please empty your brain below
Great post. "the 25-year-old train that Londoners that still can't resist sitting up front and pretending to drive" <- absolutely true. Took my 12 yo step brother to London at the weekend, planning a DLR trip along with an AirLine "flight". We had to jostle a bunch of tourists out the way at Royal Victoria to make sure I, er, he got the front seat.

Also, to be completist, wasn't the South Quay original station also partly rebuilt following the '96 IRA bombing?

Andy c | 31.08.12 - 1:26 a.m. | #

Of course the DLR has seen the London Arena come and go and its name removed from the station - it was built at the wrong place at the wrong time - and the London City Airport has prospered from the DLR link - before you could only get there easiliy from the city on an expensive shuttle bus

KissenMe | 31.08.12 - 7:01 a.m. | #

Ticket validators (kind of like the ones you find in France or Italy) - must have been one of the first, and for the UK, unique, features of the 1987-era DLR to be abolished...

Dominic H | 31.08.12 - 7:10 a.m. | #

I really hated that DLR font. It was too close to the one Tesco were using at the time, giving it an odd supermarket-y feel everywhere you looked. And the red and blue was a bit in your face.

I was surprised when I went from Stratford to Poplar to see the 87-era stations; I assumed they'd have been refurbished to within an inch of their life. You can tell which areas haven't seen a massive regeneration and which have.

Scott | Homepage | 31.08.12 - 8:22 a.m. | #

Scott - as part of a "value engineering" approach, Bow Church, Devons Road and All Saints stations have been extended using the modular spares released from the redevelopment/relocation of others on the original two-line network.

THC | 31.08.12 - 9:31 a.m. | #

I remember my mum took us for a day out on the DLR very soon after it opened. It was very exciting :D

Karen | Homepage | 31.08.12 - 10:00 a.m. | #

All credit to Ian Brown and the DLR team who built a network. interesting to note that some of the same folks are now at TfL building the Overground network.

In the early days DLR's greatest success was establishing its role as an enabler of development. Most schemes were heavily justified by the development they would bring in rather than ridership forecasts. All very un-British?

Ian Brooker | 31.08.12 - 10:27 a.m. | #

Looking at the old photos brought back memories of rides when it opened. The info centre at Island Gardens and the inward swinging doors. I've always liked the DLR and it's now a key part of London's transport network.

I was rooting through a load of old photos and slides the other day and to my great surprise found a set of shots taken of DLR and the Isle of Dogs. Shots of the trains under test at Mudchute and the entrance to the Canary Wharf building site. I also have another set of trains at Island Gardens, West Ferry and of Canary Wharf under construction. They will be scanned and uploaded in the near future but it'll take a while to do.

PC | 31.08.12 - 10:34 a.m. | #


I love the dlr, ever since it started at Woolwich i have been using it and its so much more reliable than southeastern

Rachel | 31.08.12 - 11:35 a.m. | #

25 years since those awful Train Captain uniforms that looked like something out of Thunderbirds!

I remember the DLR replacement bus service, every night at 8 the trains stopped, and the buses started.

No more enlargement means a weekend service for locals, something sadly missed in the last 7 years of constant expansion.

Rob C | 31.08.12 - 12:29 p.m. | #

Coincidentally it's 25 years ago today since I first went on the DLR... it felt so futuristic then and, to its credit, in large parts still does.

I had my first ride on a DLR train before, however. In March 1987 I went to a Greater Manchester PTE light rail demonstration event at Debdale Park. They borrowed DLR unit 11 (the last of the first batch) to run up and down a 1-mile line. Unit 11 had a pantograph specially fitted for the event but, after ten or so house moves in the intervening years, unfortunately I no longer have any pictures. Shame.

THC | 31.08.12 - 12:52 p.m. | #

According to CULG (and my own memories), Pudding Mill Lane opened in January 1996, not 2006.

dg writes: Absolutely yes, sorry. Now changed.

swirlythingy | Homepage | 31.08.12 - 1:24 p.m. | #

As a northerner who can only make it to that there London every so often, "riding" the front of a DLR train like a rollercoaster is one of my pleasures. Glad to see that Londoners do it too.

Doktorb | Homepage | 31.08.12 - 3:53 p.m. | #

There are certainly many serious plans to further extend the DLR and work continues within TfL and DLR on this. DLR published maps last year showing possible extensions to Forest Hill, St Pancras and Victoria as well as the previously axed route to Dagenham Dock
http://developments.dlr.co.uk/uploadedFiles/Development_Projects/The_future_of_DLR/Where_we_go_Next/DLRextVicEustonStP.pdf

john | 31.08.12 - 4:14 p.m. | #

I remember being given a postcard of an early DLR train when I was small, which took pride of place amongst the collection on my wall. I was pleased to discover years later that the network was 'born' in the same year as I was, and later still to actually ride on it.

Siwi | 31.08.12 - 7:23 p.m. | #

1st priority for Tfl at the moment is to complete the modernisation programme.

A modest Northern line extension combined with a rebuild of Camden to allow the line to be split in two is certainly a wish.

The big priority is Crossrail 2.

More modest proposals will either look at extending the Overground network and focusing on expanding the Tramlink in South London like the DLR. look out Crystal Palace, Sutton and Bromley here come trams.

Rational Plan | 31.08.12 - 8:01 p.m. | #

@ THC - I have just dug out my copies of the DLR Handbooks published in 87 and 88. The 88 edition has a photo of unit 11 in operation with GMPTE. Unfortunately DLR clearly decided to save their blushes as there are no photos of the overrun at Island Gardens :-(

It's interesting to look back at those early photos of the system prior to and during construction. The other thing I had forgotten was that the seat cushions on the initial fleet were alternately red and blue - very vivid!

PC | 31.08.12 - 10:55 p.m. | #

And I was waiting for today's post to be about the blue moon tonight! (perhaps tomorrow?)

dg writes: did that in 2004 :)

Karl,Dover | 31.08.12 - 11:04 p.m. | #

So you did!

Karl,Dover | 31.08.12 - 11:31 p.m. | #

We didn't go on the DLR until the following year as part of a school trip, I seem to remember at the time of opening, we young siblings were too excited about the birth of our youngest family member to pay too much attention. But I do remember taking the youngest on it when he was a few years old on a family day out and sitting him upfront to 'drive' and he told the PSA that this was his train as it was made for the day he was born (actually he was a week late!).

s | 01.09.12 - 4:30 p.m. | #

Wonderful - and so perfectly right about wanting to sit up front. We took our then baby boy for a ride from Shadwell on the first day- still have the photos somewhere.

colleen | Homepage | 01.09.12 - 9:26 p.m. | #

Does anyone else remember the sticker inside the trains in their early day something along the lines of "high performance vehicle please hold on tight" anyone got a clear piccie? If you don't believe me take a closer look at the photo (especially above the door nearest the gent sitting) labelled "The other side of a Photo Op" on the London Reconnections pictorial feature

Colin | 02.09.12 - 2:15 a.m. | #

We went on the DLR on the first public day. We got to Island Gardens via the Greenwich Foot Tunnel and, having a two year old in a buggy, used the lift. On the south side we shared this with an 87 year old man in a wheelchair. It was only the second time that he had been through the tunnel, the first having been a birthday treat on the opening day in 1902.

James Bunting | 02.09.12 - 7:58 a.m. | #











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