Southern Region

The Southern Region inherited the Southern Railway on 1 January 1948 and kept its predecessor’s most distinctive habit: electricity. It was the smallest of the six regions by route mileage, yet the most intensively worked for passengers, carrying the dense commuter traffic of London and the South East. Headquarters remained at Waterloo. By 1960 the green electric multiple unit was the everyday face of the region, while steam held on only where the third rail had not yet reached.

Territory

The region covered the old Southern Railway territory south of the Thames: the commuter belt of Surrey, Sussex, and Kent, the Hampshire and Dorset coast, and the long West of England main line reaching down through Salisbury towards Exeter and beyond. Its London termini were among the busiest in the country: Waterloo, Victoria, Charing Cross, Cannon Street, and London Bridge. Suburban and coastal passenger work, rather than heavy freight or long-distance haulage, defined the traffic pattern.

Inherited constituents

At the 1923 Grouping the Southern Railway had been formed from three principal companies: the London and South Western Railway, which supplied the lines out of Waterloo; the London Brighton and South Coast Railway, serving Victoria and the Sussex coast; and the South Eastern and Chatham Railway, which worked the Kent lines. These three inheritances shaped the region’s operating character, and the differences between their electrification standards and route layouts were still visible in 1960.

Electrification

The defining feature of the region was its electrification. It was by far the most electrified of the six, working on the 660-volt DC third-rail system inherited from the Southern Railway and greatly extended from it. Around this period the Kent Coast electrification scheme was pushing third-rail operation across the former South Eastern and Chatham lines, replacing steam on the Kent main lines in stages. Where the current rail ran, the green electric multiple unit did the work; where it did not, steam remained.

Steam in 1960

Steam survived chiefly on the non-electrified West of England main line from Waterloo through Salisbury to Exeter and beyond. This work fell mainly to the Bulleid light Pacifics, the West Country and Battle of Britain classes, with the heavier Merchant Navy Pacifics on the principal expresses. These air-smoothed designs, unusual among British steam locomotives, were the last generation of front-line steam the region built and are covered among the Big Four designs. Allocations for 1960 are recorded in the Ian Allan ABC of British Railways Locomotives, Combined Volume.

Regional livery

Green was the region’s colour, carried on the electric multiple unit fleet and, in the standard locomotive livery, on the express passenger engines. It was the everyday impression the region gave: green units at green platforms, with the Bulleid Pacifics on the remaining steam duties. See the BR green livery feature for how the corporate scheme was applied.

Beeching and after

The region lost rural mileage under the Reshaping Report, particularly on the West of England line and the secondary and branch routes of the South West, though its dense electrified commuter network was largely retained because of the traffic it carried. The Southern Region was the first to eliminate steam, in 1967, when the remaining Bulleid Pacifics and their duties were withdrawn or handed to electric and diesel traction. The wider context is set out in the closures section.