Trough battery Trough battery The trough battery was a variant of Alessandro Volta's Voltaic Pile and was invented by William Cruickshank c. 1800. Volta's battery consisted of brine-soaked pieces of cloth sandwiched between zinc and copper discs, piled in a stack. This resulted in electrolyte leakage as the weight of the discs squeezed the electrolyte out of the cloth. Cruickshank solved this problem by laying the battery on its side in a rectangular box. The inside of this box was lined with shellac for insulation, and pairs of welded-together zinc and copper plates were laid out in this box, evenly spaced. The
Polar Bear (battery-electric locomotive) Polar Bear (battery-electric locomotive) Polar Bear was a gauge battery-electric locomotive built by Wingrove & Rogers in 1921 as works no. 314 for the Groudle Glen Railway on the Isle of Man. Together with its sister, "Sea Lion", they were intended to replace two Bagnall steam locos of the same names. The locos were not a success and, despite "Polar Bear" being rebuilt with bogies and a battery truck, the steam locos were reboilered and returned to traffic. "Polar Bear" was eventually scrapped acround 1926. A replica loco was built by Alan Keef in 2003 for the rebuilt Groudle Glen