Docklands Light Railway breakdown on Millennium night

[Taunton]

Almost London Underground - but the experts are here.

15 years ago today was The Millennium. We were at Tower Hill, having gone there by DLR to Tower Gateway. Didn't get much further along the river because of the crowds. But when we went to return after 2 am, the DLR had messages up saying they had a big system failure.

Walking along to the east, there were DLR trains stuck on the viaduct full of fed-up looking passengers who had apparently been stuck there since before midnight, and had missed all the action. Looked in at each station while walking, no service running until get to Poplar, where shuttles were working beyond there. The PSA (maybe they were still the "Train Captain") then said something about there having been a derailment.

Next day on the media, absolutely nothing about this, all the messages were that "tube and buses were fine". Which of course ignores the DLR.

Anybody have any details about what went wrong on that historic night?

 

[swt_passenger]

A millennium bug in the software?

I think the government tried to keep all the problems secret afterwards...

 

[Busaholic]

There were certainly big problems on the recently-extended Jubilee Line at Stratford well before midnight, which were well reported in the media at the time because the VIPs were assembled there and had to wait around for upwards of an hour, which won't have amused them. I remember Greg Dyke being one of them and being super-critical of TfL on his (BBC) network. It was said that was why Tony Blair looked so nervous during the Dome ceremonies, which struck me at the time as being unlikely - if anyone in government were to be blamed it would surely be Mandleson- but it came out later that a bomb warning had been received an hour ot two before and that was the real reason. Of course, Blair wasn't the only one with that knowledge, just the only one to show his fear!

 

[TheManWho]

Almost London Underground - but the experts are here.

15 years ago today was The Millennium. We were at Tower Hill, having gone there by DLR to Tower Gateway. Didn't get much further along the river because of the crowds. But when we went to return after 2 am, the DLR had messages up saying they had a big system failure.

Walking along to the east, there were DLR trains stuck on the viaduct full of fed-up looking passengers who had apparently been stuck there since before midnight, and had missed all the action. Looked in at each station while walking, no service running until get to Poplar, where shuttles were working beyond there. The PSA (maybe they were still the "Train Captain") then said something about there having been a derailment.

Next day on the media, absolutely nothing about this, all the messages were that "tube and buses were fine". Which of course ignores the DLR.

Anybody have any details about what went wrong on that historic night?

There was a major software failure- the DLR is split into 4 'areas' known as VCCs, I believe the one between Bank and West India Quay went down. There wasn't a derailment, although some passengers were pulling doors open and walking along the tracks and in the Bank tunnel

 

[Nym]

There was a major software failure- the DLR is split into 4 'areas' known as VCCs, I believe the one between Bank and West India Quay went down. There wasn't a derailment, although some passengers were pulling doors open and walking along the tracks and in the Bank tunnel

Just goes to show how fantastic in cab signalling systems like this are...