Collections close up: City & South London Railway electric locomotive and coach, 1890
Introduction
Manufactured in Manchester in 1890, this locomotive and coach are the only surviving vehicles from the first electric underground railway in the world. They mark the beginning of the London Tube system on which the city now depends and started a revolution in urban transport.
Design
When originally proposed in 1884, the City & South London Railway (C&SLR) had intended to use cable haulage powered by steam engines. In 1888 they were persuaded to try electricity, a new form of motive power.
The new electric locomotives were largely experimental and could not be tested in the tunnels as nobody had built an electric tube railway before. It was soon clear that they were not powerful enough and struggled with the heavy carriages.
When new the carriages had no windows, as their designers thought passengers wouldn’t need to see out if they were underground. The carriages were a tight fit in the narrow tunnels. When turning sharp corners at speed they sometimes hit the tunnel walls.
Improvements were made when the railway expanded in 1900 and new trains were needed. Later Tubes learned from the C&SLR’s mistakes.
Journeys
The original City & South London Railway (C&SLR) line was about 5km (3 miles) long, running from Stockwell in south London, then a middle class suburb, to King William Street in the City of London.
Passengers reached the platforms by another novel feature, hydraulic lifts. Journeys were clean and fast compared to the old steam underground, but the coaches felt cramped, uncomfortable and noisy. Each of the three coaches could seat 32 passengers, but numbers doubled at busy times, inspiring Punch magazine to call it the ‘sardine box railway’.
Passengers nicknamed the coaches ‘padded cells’ because of the high-backed bench seats and lack of windows.
A gateman opened and closed the folding gates and end doors at each stop and called out the station name. All passengers paid a flat fare of 2d, or 3d for a return ticket. One out of three carriages was for smokers, and men only.
Service
Electric locomotive number 13 is one of the original 14 locomotives built for the City & South London Railway (C&SLR) by Mather & Platt of Manchester. Coach number 30 was also built in Manchester, by the Ashbury Carriage & Wagon Company. Both were withdrawn from service in 1922.
The coach had full-size windows fitted around 1900 but was restored to its original condition in 1925. It was displayed at an early version of the London Transport Museum (LTM) at London Transport’s Chiswick Works site in 1928, until moving to the York Railway Museum in 1938. It travelled south once more in 1962, to the Museum of British Transport at Clapham, and has been on display here in Covent Garden since 1980.
The locomotive was presented to the Science Museum in 1924 and was displayed there for many years. It has been on loan to LTM since 1990.
See this locomotive in person
This locomotive is on display in the Museum in our Digging Deeper gallery. See it on the ground floor during a visit!
Construction on early underground lines was expensive and chaotic. Explore how the Greathead shield made digging deep tunnels much easier and helped build the world's first electric railway.
Find out about our Annual Pass options to visit the Museum. Passes are valid for a year, and kids go free!
Discover the history of London's transport and stories of the people who have travelled and worked in the city over the last 200 years, as well as a peek into the future of travel in the Capital with a visit to London Transport Museum.
