New DLR rolling stock

No. The DLR network is entirely self-contained. It runs parallel to Network Rail between just north of Bow Church and Stratford and between Limehouse and Tower Gateway, it also runs parallel to the Jubilee line between Stratford and Canning Town but that's as close as it gets.
The trains would be out-of-gauge for the Jubilee line tunnels but I don't know about NR.

Will just be similar to now, the current DLR fleet has an "A" end and a "B" end- the D is probably just the "D" section of the vehicle. I'm not back at Beckton until later next week so haven't seen the rest of the vehicle "in person"

No idea but conicity is a very good suggestion.

And braking ? Is DLR braking same or slight variant as LU or main line stock ? If it is significantly different there may not exist the translator kit to haul it, which means unbraked load, in turn all the hassle with that.

And couplers ? They may be of the generic Scharfenburg type (well thats what they look like***) but there are Scharfenburgs and there are Scharfenburgs and not all will directly couple to each other. Especially where there is a height difference. Which means to whatever you couple it to for main line hauling you need a mechanical adapter.

None of this is impossible to work around but putting them on a back of a lorry might be the better business sense as any special coupler or braking would need design testing and approval for every country it works through plus Eurotunnel infrastucture.


*** note that a Dellner or a Voith coupler that looks like that is really a licenced Scharfenburg; generically they are the same thing; academic if it won't couple to anything on main line anyway.

Today's Railways in twitter has a photograph of the driving car arriving

I always assumed the blue and white was just a test livery, I'm quite surprised to see that it's the actual livery. I'm sure it's an opinion many won't share but I think the colours look terrible!

From comments on various forums and social media, the livery seems to attract the full spectrum of opinions from love to hate! Personally I'm not at either extreme - it's OK but rather dull and (imo) they could have done better. I do wonder what it would have looked like with a corporate blue skirt, white window surrounds and teal doors.

I kind of like the new livery although there is a part of me (the childhood nostalgia part of me I assume) that would like to see something similar to the original dark blue with red stripe livery. I always liked that livery and I still don't get why they changed it for a red all over one instead.

Photo from a Twitter post:

I'm glad we've moved away from diagonal slashes, or partial giant logos.

'Insulfish' white doesn't always wear well, though. Perhaps the Docklands air is cleaner now?

The Underground livery was created so that roundels appeared on white/silver background as specified by the Design Manual.

Other liveries break the rules.

Thanks, exactly what I was not wanting ... compared to what other places have, we will get second rate with less clarity and a constantly changing information display.

I do not remember seeing that video and am baffled as to why not.

Anyway, if it does actually show the whole route the train is on, end to end, then it will be an improvement on what exists elsewhere in London.

The train end looks much more like a driver's cab with the partition between the cab and the passenger area removed than on existing DLR trains. Maybe a larger crumple zone in case of a crash was desired - or just a standard feature on this range of CAF trains - after all this is more like a heavy rail metro (underground railway) train than the light rail vehicles the DLR has used since it first opened. It does mean that front seat passengers will be further away from the windows. However, perhaps the covers over the control consoles will act as excellent camera stands (will only need a bean bag below the camera).

Having looked again at the video of the mock up, I think there are going to be some interesting converstaions with Passener Services Agents about: The spacing of the seat relative to the controls; the size of the windscreens; and, in particular, the view of the platform mirrors/monitors providing a view of the platform when these controls are in use.

It's always difficut to judge from a video but all three points look worse than the existing trains.

As we know from other train introductions, what gets accepted on mock ups sometimes doesn't look right when the real train gets onto real track.#!