DLR open to London City Airport 2/12/05
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Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: SE of Compton
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DLR open to London City Airport 2/12/05
As of 16.38 today the DLR began operating in passenger service on the Airport extension. Journey time Bank to LCY is approx 22 mins.
Strangely no explicit information about this on the DLR website, although the real-time station departure info (duplicates of what is on the platforms) shows it is indeed operating.
Seems no opening ceremony either. The trains have been running fully for several days now, out of service, to practice the timetable.
Seems unfortunate that there is little indication of it being the "airport" line, you just have to know it's the King George train you want. Unfortunately the parallel Beckton line has a whole series of "Royal name" stations as well, hope they don't all get confused.
Seems no opening ceremony either. The trains have been running fully for several days now, out of service, to practice the timetable.
Seems unfortunate that there is little indication of it being the "airport" line, you just have to know it's the King George train you want. Unfortunately the parallel Beckton line has a whole series of "Royal name" stations as well, hope they don't all get confused.
Too mean to buy a long personal title
It looks like this may have deliberately been a "soft" opening.
I'd been looking for this information for days because I knew that an early opening was likely and I was flying out of LCY on Saturday morning. The DLR would have been a good way of getting there, but even mid-afternoon on Friday I didn't see any positive information about it, just press releases saying that the station would be finished on Friday and all of the test runs would also be finished that day. So a Saturday start seemed to be on the cards, but I couldn't get it confirmed.
I got to the airport on Saturday morning to find signs up all over the airport saying that the DLR was now open. However, none of the airport staff at the airport knew when the service had actually started - they were as surprised as we were to see the signs.
So I reckon that this may have been deliberately done without publicity as a "soft" opening, so that the people who were going to be positively told that the DLR was open were people whose onward DLR journeys from the airport were unlikely to be as time-critical as those who were going to the airport - just in case anything went wrong despite the testing. In fact, it still doesn't appear on the TfL main news page, although there is now a page on the DLR side of the website and the Journey Planner shows the trains.
Whatever the reason, we missed out this time. But we'll be there next time. As it happens, we enjoyed a pleasant breakfast overlooking the runway instead of a pleasant half an hour sitting on the DLR - swings and roundabouts.
I'd been looking for this information for days because I knew that an early opening was likely and I was flying out of LCY on Saturday morning. The DLR would have been a good way of getting there, but even mid-afternoon on Friday I didn't see any positive information about it, just press releases saying that the station would be finished on Friday and all of the test runs would also be finished that day. So a Saturday start seemed to be on the cards, but I couldn't get it confirmed.
I got to the airport on Saturday morning to find signs up all over the airport saying that the DLR was now open. However, none of the airport staff at the airport knew when the service had actually started - they were as surprised as we were to see the signs.
So I reckon that this may have been deliberately done without publicity as a "soft" opening, so that the people who were going to be positively told that the DLR was open were people whose onward DLR journeys from the airport were unlikely to be as time-critical as those who were going to the airport - just in case anything went wrong despite the testing. In fact, it still doesn't appear on the TfL main news page, although there is now a page on the DLR side of the website and the Journey Planner shows the trains.
Whatever the reason, we missed out this time. But we'll be there next time. As it happens, we enjoyed a pleasant breakfast overlooking the runway instead of a pleasant half an hour sitting on the DLR - swings and roundabouts.
