Docklands all the way

DLR Canary Wharf



Originally derided as the “Toytown Railway” when it opened in 1987 from Canary Wharf to a slightly off centre City terminus at Tower Gateway, the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) has developed to become a serious contributor to the transport infrastructure in East London and a critical component in the transport infrastructure for next years Olympics 2012 in London. The reputation of the DLR was further damaged by unreliability which plagued it for the first 5 years but it has developed in robustness and capacity over the years and is a firm favourite with visitors and natives alike – as they say in East London – “Don’t be a knocker, be a Docker!”





DLR with the Dome in the background



This innovative, driverless railway serves parts of East and South East London. Commuters and tourists alike enjoy views of lesser-seen London locations from the easily accessible DLR. It connects with the Tube network at Bank and Tower Gateway (Tower Hill) stations and also at Shadwell, Stratford, Bow, Heron Quays, Canning Town and Canary Wharf. The DLR serves Beckton, Stratford and London City Airport to the East and North East and the Docklands, Greenwich and Lewisham to the South.









DLR Network - Diagramatic & geographic maps



Being a light railway many of the routes use existing and often abandoned rail routes in East London which once served the huge Docks complexes which stretched for many miles along the River Thames. This has allowed cheaper, quicker construction with less planning issues and delays as part of the overall regeneration of an area which had experienced years of decline as the docks and associated industries closed.





DLR 3 car configuration



The Toytown Railway has comprehensively proved its detractors wrong as it extended its reach to London City Airport, Woolwich and Lewisham (taking in Greenwich) south of the river and Beckton and now Stratford International north of the river. Other capacity enhancements increasing the trains to 3 cars and connecting underground to the major Tube interchange at Bank Station have greatly increased the usefulness of the DLR network. Passengers for their part appreciate the easy access, automatic ticketing (integrated with TfL’s Oyster system) and the security from having onboard Train Captains. Kids and tourists alike love the fact that these are automatic driverless trains and there is always a rush to occupy the front row which gives a driver’s eye view of the route. This is particularly popular on the tunnel section from Bank where the trains emerge from the darkness and climb steeply on a viaduct which gives excellent views of Limehouse and the towers of Canary Wharf.







With just under a year to go to the London 2012 Paralympic Games the fully accessible Docklands Light Railway (DLR) Stratford International extension opened today (31 August), bringing this key link into the heart of the Olympic Park. This will also be the terminus for the “Olympic Javelin” which will ferry up to 25,000 people an hour to and from the Olympic Park. The journey time from St. Pancras in Central London to the Olympics will be only 7 minutes, an Olympic sprint indeed!



See; St. Pancras Reborn



http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2007/11/st-pancras-reborn.html



Spectators will get free use of public transport with their tickets to Olympic events but a separate Javelin pass may be issued to manage crowds. The project is a key part of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic transport network and will improve accessibility on London's transport network for people with restricted mobility. It was due to open in July 2010, however the extension is opening well ahead of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.





System Map @ Elverson Road



The 3.7-mile (6km) expansion from Canning Town to Stratford International forms a key part of the London 2012 Olympic Games transport network. There are four new stations along the new route, which connects the Olympic Park to five arenas in east London. The four new stations are Stratford International, Stratford High Street, Abbey Road and Star Lane. This will be the last extension of the DLR system until the branch to Dagenham is completed in 2017.





Docklands integrated with the TfL transport network



The extension completes a £500m upgrade of the Docklands Light Railway, which Transport for London (TfL) says will improve capacity by 50%. Mayor of London Boris Johnson said: "This expansion of the DLR is a further demonstration of the improvements that the London 2012 Games are making to our city.” This work will be of permanent benefit for Londoners and all those travelling in the capital from here on in. It's fantastic news and another example of London's lasting legacy of playing host to such a momentous event."





DLR train interior



Director of transport for the Olympic Delivery Authority, Hugh Sumner, said: "The opening of the new DLR extension is the last piece in the jigsaw for major upgrades and improvements to networks serving the Olympic Park. We have worked closely with TfL to fund and deliver a much-improved service which will leave east London better connected after the Games."



The Olympic venues served by the DLR are;



• Olympic Park: a 2.5 km2 site that will form the centre stage for the Games. It features purpose-built and accessible facilities including the Aquatics Centre, Velodrome and Olympic Stadium.



• ExCeL: is London’s largest exhibition and conference centre. During the Olympic Games it will host the Weightlifting, Judo, Fencing, Taekwondo, Table Tennis, Wrestling and Boxing. During the Paralympics it will host Table Tennis, Judo, Wheelchair Fencing, Boccia, Powerlifiting and Volleyball (Sitting).



• Greenwich Park: covers 74 hectares and is part of the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site. During the Olympic Games it will host the Equestrian events and Modern Pentathlon. During the Paralympic Games it will host the Equestrian Dressage.



• Royal Artillery Barracks: is owned and operated by the Ministry of Defence and will have a temporary venue beside Woolwich Common to host the Olympic Shooting event and the Paralympic Archery and Shooting events.





Stratford station in December 2009, showing the new DLR line and platforms under construction, this was formerly the North London Line platforms. The Olympic Park and Westfield Shopping Centre site is in the background.



The Docklands Light Railway is an automated light metro or light rail system opened on 31 August 1987 to serve the redeveloped Docklands area of London. It covers several areas of London, reaching north to Stratford, south to Lewisham, and west to Tower Gateway and Bank in the City of London financial district, and east to Beckton, London City Airport and Woolwich Arsenal.









Stratford International DLR Station



The DLR is now 23 miles (37 km) long, with 44 stations along the route. There are five branches: to Lewisham in the south, to Stratford in the north, to Beckton and to Woolwich Arsenal in the east, and to Central London in the west, splitting to serve Bank and Tower Gateway. Although the layout allows many different combinations of routes, at present the following four are operated in normal service:



• Stratford to Lewisham

• Bank to Lewisham

• Bank to Woolwich Arsenal

• Tower Gateway to Beckton



There is an additional shuttle service from Canning Town to Prince Regent, operated when exhibitions are in progress at the ExCeL exhibition centre, to double the normal service. These trains reverse direction in the eastbound platform at Canning Town and on a crossover at the high point where the line crosses the Connaught Crossing road bridge between Prince Regent and Royal Albert stations.







Making transport accessible to all is important in London and has an added impetus for the Paralympic Games in 2012. All DLR stations have lift or ramp access to the platforms, with level access onto the trains. All lifts have alarms enabled, which allow you to talk directly with a member of DLR staff should you experience any problems. Platforms are as level with trains as possible for easy access. The gap between the platform edge and the train is approximately 7.5cm wide and the step up/down from the platform to the train approximately 5cm high. Most wheelchair users find boarding/alighting smoothest with the largest wheel first – this may mean reversing as appropriate.







Elsewhere on the TfL transport network all of London's 8,500 buses are fully accessible, all 22,000 taxis have wheelchair ramps and all stations and trains on the DLR network are fully accessible. 62 Tube stations are now step-free from street to platform, and this will rise further with the imminent completion of works at Green Park, which will be a key step-free station during the Games. By the time of the 2012 Games 65 Tube stations will be step-free.



The DLR runs from 5.30am to 12.30am Monday to Saturday and from 7am to 11.30pm on Sunday. Fares are the same as those on the Tube and Oyster and Travelcard holders can use the DLR.



The Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games will take place on 27 July 2012 and the Closing Ceremony on the 12 Aug 2012. 18 days later, the Paralympic Games (the second largest event of its kind in the world) will stage its Opening Ceremony. Odds are that many attending the ceremonies and events of London 2012 will be travelling on the Docklands Railway.







Docklands Light Railway website;



www.dlr.co.uk



See also;



London Olympics 2012 – Stratford Station



http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/01/london-olympics-2012-stratford-station.html



Paralympic Games



http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/09/paralympic-games.html

Love and carriage Underground

Will Gull and Katie Crammer at beautiful South Woodford

The London Tube system is wrongly thought of as a sterile zone for personal interaction but the Greater London transport map is not called “London Connections” for nothing! Sometimes, on a crowded, sweaty jolting Tube train the personal interaction with an Aussie life support system for an armpit is unwanted but at other times, at those special other times eyes meet across the carriage. For undoubtedly the Underground joins up London and sometimes its claustrophobia facilitates people watching. Maeve Binchy’s novels mine the rich seam of meeting on the Underground. Poems on the Underground acts as a catalyst for romantic interludes and well, people have a tradition of making their own arrangements. So, stations and trains are places of memory and associations, happy and unhappy, for many living and working in London.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/06/poems-on-underground.html

So in the latest wizz of Cupid’s arrow two people who fell in love on the Underground have returned to the station where they got engaged as a married couple. Love is back on track for newlyweds at South Woodford station. A groom and his young bride returned to South Woodford Tube station in their wedding attire to let staff know they had just got married the day before (7 August) and to thank them.


The Love train

In December 2006 Will Gull and Katie Crammer looked across a crowded Tube carriage, passed each other a note, and fell in love. They began to chat and when they arrived at South Woodford Station they decided to go for a drink in a nearby wine bar, Switch.

Five years ago Mr Gull, then 30, glanced across the carriage and was stunned by Ms Crammer, then 27. He slipped her a note - "I think you are beautiful, from Will," with his mobile number - and she passed back the reply: "You're not so bad yourself, from Katie", also with her number.


Stefanie Schmiedel and Robert Gray’s environmentally friendly wedding travelling by Tube in 2008.

For the next few weeks the pair made calls and texts to each other, but it nearly all went wrong because incredibly they both lost their phones! Luckily they remembered the notes on which they had written their numbers and they got in contact with each other and have been inseparable every since.

Three years after they met Will treated Katie to a birthday meal at the Ivy. They travelled home on the Central line, and when they arrived at South Woodford Will told Katie she must get off because her birthday present was there. He then got down on one knee and proposed to her in front of commuters and station staff.



Katie, from Buckhurst Hill, said: "But for that fateful Tube journey I might never have met Will, fallen in love and married him, so I am very grateful to London Underground. The Central line and South Woodford station where Will proposed might not seem romantic to other people but they are special to me." She added: "Who would ever think an Oyster card would be such an aphrodisiac?" Who indeed!

For more Tube romance (sic) see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/07/do-you-take-this-tube.html

Tube Heritage

St John's Wood Station - The signs say "Bakerloo Line" because originally it was on the Stanmore Branch of the Bakerloo Line which joined the other branch at Baker Street.


St John's Wood escalators 1939


Arnos Grove Station

Sixteen Tube stations were today granted Grade II listed status to protect their architectural heritage. The stations include Oxford Circus, Covent Garden, Aldwych and St John's Wood. The grading will protect station facades, including 100-year-old ornate tiling and brickwork, but allow internal changes for safety measures. Simon Thurley, English Heritage chief executive, said: "They are as valuable to London's architectural story as many more famous buildings like the Houses of Parliament."




Sudbury Town station

The stations include several designed by Leslie Green and have historic and architectural significance, illustrating the development of the capital's transport system as well as pioneering the use of a strong image which is recognised around the world.




Cockfosters Station

The stations given Grade II status are:

• Aldwych
• Belsize Park
• Brent Cross
• Caledonian Road


Caledonian Road

• Chalk Farm
• Chesham
• Covent Garden
• Hendon Central
• Oxford Circus (originally two separate stations on the north-west corner of Argyll Street and Oxford Street, and the north-east corner of Argyll Street and Oxford Street including the office above)


• Perivale
• Redbridge
• Russell Square
• St John's Wood
• West Acton
• Wood Green

Three other stations have had their listing upgraded from Grade II to Grade II*. They are:

• Arnos Grove
• Oakwood
• Sudbury Town

The listed stations include several of the tube stations designed by Leslie Green whose ‘ox-blood’ red tile facades, pioneered the use of a strong and consistent corporate image that’s recognised around the world. All the stations have historic and architectural significance, illustrating the development of the capital’s Underground system.


Arnos Grove ticket hall with Passimeter


Escalators with bronze uplighters

The Directors of London Underground in the 20s and 30s saw good design as good for business. By the example it set under Frank Pick the Underground was gradually able to change the public’s attitude to railway stations which had been seen as shabby and inhospitable places. Sir Nicholas Pevsner wrote that Pick saw in every detail a “visual propaganda” and he used this not only to improve the Underground but the environment as a whole. Charles Holden brought the Underground station to the forefront of modern architecture: This achievement is unequalled by any other transport company before or since.

As the Guardian Newspaper's Architectural correspondent (and former London Transport management trainee) Jonathan Glancey observed;

“The first of Charles Holden's tube stations for Frank Pick was Sudbury Town, on the Piccadilly line, opened in 1931. There had been nothing like this distinctly modern yet well-crafted building in Britain before. With typical modesty, Holden, a retiring, teetotal, vegetarian Quaker draper's son from Bolton, Lancashire, chose to describe his first modern masterpiece as "a brick box with a concrete lid. Possibly, just possibly, Holden meant something more.



I can't help thinking that this truly great and still under-rated English architect was thinking of Inigo Jones (1573-1652), who had instigated a revolution in British architecture in the reign of James I when he designed the country's first truly classical buildings. When his client Francis Russell, Earl of Bedford, asked Jones to add a chapel "as cheap as a barn" to his smart residential development built around the new Covent Garden piazza, the architect replied "then you shall have the handsomest barn in England". Sudbury Town station is surely transport design's equivalent of St Paul's, Covent Garden.”


Covent Garden Station 1907

“Tube stations are great examples of the capital’s hidden heritage,” said Heritage Minister John Penrose. “Although listing does not mean these stations will remain unchanged for all time, it does mean that any redevelopment plans will have to take the sites’ heritage value into account, which seems entirely right and will ensure the best of design is preserved for the future.”


55, Broadway - London Underground's iconic HQ built in 1929 in the "airspace" above St. James's Park Station

For more on the architect Charles Holden see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2010/11/holden-goes-underground.html

For more on London Underground’s Grade 1 listed iconic HQ, 55, Broadway, see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/04/give-my-regards-to-55-broadway.html

For the history of London Underground and one of the world’s Great Railway Journeys see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/01/great-circle-line-journey.html

Though we take it for granted, and frequently curse it to high heaven, the London Underground is a wonder. The Tube network is the oldest and longest underground railway system serving a major city. Its history goes back to 1863, its conception even earlier.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/10/londons-wunderground.html


Aldwych Tube Station with the tiling showing the original name "Strand"

People in London also used tube stations during the Blitz. They would buy a platform tickets and camp on the platforms for the night. Sheltering in the tube was popular because it was dry, warm and quiet down there. The government was afraid that the overcrowded platforms would disrupt the movement of troops and tried to stop the public from using the tube stations as shelters. The people refused to give them up and the government was forced to back down. In some cases underground stations were closed down and given over to the public to use during air raids.

For the unique place which is Aldwych Tube Station and its role in the Blitz see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2010/11/blitz-on-underground.html

For more see ARCHIBLOGS, TUBE BLOGS and TRANSPORT BLOGS in the Blog sidebar >>>>>

The London Bombings

Six years ago today four bombers brought death and carnage to London's transport system. The attacks by four suicide bombers on the London Transport system on 7th July 2005 were the largest mass murder in Britain in peacetime killing 52 passengers on The Tube and on the No. 30 bus at Tavistock Square and injuring 800 more, many seriously.

The victims are not forgotten

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2010/07/remembering-london-bombings.html

Single to Totenschinken Hofstrasse, bitte

Click on the map for a larger image

I’m grateful to Ross Lydall of the London Evening Standard for the heads up on what the London Underground map may have looked like if Germany had won WWII. Never mind the map of Europe, this is how the map of the London Underground could have been redrawn if the Germans had won, or would it? An Austrian university librarian has imagined how the Tube network would look if we all spoke German, renaming the capital's 270 stations from Heidenreihe (Heathrow) to Hahnenzuchter (Cockfosters).



Horst Prillinger has used a mixture of wit and linguistic dexterity - Heidenreihe most accurately translates as "heathen row" while Hahnenzuchter could be read as "chicken farmer" - in adapting the station names. Mr Prillinger said the map had translations that preserved the meaning of the English words, such as Burnt Oak becoming Verbrannte Eiche, and "deliberate misunderstandings".

While the suffix "ham" means "home", he translated it as the meat, so West Ham becomes Westschinken. Here is Horst’s website;

http://homepage.univie.ac.at/horst.prillinger/metro/english/network_maps.html



For the history of Mr. Beck’s iconic London Underground Map see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/11/mapping-world.html

Der Untergrund

Die Linien, Bahnhöfe und Zonen von London Underground, London Overground und Docklands Light Railway (DLR). Als Klassiker des Designs macht die U-Bahn-Karte das Fahren im Londoner U-Bahn-Netz denkbar einfach. Diese übersichtliche Karte enthält einen Schlüssel zu allen eingezeichneten Stationen sowie die 6 Gebührenzonen.


Click on the map for a larger image

For more see TUBE BLOGS and TRANSPORT BLOGS in the Blog sidebar >>>>>

Ghost Tubes

A constant source of fascination and speculation to Londoners is the “Ghost Tube.” This is not the tube system at weekends but the unused stations and tunnels under London’s streets. There are 40 disused or abandoned Tube stations out there and some have found alternative uses – South Kentish Town is a massage parlour, Marlborough Road was a Chinese restaurant and Aldwych is often used for movies and has hosted a recent exhibition on the 70th Anniversary of the London Blitz during which it gave distinguished service.





Click on maps for larger image

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2010/11/blitz-on-underground.html

The system has many former stations, while others were planned but not opened. Services to some former stations ended when they were closed because they had too few passengers to make their retention worthwhile; some stations became redundant after lines were rerouted or replacements were constructed; others are no longer served by the Underground, but remain open to National Rail main line services. Many stations were planned as parts of new lines or extensions to existing ones, but were later abandoned without having been opened.



Some closed stations retain their original station building, converted for other uses or abandoned, while others have been demolished and their sites redeveloped. A number of stations, while still open, have closed platforms or sections, such as the Jubilee Line platforms at Charing Cross. The interiors and platforms of closed stations are among parts of the London Underground available for filming purposes.





The retro website Retronaut has picked up on Penney Design’s modified Tube art, which has redrawn old transport maps with new “ghost” symbols for long lost stations like North Weald and Ongar.

“Ghost-stations are those which are closed and disused. Many remain fairly intact and some even feature time capsule-like qualities, such as WWII propaganda posters hanging from the platform walls.”

- Penney Design

All map images (c) Penney Design.

Have a look at their site;

http://www.howtobearetronaut.com/2010/07/ghost-station-tube-maps/

An invaluable source of information on London’s abandoned Underground stations is Hywel Williams Underground History site;

http://underground-history.co.uk/front.php

For info on a whole underground railway abandoned under London see my Blog on London’s Other Underground;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/08/londons-other-underground.html

For details and a rather amusing video of an abandoned extension to the Northern Line see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2010/01/northern-heights.html

As part of BBC Radio 4's "London: Another Country?" season, London Underground's David Leboff offers a guided tour round St Mary's in East London, one of the tube network's least well-known or visited disused stations.



This video takes you on a visual journey through Aldwych, a closed station on a now defunct branch of the Piccadilly Line.

Bethnal Green Tube Disaster – Memorial Service

The proposed "Stairway to Heaven" Memorial

68 years ago on March 3rd. 1943 in the largest loss of civilian life in a single non-military incident during World War II, 173 people perished at Bethnal Green tube station. They are not forgotten.





Today on Sunday 6th March 2011 a Commemoration Service for the 68th anniversary of the Bethnal Green tube disaster took place at St. John on Bethnal Green Church (next door to the tube station) at 2pm. There was a blessing at the top of the stairs where everyone died and relatives and survivors were encouraged to lay flowers or wreaths to their loved ones. Refreshments and a chance for locals and supporters to reminisce after the Service were provided inside the church and there was an exhibition of articles, photographs and other information about the Bethnal Green tube disaster.

Here is an eyewitness testimony of what happened that fateful night;



“Bethnal Green tube station was used as a shelter. The line was boarded over there. Women worked down there on war work. They were safe from the bombing. I think the warning went, and they opened up with rockets. They reckon people started running in the station, causing a panic. They reckon probably a woman with a child had a bundle of clothing, fell, and then the other people fell on top of her, and they all piled up until there was a hundred and seventy-three people that was killed. The next day the air raid warden asked us to look at the ones they couldn’t identify. There was a pile of bodies, and the police uncovered their faces in case you might recognise people. Out of fifty or sixty people there, there was nothing I could recognise.”

Albert Garrett

The Memorial Fund is dedicated to building a “Stairway to Heaven” to properly commemorate the victims. Its patron Tommy Walsh was there and the names of all those who died were read out. Here is the detail of the fundraising to date and the proposed memorial; Please help by contributing to this cause.


Tommy Walsh, Patron of the charity

http://www.stairwaytoheavenmemorial.org/

Here is the coverage of the service on ITV News; the BBC didn’t bother to turn up.

http://www.itv.com/london/memorial53354/

Commemorative Plaque


In Memory of the 173 Men, Women and Children who lost their lives on the evening of
Wednesday 3rd March 1943 descending these steps to Bethnal Green underground air raid shelter
Not forgotten.

For the full story of the Bethnal Green Disaster see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2010/02/bethnal-green-tube-disaster.html



Here is a short documentary of the Disaster and the proposed memorial. It includes an interview with Alf Morris who as a 13 year old was the last survivor to be dragged alive from the crush.