DLR 1973
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About DLR 1973

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Docklands Light Railway (DLR) 1973

The Docklands Light Railway (the DLR) is an automated light metro or light rail system opened in 1987 to serve the redeveloped Docklands area of London.

It reaches north to Stratford, south to Lewisham, west to Tower Gateway and Bank in the City of London financial district, and east to Beckton, London City Airport and Woolwich Arsenal.

The system is not entirely unmanned: it uses minimal staffing on board trains and at major interchange stations. Similar proposals have been made for the adjacent system, the Tube.

The system is owned by Docklands Light Rail Limited, part of the London Rail division of Transport for London.

In 2006 the DLR carried over 60 million passengers.

It has been extended several times and further extensions are being planned.

Origins and development

The docks immediately east of London began to decline in the early 1960s as cargo became containerised The opening of the Tilbury container docks, further east in Essex, rendered them redundant.

A report PUBLISHED IN 1973 by the London Docklands Study Team saw future demand for better transport in the Isle of Dogs. An early suggestion was an underground line, but it was thought that there was insufficient demand. The idea was revived in 1976, but put on hold by Norman Fowler in 1979 in favour of lower-cost alternatives. In 1974, the Docklands Joint Committee was formed from the dockland boroughs and the Greater London Council (GLC), with a plan to redevelop the London Docklands with new industry and housing as quickly as possible. Throughout the 1970s light rail options were proposed.

A later recommendation was an automatic light rail option from Aldgate East to the Isle of Dogs and Beckton. As an alternative to the east-west route, a cheaper north-south route from the Isle of Dogs was considered, but later forecasts of population and employment growth, coupled with the absence of any connection to the south of the river, showed that both routes were needed.

The London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC), formed in 1981 with responsibility to regenerate the whole area, helped to speed up the process.

In June 1982, a report published by the GLC, LDDC and other authorities recommended the construction of two light rail routes from the City of London and Mile End to the Isle of Dogs. Funding for the Docklands Light Railway was promised within three months. Later, £77 million was approved to be spent by 1987. In the mid-1980s it was found that the original plan to run at street level along the A11 to Mile End could not be achieved, so an alternative route was found along a railway cutting north to Stratford. This provided better transport connections and the line could use a disused platform at Stratford station.

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. 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.
The London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC), needing to provide public transport cheaply for the former docks area to stimulate regeneration, considered several proposals and chose a light rail scheme using dock railway infrastructure to link the West India Docks to Tower Hill and to run alongside the Great Eastern line out of London to a northern terminus at Stratford, where a disused bay platform at the west of the station was available, for interchange with the Central Line and main lines. Stratford was preferred to the Mile End alternative, which would have involved street 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, Canary Wharf and the Greenwich Peninsula (which was the next regeneration area) to Stratford.

The contract for the initial system was awarded to GEC Mowlem in 1984 and the system was constructed from 1985 to 1987 at a cost of £77 million. The line was opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 30 July 1987, and passenger services began on 31 August