This is my battery locomotive. It is the first of my LU creations but the last one to be functionally complete.
London Underground's service stock fleet includes 35 battery locomotives of which 29 are all built to the same basic design. This design dates back to 1938. My Loco is one of these. The locos are designed to the tube loading gauge (to fit in LU's 12ft diameter tunnels) In Lego that gauge equates to eight bricks in height (including track). These locos are ordinarily used to haul engineer's trains.
The interior of the locomotive is dominated by its batteries. These enable it to run on the tracks when the 630v DC power is switched off for maintenance work. It can also run on live power and ordinarily uses the live current to charge the batteries.
The locos have different couplings. One couples full size gauge trains and the other couples tube trains (which have much lower couplings). All have been refitted with buckeye and some have Ward couplers fitted. The locos are familiarly known as 'Rats'.
Due to the relative lack of info either on the internet or in literature I made a visit to London Transport's Museum Depot where there is one of the 1938 originals preserved. The following seven pictures are among those taken by me for details of the locos.
Rat Mk3. This was the first one to be built. It is in an all red livery due to a lack of yellow 1x2x2 plane windows. This is a relevant though not correct livery for an LU loco.
