Throughout the build-up to the London 2012 Olympic Games the Docklands Light Railway featured heavily on these pages as preparations were made to ensure it could be a useful and effective way for visitors to travel to some of the events. Now that the Olympics themselves are over things can start to return to normality but that is only after the DLR broke all passenger records over the 16 day period of the Games.
More than six million passenger journeys were made on the DLR during the Games period and this is more than 100% up on normal levels showing just how much strain the network took during the event. This included the highest number of passengers ever carried on one
day when on Friday 3rd August over 500,000 passenger journeys were made with people travelling to most of the major Olympic venues including the Olympic Park itself at Stratford and ExCeL where many events also took place.
As part of their work to carry these large numbers of passengers it has been reported on several forums across the internet that for the first time four car trains were used from ExCeL although no confirmation has been received that this was actually the case. Two
different all over advert liveries have also been carried by some of the older units during the Olympics with two three car trains operating in different adverts.
I had the misfortunes to work in London during the Olympics. It was strange traveling by bus and tube during rush hour as most transport was not full. The Docklands railway however was very busy. I can confirm that the trains were 2 units instead of the usual 1. I also noted that all the trains I used were driven by a human. That is if you count pushing buttons to close the doors ad another to start the train. Like the underground (not all services) the train runs automatic along the track and stops in the platform. the diver then checks the alignment with the platform before opening the doors.