please empty your brain below
The section between Bow Road and Stratford was originally all single track, the loop was put in later, luckily there is a documentary on YouTube where the voice over mentions this @ 06:09 (saves me looking for my DLR handbook to check).
https://youtu.be/LiN-D-aTCJA

Still Anon | 16.01.21 - 1:46 a.m. | #

Great post! As ever, I appreciate the deliberate choice of timestamp!

Jamesthegill | 16.01.21 - 6:45 a.m. | #

It’s better used when West Ham play, which may be one of the reasons for the wider platforms. It will also be well used once the university campus opens just south of the The Orbit.

Flare | 16.01.21 - 8:10 a.m. | #

Yes, definitely originally single track. The passing loop was built with passive provision for a station. Unfortunately the location of the station steps and lift meant the platforms were only ever long enough for two-car trains which was all that was envisaged at the time. So selective door operation had to be used for much of its life.

Pedantic of Purley | 16.01.21 - 8:20 a.m. | #

I've rewritten the passing loop bit, thanks (but vaguely in the absence of a definitive date).

diamond geezer | Homepage | 16.01.21 - 8:37 a.m. | #

From DG's post in 2014 "It's the last new station for years. Now that this last piece of Olympic fallout is complete, there are no immediate plans for any fresh station openings elsewhere. Croxley's three years off, Crossrail five, Battersea heaven knows when, and anything intermediate was scrapped on Boris's bonfire of budget cuts some time back"

Looks like Battersea will beat the others.

mclm | 16.01.21 - 9:48 a.m. | #

mclm to an extent you can call it a relocation, but Meridian Water would have been the first new station since 2014!

Mikey C | 16.01.21 - 10:52 a.m. | #

Pudding Mill Lane is the Newham station I'm least familiar with - I think I've only used it once in all the time I've lived here.

I was long under the impression the main purpose for building the station had been to provide a passing loop on a single track section. It seems it was an urban myth that it was easier to get a station agreed than just a loop.

That leaflet from the opening of the DLR surprised me as it shows weekend running at the start. I have memories of it not running at weekends in the mid 1990s until a fanfare of introducing such services, with the Beckton branch left behind for at least a year (isn't that always the way?).

Tim Roll-Pickering | 16.01.21 - 1:16 p.m. | #

I remember being on a DLR train years ago, sitting near a couple of teenage girls. As we pulled into Pudding Mill Lane, one of them glanced out of the window and said "Ooh, isn't this where the fire of London started?"

Gap | 16.01.21 - 1:36 p.m. | #

The DLR closed late evenings and all day at weekends from 7th May 1988 (after 9 months of operation) for platform lengthening and upgrade work as well as building work for the Bank extension, this being when the rail replacement buses started.

Parliamentary procedures for rail upgrade work can be 'nodded through' providing there are no objections, and Pudding Mill Lane was the result of avoiding an objection.

Still Anon | 16.01.21 - 2:02 p.m. | #

I lived nearby in Central House about 15 years ago. Fond memories of getting the DLR from there. My 320x240 phone photos of the station and trains passing by still bring me a sense of nostalgia.

Josh | 16.01.21 - 4:46 p.m. | #

How much bigger than the next largest DLR station is it?

toby | 16.01.21 - 5:09 p.m. | #

I loved the original station.
Up on high, windy, empty of anyone else, it was like being in an episode of Doctor Who set in some impersonal blank future.

JP | 16.01.21 - 10:08 p.m. | #

Agreed when I had a West Ham season ticket, all the fans use Pudding Mill Lane rather than Stratford to get to the stadium. It’s packed then.

John Hoque | 16.01.21 - 10:55 p.m. | #

It is fascinating seeing these quiet corners of otherwise busy cities.

gt | 17.01.21 - 1:10 a.m. | #

The occasional car park mentioned in the final paragraph is the parking space reserved for coaches bringing the visiting fans when West Ham are playing.

The fans are under a police escort walking to and from the stadium where they occupy a ‘Visitors Only’ section.

This season of course without any away supporters and no coaches I am sure a developer may decide it is abandoned altogether and consider it for his future plans.

Kenneth Morton | 17.01.21 - 8:11 p.m. | #

Found my 2006 edition of the DLR handbook - no date for the opening of the loop, most likely this information will be hidden away in a periodical from that time like Modern Railways, Rail or The Railway Magazine.

Still Anon | 17.01.21 - 8:16 p.m. | #

Nick Mitchell, the 1987 version of Jeff Marshall, has uploaded this video of the opening day of the DLR on YouTube, including 'cab' rides on both branches, only 905 views so far in 7 months.

Still Anon | 28.05.23 - 5:00 p.m. | #











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