Docklands Light Railway
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 Docklands Light Railway (DLR) | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Info | |
| Type | light metro and light rail |
| Locale | Greater London |
| Stations | 40 |
| Services | Bank-Lewisham Bank-Woolwich Arsenal Stratford-Lewisham Tower Gateway-Beckton |
| Operation | |
| Opened | 31 August 1987 |
| Owner | DLR Ltd; part of Transport for London (TfL) |
| Operator(s) | Serco Docklands Ltd |
| Depot(s) | Poplar Beckton |
| Rolling stock | DLR rolling stock |
| Technical | |
| Line length | 19 miles (31 km) |
| Track gauge | 1,435 mm (4 ft 81⁄2 in) standard gauge |
| Electrification | third rail, 750 V DC |
| Operating speed | 50 miles per hour (80 km/h) |
| [show] Docklands Light Railway |
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The Docklands Light Railway is a light metro or light rail system opened on 31 August 1987 to serve the redeveloped Docklands area of East London, England.[1] It covers several areas of London, reaching north to Stratford, south to Lewisham, west to Tower Gatewayand Bank in the City of London financial district, and east to Beckton, London City Airport and Woolwich Arsenal.
The DLR is operated under a concession awarded by Transport for London to Serco Docklands Ltd, a joint organisation of the former DLR management team and Serco Group. The system is owned by DLR Limited, part of the London Rail division of Transport for London (TfL), which also manages London Overground and London Tramlink, but not London Underground, which is a separate division of TfL.
In 2006 the DLR carried over 60 million passengers[2]. It has been extended several times, with work and proposals continuously ongoing. Although it has some similarities to other mass transportation systems in London such as the London Underground, DLR trains are not compatible with either the Underground network, Crossrail or the wider railway network in Britain.
Contents[hide] |
[edit]History
[edit]Origins and development
The docks immediately east of London began to decline in the early 1960s as cargo became containerised.[3] The opening of the Tilbury container docks, further east in Essex, rendered them redundant and in 1980 the British government gained control. The Jubilee line of the London Underground opened in 1979 from Stanmore to Charing Cross as the first stage of an intended cross-town tube line beyond Charing Cross to south-east London.[4]Although land, as at Ludgate Circus and Lewisham, had been reserved for the second stage, the rising cost led to the project's indefinite postponement in the early 1980s.[5]
The London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC), needing to provide public transport cheaply for the former docks area to stimulate regeneration,[6][7] considered several proposals and chose a light-rail scheme using surviving dock railway infrastructure to link the West India Docks toTower Hill and to run alongside the Great Eastern lines out of London to a northern terminus at Stratford station where a disused bay platform at the west of the station was available for interchanges with the Central and main lines. Stratford was preferred to a Mile End alternative, which would involvestreet running trams and was at variance with the concept of a fully automated railway. The growth brought to Docklands enabled the Jubilee Line to be extended in 1999 to East London by a more southerly route than originally proposed, through Surrey Quays/Docks, Canary Wharf and the Greenwich Peninsula (which was the next regeneration area) to Stratford.
The contract for the initial system was awarded to G.E.C. Mowlem in 1984[8] and the system was constructed over three years from 1985 to 1987[9] at a cost of £77 million to complete.[10]The line was opened to the public by Queen Elizabeth II on 30 July 1987, although the inaugural was marred by a technical glitch that saw the Queen briefly trapped inside the train.[11] The first regular passenger services commenced on 31 August of that year.[8]
[edit]Initial system (1987–1990)
The initial system comprised two routes, one from Tower Gateway to Island Gardens and the other from Stratford to Island Gardens. Most of the track on these lines is elevated (either on disused railway viaducts or on newly built concrete viaducts) with some use of disused surface-level railway rights of way, although in the original plans for the DLR the lines were intended to be entirely above ground. The trains have always been fully automated and controlled by computer operations and normally have no driver; a Passenger Service Agent (PSA),[12][13] originally referred to as a "Train Captain", on each train is responsible for patrolling the train, checking tickets, making announcements and controlling the doors. PSAs can also take control of the train in certain circumstances including equipment failure and emergencies.
The system was lightweight, with stations designed for trains with a length of only a single articulated vehicle. The three branches totalled 8 miles (13 km) of route,[14] had 15 stations,[8][15] and were connected by a flat triangular junction near Poplar. Services ran Tower Gateway-Island Gardens and Stratford-Island Gardens, so the north side of the junction was only used for trains to travel to and from the depot at Poplar, not in regular passenger service. The first stations were mostly of a common design and constructed from standard components. A characteristic of them was a relatively short half-cylindrical glazed blue canopy to provide shelter from the rain. All stations were above ground and were generally unstaffed (stations located below ground built during later extensions were required by law to be staffed, in case evacuation is needed).
[edit]First stage extensions (1991–1994)
The initial system had little capacity as the Docklands area very quickly developed into a major financial centre and employment zone, increasing the demand on the fledgling commuter network. In particular Tower Gateway, at the edge of the City of London, attracted criticism for its poor connections. This is partly because the system was not expected by much of its management to achieve such high levels of usage.[16] Plans were developed to extend to Bank and to Beckton before the system opened to the public.[17] As a result all stations and trains were extended to two-unit length, and the system was taken into the heart of the City of London to Bank underground station through a tunnel which opened in 1991.[18] This extension diverged from the initial western branch, leaving Tower Gateway station on a stub. The original trains, not suitable for use underground, became obsolete. (see the Rolling Stock section below, and the main article Docklands Light Railway rolling stock).
As the Canary Wharf office complex grew, Canary Wharf DLR station was redeveloped from a small wayside station to a large one with six platforms serving three tracks, with a large overall roof and fully integrated into the malls below the office towers.[19] The original DLR station was never completed and was dismantled before the line officially opened, although the automatically-operated trains continued to stop at its location.
The areas in the east of Docklands needed better transport connections to encourage development and so a fourth branch was opened in 1994,[8] fromPoplar to Beckton via Canning Town transport interchange, running along the north side of the Royal Docks complex. Initially it was thought likely to be underutilised, due to sparse development.[20] Several proposals were made for the Blackwall Area.[21] As part of this extension, one side of the original flat triangular junction was replaced with a grade-separated junction west of Poplar, and a new grade-separated junction was built at the divergence of the Stratford and Beckton lines east of Poplar. Poplar station was rebuilt to give cross-platform interchange between the Stratford and Beckton lines.
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