they don't question any of them. If they had looked at the project in enough detail to make their own estimates (though doing that properly would have cost more than the NAO's annual budget) they would presumably have come up with a wider range. After all, the latest Jacobs ststus report does question CRL's estimates for timescale and spending, suggesting those CRL estimates will be too low after all.

But the reason for the headline quote of "not enough money to finish project" is that when the funding was last fixed in December 2020 it was, intentionally, not enough to finish the project.

The full NAO report (https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Crossrail-a-progress-update.pdf) is here.

The most damming part of the report to me is the section that shows Crossrail Ltd did not understand the work required to bring the railway into service when it set its April 2019 plan. Paraphrasing the report, fixed-price contracts were let against this new plan but the amount of work outstanding was underestimated and the complexity of the interdependent nature of the work under appreciated which meant that new work assigned to one contractor could impact on the work of another. Much of this lack of understanding comes from decisions made early in the project, such as a lack of standardisation in station design and systems resulting in the bespoke equipment needing testing individually.

I think that between £18m and £218m means "no less than £218m"

Once again, it appears not just to be a UK problem - see

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvLpycG2P5Y

I think it's all in the name recognition though - When it comes to epic fails, everyone knows Crossrail.

In a small percentage of the UK population yes, I suspect the good people of Berlin are more aware of the Brandenburg airport saga than a railway in central London.

Once Crossrail open next year people on the Elizabeth line route will soon realise the benefits of the line will offer.

Too modest my friend - I think you may be underestimating both your national and global reach  ;D