LRT Technical Details

LRT at Green Lane

The full train consists of 3 cars: ‘D’ Car 11231 (powered), Centre Car 012314 (unpowered) and ‘A’ car 10231 (powered).
Each car is approximately 7ft long and approximately 1ft 5in from roof to rail top.
The train can, and usually does, operate without the centre car, which is currently under overhaul off-site.

The train is powered by 4 12V 110Ah leisure batteries, two in each driving car.
Each pair is connected in series to give a 24V supply to the motor controller.

The motors are 150W and each motor drives directly onto the adjacent axle.
Although all all 8 axles in the two driving cars are fitted with motor mounts and gears, not all axles are currently motored.

Motor control is provided by a 4QD 24V controller with plug-in hand controller. The hand controller can be plugged in at the either end of the train, to allow it to operate as a true ‘multiple unit’.

LRT Hand Controller
The hand controller for the Little Red Train

At full power, the train can reach a speed of approximately 10mph, but is rarely able to run at that speed, 2-5mph is far more common.

Braking is currently provided by using the regenerative braking feature of the motors and motor controller. The motors are turned into generators, which slows the train and returns some of the energy back to the batteries.

Up to 9 passengers can be carried on the two car set, or 12-13 on the three car set.
With a full charge, the train can operate all day without any loss of performance.