North Staffordshire Railway (NSR) No. 1 is one of only two battery electric locomotives to be employed by a main line company. The other was built by Midland Railway in Derby in 1913 for shunting at Poplar docks.

No. 1 was designed to be able to contend with the narrow internal railway of Thomas Bolton & Sons Ltd. Copper Works; the locomotive worked at Bolton’s Oakamoor Works for all of its working life, from 1917 to 1963.

When No. 1 started work in 1917 it replaced three shunting horses. On one charge, No. 1 could run for up to six hours and haul a load of more than four times its weight at 11mph, a fair speed for a shunter.

The locomotive was withdrawn from service in 1963 and entered the National Collection in 1975.