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Departmental locomotives on the London Underground consist of vehicles of a number of types which are used for engineering purposes. These include battery locomotives, diesel locomotives, electric locomotives, sleet locomotives, pilot motor cars and ballast motor cars. Details of the first four types are covered elsewhere. Pilot motor cars and ballast motor cars are generally vehicles which have been withdrawn from passenger service, but continue to be used by the engineering department. Pilot motor cars are used to move other vehicles around the system, while ballast motor cars are used to haul ballast trains and engineering trains. The first ballast motor cars were former trailer cars built for the Central London Railway in 1900, which were converted to motor cars for trials of the first multiple system to be used in Britain, and were retained for departmental use after 1903. These were followed by French and Hungarian Gate stock cars, built in 1906, which were converted in the 1920s and 1930s. The next batch consisted on 14 standard stock cars converted in 1953. Rolling stock reorganisation and replacement in the 1970s on the District and Metropolitan lines resulted in a number of surface stock cars being used for pilot motor duties. Subsequently motor cars of 1938 stock and 1960 stock were used for this purpose, and complete 4-car units of 1962 stock. The London Underground has also owned several departmental self-powered vehicles designed for other duties. These include a tunnel cleaning train, consisting of two 1938 stock motor cars and three purpose-built cars, which act like a giant vacuum cleaner, and can hold 6 tons of dust before the filter tanks need to be emptied. Three Plasser & Theurer track tamping machines were purchased in 1980, and two Unimog road-rail vehicles were obtained in 1983 and 1986, for use as depot shunters. ==Early ballast motor cars== When the Central London Railway opened in 1900, it used camel-back electric locomotives hauling six-car trains. The locomotives weighed 44 tons and were largely unsprung, causing severe vibration problems in properties near the line. In an effort to resolve the problem, four of the coaches were fitted with motors, in the first trial in Britain of the Sprague-Thomson-Houston multiple unit control system. The trials were a success, and multiple unit trains were running by 1903. Two of the trial cars, numbers 201 and 202, were retained and became the first ballast motor cars to work on the Underground. They worked in this form until about 1910, when batteries were fitted. They were renumbered L22 and L23 in 1929, and were scrapped in 1936 and 1937. The next batch of ballast motor cars were French-built gate stock cars, originally constructed in 1906, but converted in the early 1920s to run with the 1920 air-door stock. 20 motor cars were converted, but were replaced by more modern cars in 1930. Although 12 of the displaced cars were scrapped, six were kept as ballast motor cars, becoming numbers L24 to L29 in the service fleet. The final two were further converted to run as single cars on the Aldwych shuttle. During the Second World War they were used as pilot motor cars for refreshment trains on the Piccadilly line, which supplied food to people sleeping on the stations to escape from the bombing of the city. They returned to the Aldwych shuttle between 1946 and 1949, but were again used as pilot motor cars after that, transferring cars between the engineering works at Acton and various depots. They were both coupled to a flat wagon for a period, and were used to transfer stores from Acton Works to Northfields depot, and also took stores to Croxley Green and Queens Park depots on the Bakerloo line. Four Hungarian-built gate stock motor cars were used as ballast motor cars, and were numbered L13 to L16. The final one was stored in 1955, in the hope that it would be restored and preserved, but by 1960, the project appeared to be too costly, and so the gate end of the car was cut off, and the rest of it was scrapped. After refurbishment, the gate was displayed at the London Transport Museum. A further four Hungarian motor cars from the Piccadilly line were used as pilot motor cars during the reconstruction of the Hampstead line in 1922, and were numbered L17 to L20. Once a spur between the Hampstead line and the Piccadilly line at Kings Cross station was opened on 27 March 1927, it became much easier to transfer ballast motor cars between lines. The 14 departmental vehicles which were operational in 1934 continued to be used until 1953, by which time their age made maintenance very difficult. They were replaced over the next two years and scrapped. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「London Underground departmental stock」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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