'OOPS, MY PHONE'S DEAD OFFICER :((' - FREE DLR TRAVELLING FOR LIFE/FOR NOW.

The wonderful Docklands' Light Railway (DLR) celebrates its 30th birthday this year and it has been nothing short of a blessing for Londoners, especially myself. My uni's situated aaaall the way out in Beckton, E16 (far east) and if not for the DLR getting to uni would be a nightmare.

The line conveniently links you up with some of London's best areas.. in my opinion; Lewisham, Stratford, Canary Wharf, Canning Town, Greenwich, Tower Bridge to name a few and the best thing about it is.. IT'S TOTALLY FREE OF CHARGE NOW UNTIL FOREVER (for some 'daredevils' lol). Of course, it's not, but it is barrier-less at least for now and if you're a 'train station opportunist' then yeah, it's basically always free.

No barriers means you can choose not to tap your oyster or buy a paper ticket as there is a 90% chance that the DLR station you're heading to is also a barrier-less one. Things do heat up a lil' as once you're on the train you've got to emulate the fantastic Mr. Fox in your attempts to read and avoid the ticket man. Look out for signs and signals that tell you what his or her next steps are going to be.

NOW. Most people are already fully aware of this and therefore all the above isn't really relevant to you. Sorry for not saying earlier :)

BUT I'd like to make people aware of something they may not already know..

When the inspector comes towards you armed with his needlessly chunky, card-checky-thingy and there's absolutely nout you can do WHACK OUT YOUR APPLE PAY. A friendly Nigerian conductor once informed me that by law conductors cannot reprimand you if your apple pay fails. This is simply because your payment can fail for a multitude of reasons, usually network/3/4G related and obviously sometimes we can't help these things from happening..  therefore it is unfair to be charged a penalty fare. IT'S NEVER FAILED ME OR ANYONE I KNOW, AS OF YET. 

Photo by Zach Ekpe.

I am, however, pretty certain that TFL are already working on this - if they're not already planning to install barriers at every DLR station. It's just too big a loophole for them to ignore. So if you find yourself in the common situation of being asked to present your ticket and you haven't paid for once pull out your Apple Pay and let them scan that I promise you they'll walk on. It's fool-proof.  Either that or you can always say your phone died and it's the only method of payment you brought out with you. Nothing much anyone can do/say about that either.

DISCLAIMER: Out of the 45 stations, on the 7 different lines, 4 (to the best of my knowledge) will always have automated ticket barriers, these stations are; Stratford (not Stratford International, that's free), London City Airport, Canning Town and Bank - tap your oyster prior to travelling to or through any of these stations. Unless you want to be squeezing through the barriers behind an unsuspecting stranger whilst it squeals out this vile tone in desperation to see you caught by the TFL staff member(s), the barrier not the stranger.

Again, if you're a regular fare dodger you've probably already worked out the effectiveness of the 'my phone's dead' line. But for those who haven't tried their hand a bit of free travel for whatever reason, spread the word for them, so they may travel as freely as the rest of us!

Bye!

COOL POINTERS; 19.08.16 - The 24-Hour Tube Arrives!

This time two years ago Londoners were eagerly anticipating the arrival of London's first ever 'Night Tube' however due to TFL strikes over pay and potential working condition concerns the start date had to be delayed.

The new all night system scheduled to perform a 'pratcice run' this weekend, in preparation for the actual start date - August 19th. This practice run will be a passenger-less service and will be tested this weeked on the 12th and 13th of August - a week before it's scheduled to fully go live. Trains will be trialled on the Victoria and Central lines and will test the operational capability of the proposed system (basically, the aim is to see how well it runs).

As stated already the Night Tube will be aired on the Central and Victoria lines. This is great news as they covered a fairly large part of the city from North, to East, to West, to South. From a financial stand-point the changes are set to boost London's economy by £360m and ideally we should see improvements in our country, in different areas - infrastructure and jobs being a couple of them. 

TFL Cheif, Mike Brown said: "It is good news for London. More than half a million people use the Tube after 10pm on Fridays and Saturdays, and the introduction of the Night Tube, which will support London’s businesses and jobs, is a historic step in our modernisation of the Underground and our work to support London’s economic growth.”

The lines that are being tested this weekend (Victoria and Central) are the ones that will go live next weekend. The autumn period will see three more lines added to the Night Tube map, the Central line (between Ealing Broadway - Loughton/Hainault), the Piccadilly line (between Cockfosters - Heathrow Terminal 5) FYI! The 24-hour service will boast an impressive schedule of six train per hour between the hours of 00:30am and 5:30am though this number may vary from line to line.. The northern line will see an even better eight trains per hour!

Obviously this all sounds amazing and I am positive that many of you will utilise this service at some stage, some more than others, but how much of the money made will be re-invested and what differences will be made? I guess we'll just have to wait and see.