The London Post Office Railway 1927 Stock was a type of twin-axle electric stock built in 1927 by British manufacturer English Electric. Ninety of these four-wheeled units were built for the London Post Office Railway system, on which they became the first electric stock to be operated on the underground rail system.
Having been built by English Electric throughout 1927 and introduced onto the London Post Office Railways underground network, the 1927 Stock units quickly proved to be overwhelmed by the amount of mail required to be carried on the network.
Along with this, the 1927 Stock proved to not be very reliable as they suffered from mechanical unreliability and high driving wheel wear, this being due to their fixed wheelbase, [1] while also causing heavy track wear themselves as they had problems with the tight curves on the underground lines. [2] [3] Combined with this was their lack of capacity while moving mail through the capital. Due to these problems they were soon replaced by the 1930 Stock units, of which fifty were built. These new units were articulated and solved many of the problems experienced with the 1927 stock. The first batch of these units also reused the wheels, axles and electrical equipment from the 1927 Stock. [1]
A single 1927 Stock unit, 601, has been preserved by the British Postal Museum and Archive and is on display at the museum in London. The unit was retrieved by the museum from the London Post Office Railways Mount Pleasant workshops in 2011 [2] where after it underwent a process of conservation prior to being put on display. [4]
In service the 1927 Stock units were numbered 591 to 680 and were coupled together to work in 2-car or 3-car trains. They were twin-axle units and used a 4wRE wheel arrangement while being powered by two traction motors which provided the units with a power output of 22 hp (16kW). [1]
They received their power from a 440 V DC third rail electrification system [1] and traveled on 2 ft (610 mm) gauge track within a custom narrow loading gauge.
Each unit was capable of carrying a single wheeled trolley, in which were housed the mail bags. These trolleys were loaded or unloaded at the various stops along the underground network. [1]
A locomotive or engine is a rail transport vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. If a locomotive is capable of carrying a payload, it is usually rather referred to as a multiple unit, motor coach, railcar or power car; the use of these self-propelled vehicles is increasingly common for passenger trains, but rare for freight.
The Post Office Railway, is a 2 ft narrow gauge, driverless underground railway in London that was built by the Post Office with assistance from the Underground Electric Railways Company of London, to transport mail between sorting offices. Inspired by the Chicago Tunnel Company, it opened in 1927 and operated for 76 years until it closed in 2003. A museum within the former railway was opened in September 2017.
Rail transport is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a prepared flat surface, rail vehicles are directionally guided by the tracks on which they run. Tracks usually consist of steel rails, installed on sleepers (ties) set in ballast, on which the rolling stock, usually fitted with metal wheels, moves. Other variations are also possible, such as "slab track", in which the rails are fastened to a concrete foundation resting on a prepared subsurface.
A tram is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport are called tramways or simply trams/streetcars. Many recently built tramways use the contemporary term light rail. The vehicles are called streetcars or trolleys in North America and trams or tramcars elsewhere. The first two terms are often used interchangeably in the United States, with trolley being the preferred term in the eastern US and streetcar in the western US. Streetcar or tramway are preferred in Canada. In parts of the United States, internally powered buses made to resemble a streetcar are often referred to as "trolleys". To avoid further confusion with trolley buses, the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) refers to them as "trolley-replica buses". In the United States, the term tram has sometimes been used for rubber-tired trackless trains, which are unrelated to other kinds of trams.
A heritage railway or heritage railroad is a railway operated as living history to re-create or preserve railway scenes of the past. Heritage railways are often old railway lines preserved in a state depicting a period in the history of rail transport.
A third rail, also known as a live rail, electric rail or conductor rail, is a method of providing electric power to a railway locomotive or train, through a semi-continuous rigid conductor placed alongside or between the rails of a railway track. It is used typically in a mass transit or rapid transit system, which has alignments in its own corridors, fully or almost fully segregated from the outside environment. Third rail systems are usually supplied from direct current electricity.
An electric locomotive is a locomotive powered by electricity from overhead lines, a third rail or on-board energy storage such as a battery or a supercapacitor. Locomotives with on-board fuelled prime movers, such as diesel engines or gas turbines, are classed as diesel-electric or gas turbine-electric and not as electric locomotives, because the electric generator/motor combination serves only as a power transmission system.
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 0-6-0 represents the wheel arrangement of no leading wheels, six powered and coupled driving wheels on three axles and no trailing wheels. This was the most common wheel arrangement used on both tender and tank locomotives in versions with both inside and outside cylinders.
Metro-Cammell, formally the Metropolitan Cammell Carriage and Wagon Company (MCCW), was an English manufacturer of railway carriages, locomotives and railway wagons, based in Saltley, and subsequently Washwood Heath, in Birmingham. Purchased by GEC Alsthom in May 1989, the Washwood Heath factory was closed in 2005.
The Birmingham Railway Carriage and Wagon Company (BRC&W) was a railway locomotive and carriage builder, founded in Birmingham, England and, for most of its existence, located at nearby Smethwick, with the factory divided by the boundary between the two places. The company was established in 1854.
Brush Traction is a manufacturer and maintainer of railway locomotives in Loughborough, England. It is a subsidiary of Wabtec.
The Indian Railways primarily operates fleet of electric and diesel locomotives, along with several compressed natural gas (CNG) locomotives. Steam locomotives are operated on a few World Heritage Sites and also run occasionally as heritage trains. A locomotive is also known as a loco or more popularly as an engine. The country's first steam locomotive ran on the Red Hill Railway from Red Hills to the Chintadripet bridge in Madras in 1837.
Co-Co is the wheel arrangement for diesel or electric locomotives with two six-wheeled bogies with all axles powered, with a separate traction motor per axle. The equivalent UIC classification (Europe) for this arrangement is Co′Co′, or C-C for AAR.
B-B and Bo-Bo are the Association of American Railroads (AAR) and British classifications of wheel arrangement for railway locomotives with four axles in two individual bogies. They are equivalent to the B′B′ and Bo′Bo′ classifications in the UIC system. The arrangement of two, two-axled, bogies is a common wheel arrangement for modern electric and diesel locomotives.
This article contains a list of jargon used to varying degrees by railfans, trainspotters, and railway employees in the United Kingdom, including nicknames for various locomotives and multiple units. Although not exhaustive, many of the entries in this list appear from time to time in specialist, rail-related publications. There may be significant regional variation in usage.
An electric multiple unit or EMU is a multiple-unit train consisting of self-propelled carriages using electricity as the motive power. An EMU requires no separate locomotive, as electric traction motors are incorporated within one or a number of the carriages. An EMU is usually formed of two or more semi-permanently coupled carriages, but electrically powered single-unit railcars are also generally classed as EMUs. The great majority of EMUs are passenger trains, but versions also exist for carrying mail.
The Great Laxey Mine Railway was originally constructed to serve the Isle of Man's Great Laxey Mine, a lead mine located in Laxey. The 19 in gauge railway runs from the old mine entrance to the washing floors along a right of way that passes through the Isle of Man's only remaining railway tunnel under the 3 ft gauge Victorian Manx Electric Railway and the main A2 Douglas to Ramsey coast road.
Diesel multiple units and railcars are trains, usually with passenger accommodation, that do not require a locomotive. Railcars can be single cars, while in multiple units cars are marshalled together with a driving position either end. As of December 2010, 23 percent of the rail passenger cars used on Network Rail are part of a diesel multiple unit.
The British Rail Class 230D-Train is a diesel electric multiple unit or battery EMU built by rolling stock manufacturer Vivarail for the British rail network. The units are converted from old London Underground D78 Stock, originally manufactured in 1980 by Metro-Cammell. The conversion re-uses the D78's aluminium bodyshells with new interiors. It runs on the same bogies but these are rebuilt to as-new standard by Wabtec and fitted with brand new three-phase AC induction motors sourced from Austria. The initial build of three vehicles for London Northwestern Railway replaces the four-rail traction-current system with four diesel gen-sets, driving eight traction motors via purpose built electronic traction control units.
The GE 25-ton switcher is a model of diesel-electric switcher locomotive that was produced by GE Transportation at their Erie, Pennsylvania, facility between 1941 and 1974. Most examples were produced for industrial customers or the United States Armed Forces, although a number of examples were purchased by freight railroads as well. The majority of production was for customers in the United States and Canada, but export models were produced for buyers on five continents. Production totaled approximately 550 units over 33 years, making it one of the most widely produced switchers in American history.
| London Post Office Railway rolling stock | |
| Locomotives: | 1926 electric locomotives |
| Electric units: | 1927 - 1930 - 1936 - 1962 - 1980 |
