This line was built in 1890 and first opened in 1896. It originally opened with stock remarkably similar to the Central London Railway when it originally opened. Since then, it was replaced with Class 483's, which were similar to London Underground's 1938 stock, now in operation on the Isle of Wight in Hampshire. While the Central Line was going through its major train renewal, 8 more units were ordered for the Network South-East owned Waterloo & City line. These were nicknamed class 482's, which are London Underground's 1992 stock, they are exactly the same, and not different in any way apart from the in-train announcements on the doors closing, where the pitch of the beep is very slightly different.
In 1994, the Tube was given ownership of this line due to the privatisation of British Rail. It was not feasible to run the Waterloo & City line as part of the railways due to the similar guage to the Tube. It was therefore decided that the London Underground should gain ownership of the London Underground network. London Underground have not since repainted the Tube trains on the Waterloo & City line, but on some units, they have been numbered accordingly from their old number while being a BR class 482. Some of the numbers begin with 00, having the final numbers as the last 3 numbers of the original train number.
This is therefore the only reason of the different between the main Tube network, and the Waterloo & City Line.
Took me a while to write, but I sure enjoyed writing it
