The Docklands Light Railway is to get a short trial of private tourist trains, running between Tower Gateway and Greenwich.
For track bashers, the trips are also an unusual route, as trains from Tower Gateway do not usually head down towards Greenwich, so it’s a modest bit of novelty. The special non-stop trains will run at weekends from 4th August to 9th September, and will include a tour guide on board, who may or may not look like this.
DLR Discovery Dave (c) TfL
The trips then continue with a thirty-minute guided walking tour around Greenwich.
Trains will depart on the hour every hour, starting at 10am each day, with the last tour leaving Tower Gateway at 5pm. Tickets for the DLR Discovery train are £8 for adults and £4 for children and include a return journey on the DLR.
These can be purchased here.
Note, the T&Cs say that you need to turn up 20 minutes before departure.
Of course, for everyone else, the real fun will be waiting on the platforms and watch the look on people’s faces as trains pass through the stations without stopping.
Oh I be going on this. And waving at the passengers waiting for a normal DLR to come in as they be so jealous that the train will pass through some stations.
We did this on a chartered Tramlink tram over the whole network and maintenance section. On a cold snowy morning two years ago the frozen passengers trying to stop us became pretty enraged. Management may come to regret this venture, especially following the great new timetable fiasco……!
I’m surprised the schedule allows for non-stopping. I think that even if they go at a very slow pace, they will still end up gaining on the ones in front and stop short of the stations, waiting for the normal services to depart the platform.
The weekend timetable is a bit less intense than the weekday one, and if the departure from Tower Gateway is timed just ahead of a train departing Bank, it may well be able to sneak past another train at Canary Wharf en route as the track layout would make this possible.