#6337
London Underground electric locomotives
🇬🇧 United Kingdom ·built by Unknown builder· History of electric trains in the London Underground
1 photo from Wikimedia Commons · credits & licences
- 1. Electric railway train: Wikimedia Commons· Public domain
what is it?
Electric locomotives were first used on the London Underground when the first deep-level tube line, the City and South London Railway (C&SLR), was opened in 1890. The first underground railways in London, the Metropolitan Railway (MR) and the District Railway (DR), used specially built steam locomotives to haul their trains through shallow tunnels which had many ventilation openings to allow steam and smoke to clear from the tunnels. It was impractical to use steam locomotives in the small unvented tubular tunnels of the deep-level lines, and the only options were rope haulage (as on the Glasgow Subway) or electric locomotives.
who runs it
base stats
Bars compare against all trains: 600 km/h (maglev), 1,700 seats; power, weight and number built on a log scale up to 20 MW, 1,000 t and 20,000 built.
spec sheet
- built
- —
- number built
- 52
- kind
- Deep-level tube
- traction
- electric
- origin
- 🇬🇧 United Kingdom
- builders
- Unknown builder
- operators
- City and South London Railway
- top speed
- —
- power
- 75 kW
From the Wikipedia infobox and Wikidata. Blank means the sources don't say.
Sources: Wikidata Q6670961, Wikipedia: London Underground electric locomotives (CC BY-SA 4.0).Updated 2026-10-25.