Transport for London has announced that they have awarded a contract to replace the oldest trains serving the Docklands Light Railway.
TfL has awarded the contract to design and manufacture the trains to CAF. The order will replace the oldest rolling stock on the DLR which are nearly thirty years old.
With over 400,000 journeys made each weekday, the DLR is currently the busiest light railway in the UK.
The new trains will provide more frequent direct services to the growing employment centre and cultural hub at Stratford.
The DLR operates across six Opportunity Areas in London, which have the potential to provide more than 124,000 homes and 200,000 jobs.
The new fleet of walk through trains are expected to start entering passenger service from 2023 providing a number of customer improvements, including the latest audio and visual real-time travel information, air conditioning and mobile device charging points.
The DLR is step free and currently has 45 stations and 38km of track.
The 43 trains in the initial contact include 33 to replace the oldest rolling stock on the DLR network and an additional 10 to boost capacity.
What did the officials say?
Jon Fox, TfL's Director of Rail and Sponsored Services, said:
“Replacing the oldest trains on the DLR and introducing a new modern fleet will ensure the railway continues to support the current and future growth in the Docklands area. With walk-through carriages, real time travel information, air conditioning and mobile device charging points, the new trains will provide customers with a more comfortable and reliable service, replacing rolling stock that are nearly 30 years old and coming to the end of their operational life.”
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It’s good that DLR (Docklands Light Railway) is to order the new rolling stocks as CAF is to build these new stocks once the new train manufacturing facility is built and opened in Newport, South Wales. Which will replace the current DLR stocks that are 30 years old and do need replacing at some stage.
And will help to reduce the risk of overcrowding at stations on the DLR and the new stocks will be built as 5-Car which could be a problem with some stations that do have shorter platforms.
Shame that the DLR won’t extend to Dagenham Dock but it will extend to Barking Riverside and Thamesmead/Abbey Wood. With 10 more additional stocks to be built to improve the capacity on the busier DLR routes. But these new DLR stocks will help keep the network operating for centuries to come.