London Railway Halted Again After Swan Turns Up on Track During Rush Hour

Imagine turning up to work late and telling the boss: 'It was the swan!' It happened on Monday as the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) track on Pudding Mill Lane was delayed because a swan wandered onto the track. Services were suspended as staff waited for wildlife experts to intervene, leaving passengers stranded during one of the busiest travel windows of the week.

The incident quickly drew attention online, with one user posting on X: 'Swan on the tracks #DLR #London.' It came with a short video of the swan milling around the track.

Rush Hour Suspension

The suspension came during rush hour, roughly between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. According to reports, it lasted more than an hour as Transport for London (TfL) had to wait for wildlife rescue to deal with the swan. Passengers, meanwhile, were told to disembark.

'We apologise for any disruption to customer journeys earlier this morning due to a swan on the track near Bow Church station,' Helen Gregory, head of operations for the DLR at TfL, told a local publication. Services between Stratford and Bow Church / Canary Wharf were affected.

'Services in the area were suspended while a trained swan rescue team attended the scene, safely rescued the swan and returned it to a suitable local habitat,' she added. According to the TfL website, the DLR is the busiest light railway in the UK, operating across six opportunity areas in London.

Not the First Time

This is not the first time birds, particularly swans, have delayed railway tracks. Last September, the Mildmay line was also suspended for over an hour while a TfL staff member tried to shoo a swan away from the track. Employees later learned that the swan was injured.

Employees cannot unilaterally remove swans or any kind of wildlife on track and anywhere else. Seeing mute swans around the UK is not totally uncommon, as they are wild swans native to the UK.

'The population in the UK has increased recently, perhaps due to better protection of the species,' the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) said of mute swans. 'The problem of lead poisoning on lowland rivers has also largely been solved by a ban on the sale of lead fishing weights.'

Further, RSPB said that many of the mute swans live in the UK for the whole year, while some are migratory birds from other European countries during winter. According to the organisation, there are 6,500 pairs of UK breeding mute swans and 50,500 wintering mute swans.

Training of Railway Workers

To reduce delays caused by wildlife, Network Rail had planned to team up with experts to train railway workers on how to safely remove swans from tracks. In 2024, the agency collaborated with the Swan Sanctuary in Shepperton.

Mobile operations managers and front-line operations responders had hands-on and practical training at the sanctuary. They learned how to deal with aggressive swans and recognize signs of danger. Railway workers also learned how to safely capture birds and bag them properly in a swan wrap.

Network Rail, in a 2024 report, noted that mute swans are not the only animals causing transportation delays. There were 1,432 incidents logged that year, and among the errant animals were deer, donkeys, hedgehogs and mice.