Old Moaner Travel

Let’s be honest, nearly all young boys (and probably girls as well) at some time want to be a train driver.

 

Of course, for most of us it is only a dream. However, if you want to get something of a feeling for what it’s like to have a train drivers perspective you should sit in the front seat of a DLR train.

 

I have to confess, even at my advanced years, I still get disappointed if I board a DLR train and find someone else has bagged that coveted front seat.

 

Yes, the DLR, or to give it its full name, the Docklands Light Railway is a driverless transport system covering a large area of what used to be the East End. Stretching from Bank in the City to Beckton in the East, Stratford in the North and Lewisham in the south. Included in the patch is Canary Wharf and London City Airport.

 

For me it’s the best way to get around the East of the city and there are proposals to extend it, including a possible link to Kings Cross and Euston and another to Charing Cross and Victoria.

 

Trains are frequent, reliable and safe and it is a very popular transit system, setting the standards for other systems around the world.

 

There is a Passenger Service Assistant who can, in an emergency take control of the train. It’s interesting to note the only accident on the system since it went live occurred when one of the trains involved was under manual control.    

 

As was the case with the Tube maps TFL are not keen for their maps to be used without payment, so I have again used an open source version (attribution   https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=223783 )
  
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