DLR movie 1

I quite like the Docklands Light Railway for the way it gets me to Greenwich from Stratford without a driver. There is sometimes a problem with rocking from side to side so you wouldn’t really want to spend too much time on it regularly, but it strikes me that rather than build a tube line into Hackney, which will take years and years, you could relatively quickly and cheaply just continue extending the DLR all over the place instead.
Being a light railway it can take tight bends and sharp inclines, so the infrastructure is much easier to build. Instead of building tunnels and taking over lots of land you just put up a few stilts and build up above street level.

The strange cartoon on the left is from Transport for London’s bodysnatchers website – a guide of suggested places to go using the DLR. Hmm, I like the sound of Bar Musee.

On rainy days, or when I’m a bit pushed for time I dispense with the pleasant walk across the Thames and catch a bus to connect Liverpool Street Station with London Bridge. Suddenly now, there is a good chance this will be a new style “Bendy Bus”.

that a good old routemaster double decker, or a modern “low floor” single doesn’t? Well it bends in the middle, that’s obvious, so has the capacity of a double decker without the stairs, and can still go round corners. But London is a unique city in having main streets without any of the low bridges, tunnels or overhanging buildings which rule out double deckers practically everywhere else in the world. So what’s the point of articulation? People flow is the answer. You can embark or alight through any of the three pairs of fast opening doors, whereas on the double decker, the people coming down the stairs or standing in the aisle can sometimes impede the queue at the bus stop from getting on at all. So, unless you have a pre-pay oyster card or a book of savers there’s no need to form a procession past the driver’s cabin. There’s no facility for taking cash, so less opportunity for argument when some one gets on with a twenty quid note and there’s no change.

Because of the multiple door access and double compartment the bendy has more of a ‘tram’ feel to it, which is fine. Unlike on older buses, access through the doors and aisles is spacious and the individual seats are amply proportioned. The only problem is with the ride quality. The articulation is not just on the horizontal plane, but also happens to a not inconsiderable extent on the vertical as well. This is probably something to do with the hydaulic suspension which allows the boarding step to get close enough to the kerb for the dreaded oversized pushchairs which modern day pre-school children insist on riding in. So every time the bendy bus goes over a bump the whole thing kind of snakes up and down a few times, which is enough, I would imagine, to make some people feel quite sick.