All the trains are computer-controlled and have no driver: a passenger service agent (PSA) on each train is responsible for patrolling the train, checking tickets, making announcements, and controlling the doors. PSAs can also take control of the train in case of computer failure or emergency. Operation and maintenance of the DLR has been carried out by a private franchise since 1997. The current franchise, due to expire in April 2013, belongs to Serco Docklands Ltd, a company jointly formed by Serco and the former DLR management team.
Since opening on 31 August 1987, the system has been extended and upgraded many times to increase the extent of its coverage and increase capacity with new branches being constructed to take the network to Bank in the City of London, London City Airport, Lewisham and Woolwich Arsenal.
Charles Tyson Yerkes (25 June 1837 – 29 December 1905) was an American financier. He played a major part in developing mass-transit systems in Chicago and London. Yerkes was born in the Northern Liberties, a district of Philadelphia, the son of a banker. At 17 he became a clerk in a grain brokerage and at 22 set up his own firm and joined the Philadelphia stock exchange. By 1865 he had moved into banking and specialized in selling municipal, state, and government bonds. A large speculative trade with Philadelphia public money ended disastrously, and he was left insolvent and narrowly avoided being jailed. Having moved to Chicago in 1881, Yerkes became involved in public transportation when his consortium began taking over street railway companies. His aim was to achieve a monopoly of public transport in the city and he used bribery and blackmail in order to further his ambition. Following an unsuccessful attempt to bribe the city council and state legislature into granting him a 100-year franchise for the tramway system, Yerkes sold his transport stocks in 1899 and moved to New York.
In September 1900, he became involved in underground railways in London, buying the unbuilt Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway. In 1902, he established the Underground Electric Railways Company of London (UERL) which bought a number tube railway companies which had not been able to find finance. Money was quickly raised using complex financial instruments and the UERL built and opened four tube lines by 1907. Yerkes died in December 1905 shortly before the first of these, the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway, opened in March 1906. Through subsequent acquisition and expansion, the UERL became the core of the London Underground and London's main bus operator.
Image 3Sailing ships at West India Docks on the Isle of Dogs in 1810. The docks opened in 1802 and closed in 1980 and have since been redeveloped as the Canary Wharf development.
Image 5London Underground A60 Stock (left) and 1938 Stock (right) trains showing the difference in the sizes of the two types of rolling stock operated on the system. A60 stock trains operated on the surface and sub-surface sections of the Metropolitan line from 1961 to 2012 and 1938 Stock operated on various deep level tube lines from 1938 to 1988.
Image 6"Boris Bikes" from the Santander Cycles hire scheme waiting for use at a docking station in Victoria.
Image 8Arguably the best-preserved disused station building in London, this is the former Alexandra Palace station on the GNR Highgate branch (closed in 1954). It is now in use as a community centre (CUFOS).
Image 28The newly constructed junction of the Westway (A40) and the West Cross Route (A3220) at White City, circa 1970. Continuation of the West Cross Route northwards under the roundabout was cancelled leaving two short unused stubs for the slip roads that would have been provided for traffic joining or leaving the northern section.
Image 33The multi-level junction between the M23 and M25 motorways near Merstham in Surrey. The M23 passes over the M25 with bridges carrying interchange slip roads for the two motorways in between.