Although electrification had progressed rapidly in southern Germany, there were still many sidings in the areas of the stations and depots that did not have overhead lines. However, since one wanted to do without steam locomotives in shunting operations and also wanted to make their treatment facilities superfluous, one was looking for a different propulsion technology. Because the development of the diesel locomotives was still in its infancy, the decision was ultimately made to use an electric locomotive with batteries to bridge longer stretches that were not electrified.

In order to achieve sufficient battery capacity, the locomotive had to be relatively large and heavy and could only achieve a fraction of the hourly output of the E 60 that was already in use. However, since a large amount of adhesion is an advantage when shunting and the lack of power did not matter too much due to the low speeds, the advantages of the designed locomotive outweighed the negative.

Due to the high weight, six axles had to be used in order to keep the axle load at a tolerable level. The outer axles of both bogies were driven by nose-suspended motors and the middle axles were carrying axles. The body had a typical crocodile shape with large hoods containing the batteries, two driver's cabs in the middle and between them a machine room. At 400 kW, the transformer had a significantly higher output than could be delivered to the traction motors in order to ensure that the batteries were sufficiently charged in every situation. The locomotive's greatest weakness was the mercury rectifier, as it had to be re-ignited after an interruption in the power supply.

The five machines built were used at Munich station and in the immediate vicinity, where they performed well, with the exception of the weak point mentioned. After the war there were four remaining, which were in regular use until 1959 and were then replaced by shunting locomotives with diesel engines. Only the E 80 01 was used for two more years to test components for multi-system locomotives.

The E.421 was a battery operated shunter built in 1921 and used at Milan Central Station. The locomotive was built by Carminati & Toselli with electrical equipment by Tecnomasio Italiano Brown Boveri. It stood on two bogies, each with two traction motors, and had a cab in the middle. The batteries came from the Società Generale Italiana Accumulatori, were housed in two long hoods and weighed a total of 30 tonnes. They supplied the traction motors with a voltage of 450 volts.

With this equipment, the E.421 reached a top speed of 25 km/h, which made it virtually impossible to use it outside the station. Despite a continuous output of just 140 kW, the locomotive had to be charged after about an hour of shunting, which severely restricted the possible uses. For these reasons and because of the relatively complex maintenance, there was only one locomotive built. This was retired after only two years and there were initially plans to convert it for the 650 volt DC network with conductor rails of the Varese railway. After these plans were not implemented, the locomotive was scrapped in 1935 and it remained the only battery locomotive of the Italian State Railways.

Eb 25 after the rebuild to a diesel locomotive

Museum of Transport and Technology

In 1925, the NZR had a battery locomotive built for shunting by the Goodman Manufacturing Co. in the USA. Four more were built in New Zealand four years later. The class designation was EB for “Electric Battery”. A total of 120 battery cells delivered an output of 32 hp. Although new batteries would have been needed shortly before the start of the Second World War, they were not replaced. It was not until the 1950s that they were rebuilt to diesel-electric locomotives with twice the power while retaining the traction motors. The central driver's cab was replaced with an end driver's cab. They were retired in the second half of the 1970s.