Since I moved into my flat, the DLR (Docklands Light Railway) has become my connection to the rest of London. It takes me to Canary Wharf, to Stratford, to Bank and to the newly opened Elizabeth Line. The one thing that makes them different to all other public transport in London is that they don’t have drivers, kind of. They have Passenger Service Agents who open and close the doors and start the train going, but they don’t always sit at the front or wear a stylish hat. This means, like the top deck of a bus, you can drive the DLR or at least sit and pretend you are.
One night, while the train was trundling along the tracks, which are in relative darkness with the lit-up city all around, I thought about how great it would be to capture the bright stations as the train approached.
The DLR was opened in 1987 with 15 stations but rapidly expanded over the years to a current tally of 45 stations. Most DLR stations are quite mundane during the daytime, but at night, even the older-style stations take on a magical feel when you look at them from the front of the train. The light from the platforms bleeds onto the tracks, shooting out of the station like starbursts. The two platforms are brilliantly lit with the metal grooves slicing through them, and the whole thing looks like an oasis of lights in the darkness. Mostly, they are high up above the streets, they are sometimes underground, and often they are surrounded by apartment blocks, but the nighttime highlights their architecture and makes them come alive.
So I’ve been riding the DLR at night and shooting out the front window of the train, exploring the line way beyond what I usually travel. It has been really captivating and intriguing how different the stations are despite the essentially basic configuration they adhere to. Some grand, others simple, but at night, they all look beautiful.
See the entire collection here.