Guide to the Docklands Light Railway

One of the accusations levelled at Docklands, when the building boom of the early 1980s was in progress, was that all the architecture looked like Lego.

It’s not quite true, actually – some of the architecture is very fine indeed, though some of the speculative housing of 1987 onwards is of a quality of awfulness almost unmatched in London. But there’s something about the Docklands Light Railway (DLR  for short) which always reminds me of Lego – a sort of blockish innocence to the design of the trains, and the fact they’re so darn quiet.

No drivers, either – all the trains are computer controlled (though occasionally the conductors act as drivers, if there are problems on the track and manual control is needed).

The DLR opened in 1987, originally running from Tower Gateway at the City end to Island Gardens in the Isle of Dogs and Stratford in East London. Its development was driven by the need to provide transport for the housing and office space being built on the former site of the Royal Docks, and regeneration of eastern and south-east London has continued to be the major driver behind the expansion of the railway.

The original DLR was all above ground, much of it using older railway viaducts. In 1991, it was extended underground to Bank, in the heart of the City; further extensions have taken it further out of the centre, to Beckton, Woolwich Arsenal, London City Airport, Greenwich and Lewisham. Instead of the original Y-shaped line, now it looks rather like a sprawling spider – it’s a whole little railway system of its own.

What do you need to know to use the DLR?

• It’s part of the Underground as far as fares and ticketing go. Travelcards work on it, oyster cards work on it (though you may have to look quite hard to find the touch-in touch-out points).
• The DLR is all contained in Zones 1, 2, and 3, in the same way as the Tube itself.
• DLR operates weekdays and Saturday from 530 in the morning till half past twelve, and Sundays from 7 in the morning till 1130 at night.
• It’s the first fully accessible railway in the UK, with step-free entrance to all stations and trains.

If you’re visiting London on holiday, you might never need to use the DLR. But you probably should. The overground part of the DLR has some amazing views of the Thames, and of modern architecture in Docklands such as the I M Pei tower at Canary Wharf. A walk around the area is well worth the time – and if you make it as far as Limehouse, you’ll find a tiny little street of the old East End, and the beginning of the Regents Canal. (If you followed it, you could go all the way to Birmingham up the Regents Canal and Grand Union.)

Photo credit: Andrew Grantham on flickr