London 2012 blog

Definitely a one-off event for me last Monday, making a speech in front of a giant concrete slab behind which a Tunnel Boring Machine is about to grind its way out into the open air at Woolwich’s new railway terminus. The Docklands Light Railway is coming to South East London to bring direct access to the Olympic Park for tens of thousands of spectators in 2012.

Speeches over, 560 tonnes of machinery started grinding its way towards us and the media. It’s so easy to be glib about building underground railways but to see the ground give way, to hear the deep rumbling noises and feel the ground shaking is always impressive.

The ODA is putting a great deal of effort and money into a spread of projects all across the DLR’s expanding network but the tunnelling project to take the DLR under the Thames into South East London is the one that I think I shall write up in my memoirs as leaving the biggest legacy benefits after the Games are over. I look forward to going back to ride the first official DLR train into Woolwich Arsenal station in 2009.