In the future, when we’re wizened, grey and jaded, we’ll still all have the tales of ‘driving’ the DLR to look back on with fuzzy nostalgia, sending the grandchildren to sleep with our yearly monologue about it.
2024 should get a solid mention in this tale, as it appears to be the year that the driving game reaches the next level, with 10 DLR trains now boasting model control panels for passengers to sit at the front and make like they’re doing the service of getting all the other riders from A to B.
TfL previously revealed these plans with further thoughts of installing toy steering wheels to go full ‘driver’ mode. Now, the day has come when the control panel trial has begun, and if you’re lucky to find yourself on of the 10 trains out of the DLR’s army of 149 that have these new features, then all we can say is: knock ya’self out! Let’s just hope that the adults can take the pain and hide their disappointment of seeing children ‘driving’ the train ahead of them.
Each of the panels have levers as well as four buttons, which read: ‘Mind The Gap’, ‘Woolwich Ferry Horn’, ‘Bow Church Bells’, and ‘Turbo Charge’. There is also a QR code attached to each panel that allows the ‘drivers’ to add Instagram filters to themselves as they chug along down the tunnels at the helm of the train.
Should these additions prove popular, they will be added to more of the existing fleet of turquoise trains, and could even make up part of the brand-new DLR units that are due to roll out later this year, and could also have the hallowed toy steering wheels.
OUT OF THE WAY NOW IT’S MY TURN TO ‘DRIVE’ THE TRAIN.
