1985/6 vintage Metro-Cammell Battery Locos

Sorry I don't know which is which, but you do get a very good view of all the locos in Bing Maps (www.bing.com/maps). Once you can see the "N" shape go to "Arial -> Bird's Eye". If you do "Rotate" you get 4 different angles, and can almost see the numbers.

Can anyone tel me when these locos (L62 - L67) were withdrawn from service?

L62 Out of service mothballed 22.04.93
L63 Out of service mothballed 29.03.93
L64 Out of service mothballed 17.03.93
L65 Out of service mothballed 16.05.94
L66 Out of service mothballed 01.07.93
L67 Out of service mothballed 23.04.93

Indeed they didn't.

I think the excuse at the time was "not a lot of them", "non-standard" and (because of those reasons) "costly to maintain" when there were plenty of locos available for the work then around.

I have to pass on what happened to the bogies.

The 1985 Battery Locos had (have?) separate Traction and Brake handles.
The Traction control allowed you to select each individual notch through 'Series' (about 8 notches ISTR) then there were two more notches on the control handle for Series Parallel and Parallel. All notching was under an electronic current limit control equivalent to a notching relay. You could notch up or down with this control so there was quite fine control for low speed site work, especially when on battery. You could also select nominally 192V, 320V or 512V battery groups.
The brake had a Davies & Metcalfe handle and drivers brake valve. It's quite possible that the minimum application wasn't quite as low as ideal for the driving technique mentioned.
There was quite a lot about these locos that was clever, but really they were hobbled in my opinion by two things:
1. They were far too complicated. There was no real need for the three different traction battery voltages. The specification was really in error, written before Operational changes which meant that transit to and from worksites was on line supply and the batteries are only used in the worksite. Each part (192V and 320V) of the battery had its own Motor Alternator to charge it. There were no less than 11 contactors to set up the various supply groups, then a camshaft to do the resistance switching and Series/Series Parallel/Parallel grouping.
2. The control system used 50V with a standard passenger stock battery and a third MA set to charge it. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to put in a low battery protection circuit. Crews tended to trip all the MAs after work was finished to make the loco nice and quiet for an hour or so before the return trip to depot in the morning. This used to ruin the 50V battery. Fortunately we were allowed to fit an Emergency Start switch which allowed key switchgear to close from the 600V line supply and get everything going again.

The cabs were more more roomy and comfy than the traditional LUL battery locos but still had the big divider in the middle accomodating the drawgear. The motors were refurbished MV145s (ex CO/CP stock).

AIUI, the locos took longer and cost more to maintain and had no real operational advantage, so when there were more locos than needed, they obviously got the chop. There have been several initiatives to refurbish them but the various studies have never progressed to reality.