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

London’s Dome

A recent trip to North Greenwich was a chance to see how the famous Millennium Dome was progressing in its new guise as the O2 entertainment complex under the management of American entertainment operators AEG who now run the Dome. It was also a chance to see how the former toxic wasteland of gasworks and “dirty” industry which formerly occupied the peninsula bounded by the River Thames was progressing in its reincarnation as the new neighbourhood opposite Canary Wharf, Greenwich Peninsula.









Greenwich Peninsula Master plan



The Dome is one of the iconic landmarks of London providing a reference point by air and river and last, but not least, the opening credits of the soap opera “Eastenders.” It even featured in the James Bond movie “The World is Not Enough.”

















The O2 inside The Dome



Originally championed by the Conservative politician Michael Heseltine to kick-start the development of the Thames Gateway it was designed to revive a disadvantaged area of London with poor transport links for the 2000 Millennium. Commissioned to mark the beginning of the new Millennium, the Millennium Dome was intended as a celebratory, iconic, non-hierarchical structure offering a vast, flexible space.













Dome Interiors



Although a high-profile project in its own right, the building also formed a key element of the master plan by its architect Richard Rodgers for the future development of the entire Greenwich Peninsula. When Tony Blair and the Labour Government were elected in the historic 1997 General Election they enthusiastically made the project their own seeing in it the echoes of the 1951 Festival of Britain with its “Dome of Discovery” which was also championed by a Labour Government. Back in 1951, the festival was devised by Labour deputy leader Herbert Morrison as "a tonic for the nation". A newsreel of the time described it as giving an "inexplicable lift to the heart", recreating the feel of a trip to the seaside.











One of the great stains on the competence of Tony Blair’s first government issues related to the Dome damaged Peter Mandelson's and John Prescott's political careers. The scheme was seen as an early example of what some saw as Tony Blair's often excessive optimism, who stated at the Dome's opening: "In the Dome we have a creation that, I believe, will truly be a beacon to the world". The fact that Mandelson's grandfather was Herbert Morrison who as a minister had been involved with the Festival of Britain often was drawn on for negative comparisons.



Among the problems which were identified in the post-mortem were;



Failure to attract 12m visitors

Confused priorities

Lack of contents plan

Weak financial control

Wrong management structure

£30m closure cost not anticipated



The cost of the building and contents was within half of one per cent of the original £750m budget. But the project had to be bailed out with an extra £230m in National Lottery grants because its income fell well short of budget, mainly because of a shortfall in visitors. The company had also failed to anticipate it would cost more than £30m to close the project down, he said.













The 2000 Millennium Exhibition



The Dome itself was built on time for a relatively modest £48m but the problem was filling the vast space. The building structure was engineered by Buro Happold, and the entire roof structure weighs less than the air contained within the building. Although referred to as a dome it is not strictly one as it is not self-supporting, but is a mast-supported, dome-shaped cable network. The building was the winner of the 2000 RIBA Gold Medal for outstanding architecture. The exhibition and Millennium show devised were seen as preachy, patronising and plain trite, one of the areas was sponsored by McDonald’s and it failed to attract the 12m projected paying visitors, the final tally was a tad over 6m visitors.





1 January 2000: The Queen and Prince Philip join hands with the Blairs and Princess Anne to sing the traditional New Year's Eve 'Auld Lang Syne' at midnight during the opening celebrations at the Millennium Dome in Greenwich



Even the opening ceremony with the Queen and an invited renta-crowd who had to queue for 3 hours for transport to the dome looked execrable. The Nation could tell her Britannic Majesty was not amused and the Nation sympathised with her. The fact that after the exhibition ended that the Dome lay virtually unused for almost 8 years whilst a hugely inept search for alternative uses ensued added to the air of incompetence surrounding the Dome and all its works.



http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2011/06/60th-anniversary-of-festival-of-britain.html



The dome is the largest of its type in the world. Externally, it appears as a large white marquee with twelve 100 m-high yellow support towers, one for each month of the year, or each hour of the clock face, representing the role played by Greenwich Mean Time. In plan view it is circular, 365 m in diameter — one metre for each day of the year — with scalloped edges. It has become one of the United Kingdom's most recognisable landmarks. It can easily be seen on aerial photographs of London. Its exterior is reminiscent of the Dome of Discovery built for the Festival of Britain in 1951.

















Dome Entrance Area



Apart from the dome itself, the project included the reclamation of the entire Greenwich Peninsula. The land was previously derelict and contaminated by toxic sludge from East Greenwich Gas Works that operated from 1889 to 1985. The clean-up operation was seen by the then Deputy Prime Minister Michael Heseltine as an investment that would add a large area of useful land to the crowded capital. This was billed as part of a larger plan to regenerate a large, sparsely populated area to the east of London and south of the River Thames; an area initially called the East Thames Corridor but latterly marketed as the "Thames Gateway".











From the closure of the original "Millennium Experience" exhibition occupying the site, several possible ways of reusing the Millennium Dome's shell were proposed and then rejected. The official renaming of the Dome on 31 May 2008 as “The O2” indicated its long awaited transition into an entertainment district. The Dome's shell itself remained in situ but its interior and the area around North Greenwich Station, the QE2 pier and the main entrance area was completely redeveloped.









"Entertainment Avenue"



The area is served by North Greenwich tube station, which was opened just before the millennium exhibition, on the Jubilee Line, and by bus routes. Thames Clippers operate a river boat service for London River Services; the present tenants, AEG, purchased Thames Clippers in order to provide river links between central London and The O2. As well as a commuter service, Thames Clippers also operates The O2 Express service. The Dome reopened in 2007 and has since hosted concerts by acts including Led Zeppelin, Prince and Kylie Minogue. It will also be an official venue for the 2012 Olympics, hosting basketball and gymnastics.







The O2 is a music, sports and entertainment venue that’s already setting new international benchmarks. At the centre is a 23,000 capacity arena for the hottest music acts and world-class sports events. And there’s also indigO2, a 2,300 seat venue for more intimate performances and an 11 screen cinema. There is also the O2 Bubble - a spectacular exhibition space currently showing The Titanic Artefact exhibition and Entertainment Avenue - packed with restaurants, bars and clubs.

Redevelopment has also taken place of the approaches to the Dome.





Titanic Exhibition



Just outside The O2, there’s Peninsula Square, London’s newest and most spectacular outdoor space. It’s a great place to meet with friends and relax before a show or at lunchtime. The focal point of the square, Peninsula Spire - at 45 metres, is the UK’s tallest stainless steel structure, and a permanent art installation. There’s a growing green wall - draped with vegetation - and a performance wall with a plasma screen and a purpose-built free concert stage for special events, festivals and performances.





The distinctive cladding of Pierhead Walk





The outdoor screen



Patterns engraved in the granite paving tell the story of the Greenwich Meridian, and geysers set in the paving animate the square with soaring columns of water. At night, vibrant lighting accentuates the square’s exciting architecture.





The "Living Wall"



As for the Greenwich Peninsula it is a highly constrained development site bordered on 3 sides by the River Thames still bearing the scars of a diverse industrial history. Covering 74 hectares with 2.5 km of river frontage, its comprehensive regeneration marks one of the largest planning applications ever submitted in London and presented significant challenges to the design team. London's new community will embrace the riverside and provide homes for 25,000 people and jobs for 24,000. New offices, shops, restaurants and bars have opened. There are parks, a school and a world-class entertainment complex, The O2 – everything a new community needs.





















North Greenwich Station



All this is served by North Greenwich station on London Underground's Jubilee Line, opened on 14 May 1999. The station is located within a 358 metre-long box sunk into waterlogged (and partly contaminated) soil. It is adjacent to the Millennium Dome at the northern end the Greenwich peninsula. It is between Canary Wharf and Canning Town, and is on the boundary between Travelcard Zone 2 and Zone 3.The striking blue-tiled and glazed interior, with raking concrete columns rearing up inside the huge underground space, was designed by the architectural practice Alsop,Lyall and Störmer.





Platform 2 with platform edge doors





Station forecourt with glass canopy leading visitors to the O2



The station has an unusual layout as it was originally to serve a branch to London City Airport at Albert Dock across the river but after it was designed the proposal to serve the airport using the Docklands Light Railway was adopted so the extension was cancelled. A further disadvantage with the station layout was it was designed for the continuous traffic to the Dome exhibition but has difficulty coping with the heavy traffic after concerts end at the O2 meaning 23,000 people enter the station in a 45 minute period. This has not been helped by delays in the Jubilee Line upgrade project which was meant to be completed in 2009 but is still “getting there.”





Canary Wharf seen from the Dome



Only 20 minutes from London's West End, Greenwich Peninsula is well served with modern transport connections and yet only a couple of miles from elegant historic Greenwich. It's new and distinct, as well as being connected to an established peninsula community.



http://www.greenwichpeninsula.co.uk/



So today despite the naysayers over the years the Dome and the Greenwich Peninsula are looking good. AEG have been hugely professional and successful in building a buzz at the O2, so much so that many of the attendees are from abroad booked on concert or event packages. This is a trend which can only accelerate with the 2012 Olympics in London. The Greenwich Peninsula developments are building up critical mass and they have only to look across the river at the gleaming towers of Canary Wharf to see a hugely successful new neighbourhood which has seen of a recession and soothsayers of doom to succeed. So slightly later than expected this is going to be one of London’s more interesting and happening neighbourhoods and the Dome is becoming one of those “temporary” structures that cities cannot imagine themselves doing without like the Eiffel Tower, London Eye and, take a bow, London’s Dome!





The Millennium Dome seen from Greenwich riverside