The Southern Handbook E-Book

David Wragg

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 523

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

The Southern Railway may not have been the most glamorous of the 'Big Four' companies that emerged from the grouping of 1923, but it was the great innovator. In the 1930s the Southern pioneered the first main-line electrification and created the largest electrified suburban railway network in the world. It was also one of the few to offer regular departures and the first to run true international services, introducing the 'Night Ferry' through-trains from London to Paris using special ferries. Forming part of a series, along with The GWR Handbook, The LMS Handbook and The LNER Handbook, this new edition provides an authoritative and highly detailed reference of information about the Southern Railway.

Leseprobe

A continental express is headed by 4–6–0 ‘Lord Nelson’ class Sir Walter Raleigh through Knockholt in 1929. (HRMS AAG311)

Cover illustrations: All images are courtesy of HMRS.

First published by Sutton Publishing, 2003

This edition first published by Haynes Publishing, 2010

Re-issued by The History Press, 2017

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

This ebook edition first published in 2017

All rights reserved© David Wragg, 2017

The right of David Wragg to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

EPUB ISBN 978 0 7509 8506 2

Original typesetting by The History Press

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction to the 2017 Edition

Introduction – Railways in the South

  1.   The Ancestors

  2.   The London Termini

  3.   Southern Destinations

  4.   A New Railway for a New Era

  5.   The Managers

  6.   The ‘Sparks Effect’ – Electrification

  7.   Steam Twilight

  8.   Closures, New Lines and Junctions

  9.   ‘ACE’ and the ‘Belles’

10.   Selling the Southern

11.   Shipping Services

12.   Road Transport and Feeder Services

13.   Air Services and Airports

14.   Accidents

15.   Railways at War

16.   Railways under Attack

17.   Deliverance and Nationalisation

18.   What Might Have Been

Appendices:

I Locomotive Headcodes

II Station Name Changes Post-Grouping

III Locomotives Inherited by the Southern Railway in 1923

IV Southern Railway Locomotives

V Electric Rolling Stock

VI Utility Stock and Beyond

VII Maps of the Southern Electric

Bibliography

Bulleids’ wartime utility ‘Q1’ class were far from being the most attractive of locomotives but still had many features that clearly associated them with his more famous express engines. This is No. 33039 after nationalisation, but still proclaiming Southern ownership, at Wandsworth Road. (HRMS AER206)

Despite the growing threat of nationalisation, the Southern continued to look ahead as the war ended. It was clear that not every line could justify electrification, so diesel traction was considered, including this 1600 hp diesel mechanical locomotive, whose lower axle loadings could have made it ideal for the many secondary routes. The lack of a cab at both ends seems strange, especially in the light of the Southern’s work on electric locomotives and the ‘Leader’ class steam locomotive. (NRM Brighton Collection B246)

Acknowledgements

In writing any book such as this, an author is always indebted to those who help with such important matters as, for example, the quest for photographs. In this case I am especially grateful to the late Mr A.E.W. ‘Bert’ Colbourn of the Historical Model Railway Society for the use of their considerable archive of material on the Southern Railway, its predecessors and heirs. Thanks are also due to the staff of the National Railway Museum, especially Mrs Lynne Thurston, Reading Room Supervisor, and her colleague Martin Bashforth, and to Kevin Robertson for his photograph of the ‘Leader’ class prototype.

Times are given throughout as am and pm as the 24-hour clock was not in use on public transport during the period covered by this book, and also to make references to the timetable extracts easier. In the photograph captions HMRS refers to the Historical Model Railway Society, and NRM to the National Railway Museum.

David WraggEdinburgh

Southern pride! The docks at Southampton, and local bus companies as well, in the 1947 timetable. Had the Southern not been nationalised, airlines would have appeared before long. (Southern Railway)

Introduction to the 2017 Edition

Some seventy years after the railways were nationalised, the Southern Railway was a shining example of what private enterprise could do, despite a discouraging financial situation with the General Strike, the coal miners’ strike – or strike by colliers in the language of the day – and the years of the Great Depression.

As the smallest of the so-called ‘Big Four’ railway companies formed by the grouping of 1923, the Southern Railway has often been overlooked. It did not set speed records and did not connect either the Scottish or Welsh capitals with London. To many it was little more than a suburban railway, with even places beyond the London suburbs still being in commuter land. Some of its advertising highlighted this fact, with slogans such as ‘Live in Surrey, far from worry’, or ‘Live in Kent and be content’.

In this way, the Southern was underestimated. It may not have linked Cardiff or Edinburgh with London, but it did link London and Paris, and before the Second World War a passenger could board the ‘Night Ferry’ sleeper at Victoria and alight the following morning at the Gare du Nord in Paris without having left the compartment during the journey. By this time, it had also completed the world’s largest electrified railway.

The Southern was acutely aware of the growing competition from air transport and saw the answer in the luxurious ‘Golden Arrow’ all-Pullman express with its French counterpart the ‘Fleche d’Or’. It linked the two trains with an all-first-class ferry, Canterbury.

Another Pullman was the ‘Bournemouth Belle’, linking London with Southampton and Bournemouth, while the world’s first electric Pullman was the ‘Brighton Belle’, which took just an hour to link Brighton and London Victoria.

The Southern was overwhelmingly a passenger railway, although there were through goods vans running from its rails onto those of the French railways using the same ferries that transported the Night Ferry sleeping cars. Much of the coal carried along its tracks was for its own consumption or for the householders who were served by the many coal merchants with premises in its sidings.

Instead of locomotive-hauled trains, the Southern preferred electric multiple units, even on mainline services, enabling a fast turnaround when a train reached its destination. Not every line justified this treatment, and trains to the South West remained steam hauled until the end. For such services, the Southern planned to use diesels and collaborated with the London Midland Scottish in the design of future diesel-electric locomotives.

The Southern was forward-looking. It designed double deck suburban trains and even designed a steam locomotive, the first of the ‘Leader’ class, that would operate equally well in either direction, just as a diesel or electric engine could, but sadly it proved too hot and uncomfortable in the extreme for the unfortunate fireman. There were plans for a tunnel to link the Isle of Wight with the mainland. As one of the leaders in Railway Air Services, the Southern wanted to buy the European services of Imperial Airways, but was rebuffed. During the Second World War, the company even found time to indentify a site for a postwar London airport in Kent, with a railway connection, of course.

The Big Four all took a different approach to grouping, each absorbing many smaller companies and some larger ones as well. At times, the Southern seemed to pretend that it hadn’t happened. It had an Easter Division for the former South East and Chatham routes; a Central Division for the former LBSC services; and a Western Division for the old London & South Western Railway. There was a new London Division for suburban services, but it took some time before an opening appeared at Victoria Station to link the old LBSC and LCDR platforms, or for a single stationmaster to be appointed. There was a similar lack of urgency at London Bridge.

On the other hand, the Southern was the unifying force on the Isle of Wight, which had no less than three railway companies pre-grouping. One of them, the Isle of Wight Railway, operated on a summer Saturday at frequencies that were more usual on busy suburban lines, using elderly tank engines.

Like the other companies, the Southern invested in road transport – initially investing in and, in some cases, buying companies, including Southern Vectis on the Isle of Wight and Southern National in Dorset – as well as taking a stake in other companies in its area, such as Aldershot & District.

There can be no doubt that the Southern Railway, while the smallest of the Big Four, was a great railway. Much of the credit for this belongs to its first general manager, Sir Herbert Ashcombe Walker, a staunch supporter of electrification. At a difficult time for the world economy, the Southern’s management invested and saw strong traffic growth as a result.

This is the story of a great company that could claim to be the first truly modern railway.

Introduction

Railways in the South

Most people who have any affection for a particular railway do so for reasons that go beyond the simple achievements of the line in question. My first remembered contact with trains was standing on the platform at Winchester as first one and then another express thundered through towards London, and even at that tender age I noticed that while the two Bulleid steam engines seemed almost identical, one looked smaller than the other. No doubt I had seen a ‘Merchant Navy’ class hauling an express from Bournemouth, while either a ‘Battle of Britain’ or a ‘West Country’ pulled a boat train from Southampton Docks. I went to a boarding school on a Southern ferry and then down the old main line of the Isle of Wight Railway, and started work as a weekly commuter on the Portsmouth Direct, before commuting regularly from Haslemere and then from Woking.

In my day, much of the Southern’s rolling stock was still around, but seeming increasingly neglected and eventually dated. British Railways invested heavily in lines to the north and Scotland, first of all modernising with diesel electrics, and then repeating the process with electric trains, first on the lines to the north-west and on the West Coast route, while travellers in the south made do with increasingly unreliable pre-war rolling stock. This was the penalty for the Southern having got it right first time round, while British Railways, flush with money from the taxpayer, needed two bites at the cherry! It is always easier to spend someone else’s money, and the other great attribute of the Southern Railway, lest we forget, was that under the shrewd general managership of Sir Herbert Walker, it attempted to make every penny count.

To those with only a fleeting knowledge of the south of England, it is overcrowded commuter territory, dominated by London, the ‘Great Wen’ as it has been called. In effect, it is an extended suburb. Then there are those who see it as ‘holiday’ country, with a chain of seaside resorts running from north Kent and down through Sussex, Hampshire and Dorset to Devon. Others see it as a part of the country to pass through on their way to France. The consensus is that the south has been spared the heavy industrial development that has marred so much of the rest of the country. To some extent, that much is true.

Looking at the south like this is about as misleading as describing, say, Northumberland as a county dominated by slag heaps and shipyards, and ignoring the attractive countryside, small towns and villages, such as Alnwick, Hexham and Warkworth, and the coastal scenery.

It is true that the south has been spared the worst excesses of the industrial revolution, with the possible exception of parts of north Kent; equally true that it is resort country. The London commuter area has also grown. First with the advent of the railway, which must have contributed so much to London’s urban sprawl by enabling people to move out of the overcrowded centre of early Victorian times to what were, at first, small towns and villages. Then a second deepening of the commuter belt came with the electric train, spurred on as property prices closer to the centre became too expensive for those working there. It also became apparent to those of us who commuted over longer distances that it took no longer to commute from Guildford than from Teddington, and that it was more comfortable. But, during the early 1970s at least, more people commuted into Guildford than out of it.

The railways had to fight Admiralty objections to get to the waterfront at Portsmouth, but the Royal Navy quickly found the railways useful. This is the Admiralty Pier at Portsmouth leading into the dockyard from Portsmouth Harbour. Another connection with the Southern into the Royal Dockyard ran from the High Level station in the city centre. (HRMS ABW107)

‘Change at Brading for the Bembridge branch’ may have seemed a good idea in the days of horse-drawn road traffic, and when the train ferry operated from Langstone to Bembridge, but increasingly it was vulnerable to competition from the motor bus on the more direct route from Ryde to Bembridge. Despite this, is took nationalisation to close the line. On one occasion, the porter was approached by a well-dressed stranger. ‘I can’t bother with you now, can’t you see I have two trains to deal with?’ said the harassed porter. ‘I can quite understand your predicament,’ replied the stranger. ‘I am the stationmaster at Waterloo!’ (Kershaw Collection, HRMS ACM414)

The south is also home to the Royal Navy and the British Army, and during the period covered in this book, the former had bases at Chatham, Portsmouth, Portland and Plymouth, with a considerable overspill from Portsmouth into neighbouring Gosport, and naval aviation was at one time at Ford and Lee-on-Solent, and still clings on at Yeovilton. Apart from the Channel ports, the south also included the large docks at Southampton, which again during the period covered started its steady rise to becoming Britain’s largest deep-sea passenger port, displacing Liverpool and London. Aldershot was, and remains, a garrison town, proclaiming itself to be the ‘Home of the British Army’, while the area around Andover and Salisbury is also heavily influenced by the army.

Industry in the south has tended towards the more modern industries, such as commercial vehicle manufacturing at Guildford. The aircraft industry scattered itself across the south from Yeovil to Weybridge and beyond to the Medway, until Hitler’s bombers forced Shorts to relocate. Agriculture has also been very important, with fishing less so, and even then it has tended to be offshore rather than deep-sea.

This is the story of the smallest of the ‘Big Four’ railway companies formed out of the groupings in 1922 of more than a hundred smaller companies. It is also the story of a railway in transition, and indeed there are some contradictions arising from this.

It is the story of a railway that more than almost any other started to instil a uniformity to its trains, earning the contempt of many traditional railwaymen by producing even express trains that seemed ‘more like trams’, as its electric multiple units whirled and cranked busily and frequently into its termini, and then rolled out again on their return journey having spent all too short a time at the platform. The sense of occasion associated with the arrival or departure of a great train seemed to get lost. On the other hand, this was the railway company that sought to introduce a great number of titled trains, bringing high standards of comfort and service on its main routes; a company almost wedded, it would seem, to the Pullman service, which was always just a little more than simply having a meal served at one’s seat. The magnificent Bulleid locomotives provided high standards of comfort for the enginemen and, while short on range, reflected the need for powerful steam traction even over short and medium distances.

At a time when airports are seen as great traffic generators for the railway, the Southern was miles and years ahead, with the first airport station at Shoreham and plans for a station for the new airport at Gatwick. The LNER, by contrast, closed its station at Turnhouse, the site of the airport for Edinburgh, during the late 1930s. The Southern even operated a special train for the famous Imperial Airways Empire Air Service. Through trains to Europe have been a reality for some years now, following the opening of the Channel Tunnel, but the Southern managed a genuine through train as early as 1936, eliminating the need to change from train to ship and back again, for a small number of passengers. For others, the boat trains were accelerated and new ships introduced.

The Southern Railway also made great strides in developing the port of Southampton, and became involved in some of the first domestic air services, as well as taking a stake in Imperial Airways. It had its own narrow-gauge railway, as did the Great Western, but uniquely among the main-line companies it also had its own tube, the Waterloo and City, known familiarly as ‘The Drain’.

Chapter One

The Ancestors

The Railways Act 1921 enforced the grouping of more than a hundred railway companies into four big concerns and saw the Southern Railway take over the operations and assets of three substantial companies and many smaller ones. Of the three largest, the London & South Western Railway had main lines from Waterloo to Exeter, Southampton, Bournemouth and Weymouth, and Portsmouth, and a London suburban network that stretched to Reading and Horsham, and many points in between. Then there was the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway, which was based on the main line from Victoria and London Bridge to Brighton, but whose tentacles spread as far as Portsmouth in the west, with an offshoot of a couple of miles on the Isle of Wight operated jointly with the LSWR, and Hastings in the east. It had a suburban network that covered much of south London, greatly helped by the curious inability of the London underground system to penetrate this area deeply, other than by an extension of the Northern Line to Morden. The LBSCR had been one of a trio of railways, the others being the Midland and the Great Western, which had what would today be described as an ‘up-market’ image. The third major concern was the South Eastern & Chatham, in effect the marriage of two impoverished railways, the London, Chatham & Dover and the South Eastern Railway, that had tried to destroy each other through their networks of competing lines and copied initiatives, operating from some of the smaller but well-placed London termini, including Charing Cross, Cannon Street, Holborn Viaduct and Blackfriars. The SECR extended as far west as Hastings, down a line that had been so jerry-built that during the 1850s Mountfield Tunnel, near Battle, had to be relined. This necessitated the use of special narrow-bodied rolling stock, since a rebuild would have been out of the question, and allowed the LBSCR a significant share of the traffic travelling to Hastings on the less direct route via Lewes. Despite serving the Channel ports closest to France, the SECR failed to make the most of this, for not only had cross-Channel traffic still to develop as fully as it is today, but there was serious competition from the LBSCR at Newhaven and the LSWR at Southampton.

The Southern inherited a wide variety of coaching stock from its predecessors. Here is the unusual ex-SECR S4147. (HRMS AEN235)

The Southern also inherited many smaller companies, of which the most impoverished must have been the Freshwater, Yarmouth & Newport, with just three steam engines, one of which was rented. It was the smallest of the three railway companies on the Isle of Wight. The Southern directors must have envied their opposite numbers at the Great Western, able to bolt other companies such as the Taff Vale on to just one substantial trunk railway. Even the London Midland Scottish and the London & North Eastern could build on their pre-grouping structures that had been so essential to making the West Coast and East Coast Anglo-Scottish services work, despite the number of companies involved, and face the demands of the occasional outbreak of real competition on these two routes, as well as from the longer Midland route from St Pancras.

An idea of the task that awaited the new board of management can be gathered from the following list of the minor, or subsidiary, companies absorbed into the Southern:

The Southern bought the narrow-gauge Lynton & Barnstaple in 1922 before grouping. No. 762 Lyn stands at Pilton in 1931. (HRMS AAC128)

Bridgwater Railway Company

Brighton & Dyke Railway Company

Freshwater, Yarmouth & Newport (Isle of Wight) Railway Company

Hayling Railway Company

Isle of Wight Central Railway Company

Isle of Wight Railway Company

Lee-on-Solent Railway Company

London & Greenwich Railway Company

Mid Kent Railway Company

North Cornwall Railway Company

Plymouth & Dartmoor Railway Company

Plymouth, Devonport & South Western Junction Railway Company

Sidmouth Railway Company

Victoria Station & Pimlico Railway Company

In fact, the Plymouth, Devonport & South Western Junction Railway Company had already been acquired by the LSWR, which had used its line to reach Plymouth once it opened in 1890, freeing the LSWR from having to use the South Devon route of its rival for London to Plymouth traffic, the Great Western.

London, Brighton & South Coast Railway

Railways had come to the south of England early. The Surrey Iron Railway had been authorised by Parliament in 1801 as the world’s first public railway, running from the banks of the River Thames at Wandsworth to Croydon, some 8¼ miles, and following the course of the River Wandle. The track consisted of cast-iron plates of L-section fixed to stone blocks, with a gauge of 4 ft 2 in. Traction was provided by horses, which because of the lack of any substantial gradient could move five or six wagons, each weighing 3½ tons fully loaded, at around 2½ mph. The line was supported by the many mills and factories spread along its route, showing that some at least of London’s urban sprawl predated the arrival of the railways. The promoters of the line were keen to see it extended to Portsmouth, but only succeeded in extending the tracks as far as the quarry at Merstham, a further 8½ miles. Part of its route was later to be used by the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway.

The LBSC, or the ‘Brighton’ as it was commonly known, first appeared in 1846 on the amalgamation of the London & Croydon and London & Brighton Railways, and already had a network that included Brighton, from which a line had opened to Shoreham in 1840, while the main line to London Bridge was opened throughout the following year. Having its main line to London, the company set about making the most of the ‘South Coast’ in its title, reaching Chichester to the west and St Leonards to the east in 1846, and then continuing to Portsmouth in 1847. Newhaven was also reached in 1847, with Horsham in 1848 and Eastbourne in 1849. A second terminus in London was achieved in 1860 with the opening of Victoria, so that the railway was reasonably well placed to serve the West End and the City, although it was not actually within either.

The company was not above making the most of circumstances to expand its business. It was no coincidence that when the Crystal Palace was demolished after the Great Exhibition of 1851 it was moved from Hyde Park to Penge Park, sold by its owner, an LBSCR director, to a company associated with the LBSC, which opened a new branch ready for the official re-opening of the re-erected building by Queen Victoria in 1854. That this was an astute move can be judged by the fact that in a single day in 1859 112,000 passengers visited the palace.

A problem arose when the Brighton & Continental Steam Packet Company was found to be a wholly owned subsidiary of the LBSCR and had to be liquidated, as railways were barred at the time from running shipping companies. Despite this setback, railway companies were later allowed to operate shipping services and, as with all of the major companies in the south, shipping soon became very important for the LBSCR, which introduced its first shipping services from Newhaven to Dieppe in 1867 in partnership with the Ouest Railway of France, and also operated shipping out of Littlehampton from 1867 until 1882. Nevertheless, all was not well, and by 1867 the line was in danger of bankruptcy, partly through having paid over-generous dividends of 6 per cent (at a time when the standard rate of interest was around 2½ per cent). More prudent policies over the next seven years led to far healthier finances, so that during the final quarter of the nineteenth century dividends of 5 per cent or even higher could be afforded.

The new railway had different braking systems to rationalise, and different ideas on electrification. The LBSCR favoured overhead electrification, or ‘elevated electric’ as it was known, and the SECR would also have used an overhead system had grouping not gone ahead, but it would have been different from that of the ‘Brighton’ line. This is a three-car suburban electric multiple unit, with the driving brake third closest to the camera. (HRMS ABV125)

The Brighton line was not always the fastest in the country, but still produced an acceptable performance, with through non-stop journey times of 90 minutes in 1844, reducing to 75 minutes in 1865 and 60 minutes by 1898 making twentieth-century timings look fairly lame and unexciting by comparison. This of course marked one big difference between steam trains and the first generation of electric trains, with the former performing at speeds that electric trains found hard to match on longer distances, while the electric trains came into their own on services with many stops because of their far superior acceleration.

To maintain high end-to-end speeds while not neglecting the needs of intermediate stations, the LBSCR introduced the first slip carriages in the British Isles, serving Haywards Heath from 1858. Pullman cars were introduced in 1875, and electric lighting was introduced from 1881, while the ‘Brighton’ also rated highly for braking and signalling practice. Yet, in common with the Great Western, the ‘Brighton’ was also criticised during the late nineteenth century for its poor provision for third-class passengers.

Probably one set of slam-door non-corridor compartment stock seemed much the same as any other to the casual observer, which may explain why ex-LBSCR S2447 was still in service in 1958. (HRMS AEN228)

The LBSCR enjoyed a monopoly on its main lines, although there had been competition with the LSWR for Portsmouth traffic prior to the opening of the Portsmouth ‘Direct’ in 1859, which settled the matter in the latter’s favour once and for all. It cooperated with the LSWR at Portsmouth and at Ryde, where the two companies were responsible for the line from the pierhead through to St Johns and jointly owned the Portsmouth–Ryde ferry service. It also sought a similar relationship with the South Eastern Railway at Redhill and London Bridge, but found working relations difficult, and eventually resolved this at Redhill through the construction of an avoiding (or bypass) line for fast traffic, the ‘Quarry’ line, in 1900. This would have been needed sooner or later anyway to avoid the flat junction at Redhill with its branches off to Guildford and Tonbridge.

The LBSCR built a substantial suburban network dominating the suburbs between Dulwich and Purley. Yet this extensive network was vulnerable to competition from the new electric tramways, which often provided a more direct route for travellers, and had the advantage of passing closer to the doorstep and to the destination. This was the spur for early electrification. There was also the threat of a new London & Brighton Electric Railway shortly after the turn of the new century. The LBSCR struck back, quadrupling its main line as far as Balcombe Tunnel and obtaining parliamentary powers for electrification in 1903. The first electric services were introduced on the London Bridge to Victoria South London Line in 1909 using a 6,700 volts AC overhead system, and after this proved successful the lines to Crystal Palace and Selhurst were electrified in 1912. Including joint lines, in 1922 the LBSCR had a total mileage of 457 miles.

Typical of early third-rail electric stock was two-car electric multiple unit 4559, seen here at Durnsford Road in 1957, shortly before withdrawal. (HRMS ACD210)

London & South Western Railway

The largest of the constituent companies that formed the Southern Railway, the LSWR had its origins in the London & Southampton Railway, which received parliamentary approval in 1834 and was opened from Nine Elms to Southampton in 1840, by which time the name had been changed to the London & South Western Railway. The new railway set about a vigorous programme of expansion, doubtless anxious to get as far west as possible before any rival appeared. It reached Dorchester in 1847, Portsmouth from Eastleigh in 1848, the same year as it also reached Salisbury, and then secured its position as one of the two main routes to the West Country when it reached Exeter in 1860. The LSWR had already acquired the Bodmin & Wadebridge Railway in 1847, giving a clear indication of its ambitions, but did not reach Plymouth until 1876 and Padstow, the end of the line, until 1899. The London terminus was moved from Nine Elms to Waterloo in 1848, recognising that the former was too remote. In the light of the town’s subsequent growth, it seems strange that the original line westward from Southampton to Poole and Dorchester avoided Bournemouth, and it was not until 1888 that the town was served by a direct route.

The variety of services operated by the LSWR was greater than that of the other ancestor companies of the Southern. Like the others, it had its London suburban network, in this case covering the western end of Surrey, part of Middlesex and much of Berkshire, and had a longer distance main-line network extending from Portsmouth to Exeter, but it also had the sprawling network to the west of Exeter which ensured that it was the main railway to serve North Devon and part of North Cornwall. Essentially, after Woking the Southern split into three main lines: the Portsmouth Direct which branched off at Woking; the Exeter line that branched off at Basingstoke; and the original Southampton line that eventually went all the way to Weymouth. An important secondary main line served Aldershot and Farnham, and provided an alternative route to Winchester, while the network of lines serving the Thames Valley centred around the core Waterloo to Reading line.

Military and naval traffic was important from the start, with the LSWR area including Portsmouth, Portland and Aldershot, and also running through Salisbury Plain. The importance of this first became apparent during the Boer War, when all the traffic for South Africa was shipped through Southampton, where the docks had been acquired in 1892, and again during the First World War, although in this conflict the railways were effectively taken over by the government. In peacetime it meant that on the Portsmouth line, for example, heavy weekend and holiday traffic was balanced by a reverse flow of servicemen travelling home on leave or for the weekend, and in later years this was to become one of the most profitable routes in the south. In fact, in retrospect it seems strange that the LSWR never seemed to accord the Portsmouth line the heavy service that it seemed to deserve, nor spent more providing easier gradients, which left the line difficult to work with steam traction and prone to earth slips.

The LSWR had competed with the LBSCR for the important London–Portsmouth traffic, with the line through Eastleigh challenging that through Arundel, but the extension of the line from Guildford to create the Portsmouth Direct placed Portsmouth firmly in LSWR territory. However, the LSWR was only just in time as the South Eastern had planned a branch to Portsmouth off the line from Redhill to Guildford – the embankment can still be seen just south of the junction for Shalford, but it never carried track. There was also competition with the Great Western, for although the LSWR route to Plymouth was circuitous, as far as Exeter the route was the most direct. The LSWR route to Reading was never as fast as that of the GWR from Paddington, although it could be a better bet for those with the City as their ultimate destination. Windsor was another destination served by both companies.

The suburban network was completed in 1885 with what has become known as the ‘New Guildford Line’, running through Cobham.

One of the greatest achievements of the LSWR, and one for which many passengers have had cause to be grateful over the years, was the construction of flying and burrowing junctions, with a total of seven on the 42 miles west of Raynes Park, although the last of these, Worting Junction, was a Southern achievement. The major omission from this programme, and one that would have saved many conflicting train movements, was the flat junction at Woking, almost certainly due to space constraints as the town quickly coalesced around the station, and this has always been the Achilles heel of the South Western main line, with as many as six trains an hour coming off the Portsmouth Direct in addition to those starting from Guildford.

At one time it was the practice for transatlantic liners to put passengers and mail ashore at Plymouth, saving a day in the journey to London, and the LSWR was spurred on by this to provide fast boat trains to Waterloo. Timings were eased considerably after one of these trains derailed at Salisbury in 1906 in the LSWR’s worst accident, killing twenty-four of the forty-three passengers on the train.

Shipping services were an important feature of the LSWR’s expansion, and here too at first it competed with the GWR, the LSWR’s Channel Island services from Southampton competing with the GWR services from Weymouth, although the LSWR line to the town was the more direct. Eventually, the two companies operated a combined service to the Channel Islands. Southampton was also the base for a network of ferry services to Le Havre and St Malo, while a Lymington to Yarmouth, Isle of Wight, ferry service was also established. At first, because legislation barred the railway companies from operating shipping services directly, services were developed at arm’s length through shareholdings in shipping companies, in this case the South Western Steam Navigation Company, formed in 1842, but before the end of the decade railways were allowed to operate shipping services provided that they specified the route, and by 1863 complete freedom was granted.

The old LSWR electrics. This is the view from the driving cab of an electric multiple unit at Queen’s Road in 1923. Another electric train is just passing and can be seen on the left. (HRMS AAZ204)

The LSWR was a profitable railway, paying a dividend of 5½ per cent or more from 1871 onwards. Surprisingly, while mainly a passenger railway, freight, docks and shipping business provided almost 40 per cent of turnover by 1908. Innovations included the first track circuits, installed between Woking and Basingstoke between 1902 and 1907. While not a fast railway overall, the LSWR did have some fine locomotives from 1878 onwards, with a growing degree of standardisation under a succession of chief mechanical engineers, including Adams, Drummond and Urie. Nevertheless, it was not until Herbert Walker was poached in 1912 from the London & North Western to become the LSWR’s last general manager that suburban electrification started. This included the rebuilding of Waterloo, until that time a collection of four stations built at different times to cope piecemeal with expansion, and its subsequent distinction of becoming the first major railway terminus in the world built for an electric railway. In 1922 the LSWR completed a new marshalling yard at Feltham, with electrically controlled points and hump shunting.

The LSWR operated a number of joint lines, but the most important of these was the Somerset & Dorset Line, which the company acquired in partnership with the Midland Railway in 1875, much to the anger of the GWR which had its eyes on this important cross-country route that linked the South Coast with the West Country and provided a good through route to the Midlands and north-west. In 1907 it also acquired the Waterloo & City Railway, completed in 1898, helping to ease the isolation of Waterloo by giving a through non-stop direct link with the City of London, taking passengers to just outside the Bank of England. Waterloo’s position was also helped by the completion of the Bakerloo and Hampstead (now the Northern Line) tubes in 1906 and 1926 respectively. One final acquisition before grouping was the Lynton & Barnstaple Railway, a 2 ft narrow-gauge line providing an important link across a sparsely populated part of north Devon, but which, ironically, was to be one of the few closures during the Southern’s reign.

In 1922 the LSWR operated 862 miles, and was involved in joint ventures that covered a further 157 miles.

South Eastern & Chatham Railways Managing Committee

The ruinous competition between the London, Chatham & Dover Railway and the South Eastern Railway was brought to an end on 1 January 1899 by the creation of the South Eastern & Chatham Railways Managing Committee.

The South Eastern Railway came into existence as the result of legislation passed in 1836 to build a line from London to Folkestone and Dover, but the London & Brighton Act, 1837, required both the SER and the LBSCR to enter London on the same route from Redhill, forcing the SER to abandon plans for a route via Oxted. The result was that the SER reached the capital by paying tolls to the London & Croydon and Greenwich railways. The initial route from Redhill was to Tonbridge, reached in 1842, Ashford and Folkestone, reached in 1843, with the line extending along the coast to Dover the following year, and Tunbridge Wells served from 1845, the same year that the SER started cross-Channel operations through a wholly owned subsidiary using small paddle steamers that took 2½ hours. For the most part, the SER concentrated its efforts south of the Weald, prompting the creation of the London, Chatham & Dover Railway by the disappointed people of north Kent. Even so, the SER reached Ramsgate and Margate in 1846, Deal in 1847, Gravesend in 1849, Hastings in 1851 and Maidstone via Strood in 1856, as well as extending west to Reading via Redhill and Guildford in 1858, an incredibly indirect route through a sparsely populated area that contributed to the SER’s financial weakness. One of the best-positioned London termini was opened at Charing Cross in 1864, the only terminus actually in the West End, followed by Cannon Street, ideal for the City, in 1866, but it was not until 1868 that a direct route to Tonbridge was opened, bypassing Redhill and cutting 13 miles off the London to Folkestone and Dover route.

A vision for the future of the SER came with the appointment of Sir Edward Watkin as chairman in 1866; he remained until 1894. Watkin wanted a route from Manchester to Paris using three railways including the SER, and a Channel Tunnel. Stirling’s appointment as chief mechanical engineer (CME) in 1878 marked the start of a series of locomotives with much-improved performance. However, passenger rolling stock continued to be poor for the most part, though the situation was helped by the introduction of ‘American’ cars for the Hastings service, and by similar British-built carriages for the Folkestone route in 1897.

The SER’s concentration on the Weald route and its failure to extend the North Kent Line beyond the Medway left the field open for a rival, with the creation of the East Kent Railway in 1853, mainly supported by business interests in Faversham. The line opened between Strood and Faversham in 1858, and was extended not at first in the direction of London but instead to Canterbury and Dover, which the EKR reached in 1862 and introduced its own continental sailings with a service to Calais. The EKR’s expansion had been noted with concern by the SER, and the intensive competition that ensued enabled the contractors to persuade the directors to extend the line towards London, changing the EKR’s name to the London, Chatham and Dover Railway in 1859. The extension reached Bromley in 1860, Victoria in 1862 and Farringdon in 1866. This rapid expansion and the reliance on contractors who had been the driving force in the development of the LCDR, placed the company under great financial strain, especially after a bank failure in 1866, which forced the company into a bankruptcy that lasted until 1871. After James Staats Forbes became chairman in 1874, the competition with the SER became bitter, and extended to opening new lines to capture a share of the other company’s traffic, often regardless of the likely financial benefits.

S2438, ex-SECR rolling stock still in service at Cowes in 1964. (HRMS ACM803)

A working union between the two companies was proposed as early as 1890, by which time the LCDR’s financial position was, if anything, stronger than that of the SER. This became clear later as the SER objected to the LCDR demanding 37 per cent of the overall receipts in 1890, but had to accept the LCDR having 41 per cent in 1899. In 1898, before the combining of the two companies, the LCDR had receipts of £142 per mile per week, against £87 on the SER. On the other hand, the SER had far better rolling stock, especially locomotives. Had the SER taken a more comprehensive approach to the provision of railway services throughout Kent, the outcome could have been different, and it could even have enjoyed a monopoly within its area.

To prepare for the union, a Joint Committee was set up in August 1898 under the chairmanship of Cosmo Bonsor. While the plan was that from 1 January 1899 the two companies would operate as one, there seems to have been little stomach for strong measures. Obsolescent LCDR carriages and locomotives were scrapped, but considerable savings could have been made by eliminating competing routes, especially those to Margate and Ramsgate. Many lines had been built too quickly and too cheaply, and suffered from narrow tunnels and bridges with weight restrictions. One positive step was the linking of the two main lines by constructing four long spurs where they crossed at Bickley. Meanwhile, the new CME, Wainwright, produced a series of 4–4–0 locomotives and new carriages, with Pullmans introduced in 1910. In 1919 Dover Marine station opened, easing the transfer from train to ship, but before this, while still unfinished, the station handled hospital trains bringing home First World War wounded and departing for destinations throughout England.

While the improvements enhanced the quality of the continental trains, suburban operations continued to be dismal, and plans for electrification were not implemented until after the grouping.

Isle of Wight

It would be wrong to omit the railways of the Isle of Wight from any consideration of the Southern Railway’s predecessors. While these were small companies, they were fiercely independent, with three operating 56 miles of railway on an island with a population of around 85,000 and an area of just 127 square miles. The ambitions of the LSWR and LBSCR had not ignored the island, with the line from Ryde Pier Head to St John’s owned jointly by the two companies, even though neither ran any trains on the island.

Of the three island companies, the only one with a reasonable level of traffic and capable of producing adequate returns was the Isle of Wight Railway, whose main line from Ryde to Ventnor opened as far as Shanklin in 1864, and then reached Ventnor through a tunnel cut under St Boniface Down in 1866, a distance of 12½ miles including the section along the pier at Ryde, essential so that ferries from Portsmouth could come alongside at all states of the tide. The IWR also operated the 2¾ mile branch from Brading to Bembridge Harbour, opened in 1882 by the Brading Harbour Company, which was initially operated in conjunction with a wagon ferry from Langston on Hayling Island provided by the LBSCR, but abandoned in 1888. In 1898, the IWR took over the branch.

Mainstay of the Isle of Wight lines under Southern ownership was the ‘O2’ class. Here is No. 22 Brading heading a train to Ventnor on Ryde Pier. The pier tramway tracks can be seen in the foreground. (HRMS AEP312)

The Isle of Wight Central Railway had opened as the Cowes & Newport Railway in 1862, and this remained an isolated operation until the opening of the Ryde & Newport Railway in 1875. The two companies did not amalgamate until 1887 to create the IWCR, which also took over the struggling Isle of Wight (Newport Junction) Railway which operated from Newport to Sandown, where it shared the station with the IWR. When a branch was built from Merstone, on the Newport–Sandown line, to Ventnor West between 1897 and 1900, that also became part of the IWCR. Traffic even on the line from Ryde to Newport and Cowes was never substantial, although there was some freight at Medina Wharf between Newport and Cowes. Altogether, it is not surprising that no dividend was paid until 1913.

Between them, the IWCR and the IWR did at least link major centres of population on the Isle of Wight, but the third company, the Freshwater, Yarmouth & Newport, used a 12 mile route to reach places no bigger than a village. The ferry from Yarmouth to Lymington was the least well placed of the three main ferry routes for traffic from London and the main South Coast cities. Opened during 1888–9, the Freshwater, Yarmouth & Newport Railway was worked by the IWCR until 1913, when it decided to work on its own, purchasing and hiring three tank engines. To be fair, there were schemes to provide a tunnel to link the line to the LSWR just north of Lymington, but these never came to fruition. Even if they had, there would have been a major bottleneck at Newport, where trains to west Wight had to reverse out of the station before making their way through remotely populated countryside. Space at Newport, the island’s principal town, would also have been a problem.

Chapter Two

The London Termini

None of the Big Four had as many termini in London as the Southern, with the huge terminus at Waterloo and one almost as big at Victoria, where the LBSCR and LCDR had adjoining, but separate, stations, joined later by a narrow opening. There were smaller but important termini at London Bridge, Charing Cross, Cannon Street, Blackfriars and Holborn Viaduct, and until 1929 there was also the small and cramped terminus at Ludgate Hill, through which trains could also reach Farringdon. By contrast, the much larger Great Western had just one terminus at Paddington, while the LNER had three, at Liverpool Street, Kings Cross and Marylebone. The LMS came nearest, with four, at Euston, St Pancras, Broad Street and Fenchurch Street. A purist might argue that the Southern had an eighth terminus, at Bank for the Waterloo and City tubes! Others maintain that Blackfriars, Holborn Viaduct and Ludgate Hill were really a ‘three-in-one’ terminus, and certainly they were built and operated by the same company, the LCDR.

The small size of many of the Southern termini was in part a reflection of the poverty of the companies serving Kent, but also because a compromise had to be made. No railway station of any company was as well placed as Charing Cross, but this was already a tightly congested site. There was much more room at Waterloo, but this was hardly the most convenient location – only Paddington was more remote from the ultimate City or West End destinations of most travellers. In some ways the size of the stations serving the City was a relief, since they were never fully utilised seven days a week. In fact, once Saturday morning working ended in the City, they were really only used five days a week, and even then only at peak periods, making them busy for ten or perhaps fifteen hours a week. Even if it had been possible to locate a station as large as Waterloo in the heart of the Square Mile, it could have proved to be a costly white elephant.

The image of the Victorian railway companies is that they were essentially freebooting and highly competitive. This is only part of the picture, as not only did companies collaborate when it was in their interests to do so, but Parliament also had to approve the authorising legislation needed for new railway works. As early as the 1840s there was a Royal Commission on Metropolitan Termini to try to ensure some semblance of order as the railway companies raced towards the capital, and eventually, in 1855, the House of Commons created a Select Committee on Metropolitan Communications. Among the many ambitious schemes that were rejected was one by Joseph Paxton, architect of the Crystal Palace, for a covered shopping arcade running from Regent Street to the City, with an overhead railway running its entire length!

In this review of the Southern’s London termini, Ludgate Hill is omitted as much of its history is tied up with that of Holborn Viaduct and in particular Blackfriars, the jerry-built station that only came into being as an overflow for Ludgate Hill.

Blackfriars

From its opening in 1886 until 1937, the station now known as Blackfriars was known as St Paul’s. The current name was adopted in 1937 to allow London Transport to rename the Central Line station until then known as ‘Post Office’ as St Paul’s.

The construction of Blackfriars, or St Paul’s, was brought about by the success of the London, Chatham & Dover’s extension towards London. The LCDR had been allowed to extend to London by its Metropolitan Extension Act of 1860, which gave it powers to reach Victoria and, more ambitious still, to a junction with the Metropolitan Railway at Farringdon Street, offering considerable long-term potential that was not to be realised for many years. In fact, there was an earlier station named Blackfriars, opened on 1 June 1864 on the south bank of the Thames at the junction of what is today Southwark Street and the approach to Blackfriars Bridge. It served as a terminus for a little over six months until the railway bridge over the Thames was completed, allowing trains to stop at a temporary station at Little Earl Street on the north bank from 21 December 1864. It was not until 1 June 1865 that Ludgate Hill was opened, it too becoming a terminus until the Metropolitan Extension was completed to Farringdon Street on 1 January 1866. The LCDR had persuaded both the Great Northern Railway and LSWR to subscribe more than £300,000 each towards the cost of the extension with the promise of through running powers, which they soon exercised, along with the Midland Railway, which started running trains through to Victoria in 1875. The LCDR itself sent trains from Herne Hill through to Kings Cross and then as far as Barnet.

The new station at Ludgate Hill and the extension through the City was a considerable success, although it was not used by anything so ambitious as the Brighton–Rugby services of recent years. Unfortunately, a shortage of space meant that Ludgate Hill offered just two island platforms, which soon proved insufficient for the traffic on offer, and, as expansion was out of the question given the high cost of property and the LCDR’s over-stretched finances, an additional station was built on a spur off the Metropolitan Extension. It was this that was named St Paul’s when it opened on 10 May 1886, despite the fact that the name Blackfriars was already in use as the name of the adjacent District and Circle Line station.

Before the opening of St Paul’s, the LCDR lines south of the Thames had been widened and a second bridge built across the Thames alongside the original bridge and to the east of it, carrying seven tracks. The new terminus was a necessity forced on the railway and was built as cheaply as possible without any great architectural pretensions, even having a wooden booking office. The cramped surroundings, and the presence of the District Railway immediately under the station, meant that there was no forecourt and no cab access to the tar-coated wooden platforms, which were reached by a dark and drab staircase. Only two of the platforms were given numbers, simply 1 and 2 between the eastern siding and the up and down loops. Despite this, in incised letters on the stones surrounding the doors, the names were given of fifty-four destinations that could be reached from the station, including St Petersburg and Vienna, with nothing to suggest that the intrepid traveller could expect to make several changes along the way! Rather more practical was the inclusion in this list of Westgate-on-Sea and Crystal Palace. Two through lines were routed through the station, with another three terminating tracks. The roof was kept as short as possible and constructed of iron and glass, although canopies were provided above the outer ends of the platforms.

Trains running to Holborn Viaduct generally stopped at Blackfriars, while it also took the City portions of trains from the new Gravesend branch, opened on the same day as the new terminus, which were later joined by those from the Greenwich Park branch, opened in October 1888. The new station was the only one operated by the LCDR with direct access to the underground network. Ludgate Hill continued to prove inadequate for the traffic on offer and became the butt of much press criticism as it was the most convenient station for Fleet Street, then the home of almost all the national newspapers and the London offices of many provincial dailies. Holborn Viaduct was generally regarded as useless, being inconveniently sited. Despite these criticisms, it was not until well after the formation of the South Eastern & Chatham that any attempt was made to remedy the situation, with a minor reconstruction of Ludgate Hill between 1907 and 1912.

The First World War saw a dramatic reduction in services, reflecting both the need to save resources and also to allow for the large number of military specials. These reductions hit Ludgate Hill, jammed between Blackfriars and Holborn Viaduct, especially hard, and the station was open only during rush hours from 1919. Electrification failed to save the station, with closure on 2 March 1929. Part of the problem was that the station was in too tight a spot for expansion, and its platform was too short for an eight-car electric train by some 80 ft – roughly a carriage length and a third.

The Southern Railway introduced electric suburban trains to both Holborn Viaduct and St Paul’s on 12 July 1925, initially from the latter station to Crystal Palace (High Level) and Shortlands via the Catford loop, while a service from Holborn Viaduct to Shortlands and Orpington via Herne Hill also called at St Paul’s. The running roads at St Paul’s were re-arranged so that trains on the local lines to Holborn Viaduct could operate in parallel with the main-line trains terminating at St Paul’s. There were also some modifications to the platforms, including extending all of them to take eight-car trains, and at the river end these now provided some fine views of the Thames downstream. St Paul’s, later Blackfriars, saw a steady extension of its electric services until the outbreak of the Second World War, culminating in the extension to Gillingham and Maidstone on 2 July 1939.

The services using Blackfriars were reduced as a wartime emergency measure from 16 October 1939, including the complete withdrawal of rush-hour services to Dartford via Lewisham. The First World War had spared the City termini from the worst of German bombing, with only the Great Eastern’s Liverpool Street being hit, but the Second World War saw considerable damage inflicted, especially at the height of the 1940/41 blitz. The worst night of the blitz was that of 16/17 April 1941, when a bomb wrecked the old Blackfriars signal cabin on the south side of the river. Immediately, flagmen were put into position to signal trains through the section and work the points, but worse was to come when either a large bomb or landmine destroyed the bridge over Southwark Street and seven flagmen seeking refuge in a shelter were caught by the blast, with three being killed outright, another three dying in hospital from severe burns, and just one surviving to make a slow recovery. With military help, a temporary bridge with two running roads was ready in fifteen days, but a permanent replacement was not in place until 9 October 1942. The terminal roads at Blackfriars were locked out of use until the end of the war, while temporary signalling arrangements were provided.

It was not until 12 August 1946 that a full restoration of services could be made at Blackfriars, with wartime cuts in services reversed, a new signal cabin opened and the terminal roads re-opened. The station’s platforms were numbered 1 to 5 from east to west at the same time.

Cannon Street

Cannon Street was opened in 1866 as the City terminus for the South Eastern Railway, which had previously decanted its passengers at London Bridge, on the wrong side of the Thames. Earlier plans had been to provide two other stations on the extension line running to Charing Cross, but when the LCDR was authorised to provide an extension to Ludgate Hill, the SER realised that it also needed a terminus on the north bank of the Thames. It was even felt that there could be local traffic between Cannon Street and Charing Cross from those anxious to avoid the heavy congestion on the streets of London; these were the days before the construction of the Circle and District lines and the prediction was to prove correct before these underground lines were built.

The extension to Cannon Street was authorised by an Act of 1861, with a bridge across the Thames and a triangular junction on viaducts with the line between London Bridge and Charing Cross. At first, and for many years, all trains running to and from Charing Cross called at Cannon Street. The triangular junction led on to an engine shed and turntable, so cramped that locomotives had to run over the turntable to enter or leave the shed, and coaling stages.

There were five tracks – four running roads and an engine road – on the bridge, which had pedestrian walkways on either side, with that on the east reserved for railway personnel, and that on the west available to the public on payment of a ½d toll. The station itself abutted immediately on to the bridge, with nine roads. It was a handsome building offering stunning views over the Thames, with a hotel fronting the street. The roof was a single span of 190 ft more than 100 ft above the rails and glazed over two-thirds of its surface, surmounted by a 22 ft-wide lantern running almost the whole 680 ft length. There were seven platform faces, varying in length between 480 and 721 ft, with the two longest faces incorporating a cab roadway. Another set of platform faces was separated by three tracks to include a spare for rolling stock. The two longest platforms extended beyond the roof and on to the bridge.