UK: Decathlete Dean Macey, Chairman of Britain's Olympic Delivery Authority John Armitt, Mayor of London Ken Livingstone and Transport for London's Managing Director, London Rail, Ian Brown unveiled the first of a new design of train for the Docklands Light Railway on March 13.
TfL placed a £50m order with Bombardier for 31 articulated vehicles in June 2006, as a continuation of a £45m April 2005 contract for 24 vehicles. TfL is buying the cars using money from a £10bn bond package and funding provided by the ODA.
Earlier trains for the driverless light metro were built at Brugge in Belgium, but the latest cars are being assembled at Bombardier's plant at Bautzen in Germany, with electrical equipment from Mannheim and bogies from Siegen. TfL says the vehicles have a 'sleeker' external design than previous batches, with increased window space. The first cars are expected to enter service this spring, with the whole fleet in traffic by late 2009.
The new cars will provide extra capacity both on existing DLR services and on the new routes to Woolwich and Stratford International.
