Docklands Day Trip
Who would have believed in 1982 when London Docklands was designated an Enterprise Zone, that it would spawn Canary Wharf, the second major financial district in the capital ? In anticipation of the planned developments, London Transport started the D1 Docklands Clipper route from Poplar to Mile End in early 1984. It was initially run with five Leyland Nationals in a dedicated livery and they followed a route past many of the deserted docks. Nowadays the area is unrecognisable, as many of the docks have been filled in, and new business prospers where once warehouses lay derelict.
Today a day trip to the Docklands provides an opportunity to ride on several different forms of transport - hydrogen fuelled buses on the RV1 from Waterloo to Tower Gateway, then the DLR to Canary Wharf, continuing by bus to the Greenwich foot tunnel, and finally Thames Clipper boat from Greenwich back to Embankment. Thirty years of change - it's bankers not dockers now.
