Central London Railway - Rolling Stock

Rolling Stock

1903 driving motor car heading a train at Bank station

Greathead had originally planned for the trains to be hauled by a pair of small electric locomotives, one at each end of a train, but the Board of Trade rejected this proposal and a larger locomotive was designed which was able to pull up to seven carriages on its own. Twenty-eight locomotives were manufactured in America by the General Electric Company (of which syndicate member Darius Ogden Mills was a director) and assembled in the Wood Lane depot. A fleet of 168 carriages was manufactured by the Ashbury Railway Carriage and Iron Company and the Brush Electrical Engineering Company. Passengers boarded and left the trains through folding lattice gates at each end of the carriages; these gates were operated by guards who rode on an outside platform. The CLR had originally intended to have two classes of travel, but dropped the plan before opening, although its carriages were built with different qualities of interior fittings for this purpose.

Soon after the railway opened, complaints about vibrations from passing trains began to be made by occupiers of buildings along the route. The vibrations were caused by the heavy, largely unsprung locomotives which weighed 44 tons (44.7 tonnes). The Board of Trade set up a committee to investigate the problem, and the CLR experimented with two solutions. For the first solution, three locomotives were modified to use lighter motors and were provided with improved suspension, so the weight was reduced to 31 tons (31.5 tonnes), more of which was sprung to reduce vibrations; for the second solution, two six-carriage trains were formed that had the two end carriages converted and provided with driver's cabs and their own motors so they could run as multiple units without a separate locomotive. The lighter locomotives did reduce the vibrations felt at the surface, but the multiple units removed it almost completely and the CLR chose to adopt that solution. The committee's report, published in 1902, also found that the CLR's choice of 100 lb/yard (49.60 kg/m) bridge rail for its tracks rather than a stiffer bullhead rail on cross sleepers contributed to the vibration.

Following the report, the CLR purchased 64 driving motor carriages for use with the existing stock; together, these were formed into six- or seven-carriage trains. The change to multiple unit operation was completed by June 1903 and all but two of the locomotives were scrapped. Those two were retained for shunting use in the depot.