The DLR's youngest station is ten years old today.
Pudding Mill Lane opened on 28th April 2014 and remains unnecessarily enormous.
Caveat: The station which opened 10 years ago was a rebuild paid for by Crossrail, because the original sat on the precise site where purple trains needed to burst out of the earth on their way to Shenfield. Update: Purple trains on their way to Shenfield now burst out of the earth on the site of the original station. Clarification: The original Pudding Mill Lane station, which was piddly small, opened on 15th January 1996 and closed on 18th April 2014. [blogged][photos] Observation: Pudding Mill Lane was the closest station to the Olympic Park but was closed throughout the 2012 Games because it was piddly small. Its enormous replacement, which would have been exceptionally useful, opened two years afterwards. [blogged][photos] Backstory: This DLR line actually opened on 31st August 1987 but with no station between Bow Church and Stratford, only passive provision for a new station at Pudding Mill Lane pending future development. Historical note: Pudding Mill Lane station is named after the windmill which stood just south of here beside the Pudding Mill River until the 1830s. The mill apparently resembled an upturned pudding, hence the name. [blogged] Pre-historical note: The mill's actual name was St Thomas's Mill, and was first recorded in the 12th century as Fotes Mill.
Annual passenger numbers (2019): 860,000 (2nd least used DLR station) Annual passenger numbers (2022): 2,640,000 (middling in the DLR usage list)
Architecture: The station is a large sleek glass box astride a viaduct. Nothing else on the DLR looks like it, or is as capacious as it. Its architects described it as "a simple legible building with integrated public realm which delivers a minimalist, crisply detailed architectural solution". Platforms: Long and broad, doubling up as a viewing platform over the Olympic Park if anyone's still interested in that. Much too long for the two carriage shuttles that generally stop here. Stairs: Massive, three flights wide, sufficient to cope with an onslaught of West Ham fans heading home after a depressing defeat. Seemingly requires multiple small red signs saying 'No skateboarding' because it's much too tempting a location for downward wheeled stuntsmanship. Undercroft: Two ticket machines, both of which say 'This ticket machine is no longer available' on the back even though they both seem to be working again. Next train indicator which hides trains when they're a minute away. Enormous expanse of hardstanding which occasionally floods. Lifts so far from the main staircases that they have their own separate Oyster reader.
A typical Wednesday: Very quiet. Slight rush of commuters walking up from Stratford High Street. Brief onslaught of schoolkids from Bobby Moore Academy. Very quiet again. Occasional tourists pulling suitcases. Hoodied figure doing wheelies under the viaduct. Fare dodgers who intend to walk the last bit into Stratford. After-school after-work 'rush'. Return to tumbleweed existence. General feeling that the station is unnecessarily enormous.
Tumbleweed: The station was supposed to be at the heart of a significant new residential neighbourhood. Most of the industry hereabouts was demolished after we won the Olympics, and they named the new neighbourhood as long ago as 2011. And yet 12 years after the Games not a single flat has been built within the Olympic footprint, not one, and vast areas of hardstanding remain. Some flats have been built on non-Olympic land, notably by the Marshgate Lane bridge and at the far end of Cooks Lane, but even here most of the demolished zone is unapartmented. The hoardings at East Quay say 'completions from Q4 2024' although no construction has yet begun. Two liftshafts at Legacy Wharf have only just reached the second floor.
The miracle: And then Abba turned up. Producers Svana Gisla and Ludvig Andersson needed a large accessible site for their secret Swedish light show and were thrilled to find Pudding Mill Lane met their requirements (although some of their investors apparently took more convincing). The auditorium took a year to build, initially without revealing its purpose, but in May 2022 the world turned up to watch four incredibly convincing 'abbatars' performing the ultimate back catalogue amid a dazzling lightshow. They've not stopped coming since. Apparently it earns over £1½m a week. [blogged][review]
A typical Saturday: Very quiet. A few more bored teenaged stunt cyclists than usual. Sudden arrival of provincial 60-somethings in glittery tops and swishy slacks, thinking there was some genuine need to get here early. Increasing onslaught of giggly families, spangled friends and overdressed ladies spilling across the street. Sudden quiet bit during the performance. Leery invasion by beery West Ham fans on occasional weekends. Repeated onslaught for evening performance. A few last strays hanging around outside the bar in the 'Snoozebox' container hotel.
Abbafication: The retail unit under the station, which for many years had looked absurdly optimistic, is now used by a shop selling Abba Voyage merchandise before and after shows, including £35 glam t-shirts and chequered pink and blue cardigans. The markerpen poets at @allontheboard have positioned one of their song-heavy odes between the ticket machines. The adverts on the platform are for Mamma Mia, Frozen and The Book of Mormon, because know your audience.
Looking forward: Plans for the future Pudding Mill neighbourhood were submitted in 2022, promising 948 mostly affordable homes and including at least one rather lofty landmark tower. They're not arriving any time soon, indeed completion isn't pencilled in until 2032. But the station's architects were planning ahead ten years ago because the staircases already have space inbuilt underneath in readiness for the installation of escalators. Also, and this is very clever forward thinking, "the precast brick panels that form the exterior of the station undercroft can be peeled back and replaced with an active street frontage and 1,000m2 of retail space." When thousands of people finally live here, perhaps a drycleaners, nail salon and bespoke fancy cafe will finally be needed.
And yet: The elephant in the room at Pudding Mill Lane is the Abba Arena which has been far more successful than ever imagined. When it opened it only had planning permission until 31st March 2025 meaning the building would have started to be dismantled at the end of this year. That deadline's since been extended to 2026 but the intention remains that it must disappear because the underlying plan for housing takes precedence. This prime spot by the station is needed for shops, a health centre, employment space and a community focus, even if that means sacrificing a world class tourist attraction for a pigeon-y piazza and few stacks of flats.
The future: The promoters would love Abba Voyage "to stay forever", because although the arena's technically reusable it's not economically viable to move it elsewhere, but it'd take a strategic change of heart for that to happen. The golden goose which put Pudding Mill Lane on the world map may yet fly away, replaced by an identikit neighbourhood of densely-packed housing with a station that's still unnecessarily enormous. Come back in ten more years and see how it all turns out.
