Southern Railway (Great Britain)

The Southern Railway (SR) was a British railway company that was created in 1923 when the British railroad was reorganized and was taken over by British Rail in 1948 . The route network of the SR was limited to the south of England ; it did not have a single route north of London . Thus the SR was the smallest of the so-called Big Four (the "Big Four").

history

The Southern Railway was formed on January 1, 1923 when the Railways Act 1921 came into force and consisted for the most part of the London and South Western Railway (LSWR), the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB & SCR) and the South Eastern and Chatham Railway (SE&CR) together. From these and a few other small companies, the SR took over a route network with a length of 3518 kilometers. South and east of London, the SR had practically a monopoly , while they competed with the Great Western Railway on the lines to the south-west of England .

In contrast to the three other large companies ( London, Midland and Scottish Railway , London and North Eastern Railway and Great Western Railway ) the SR was mainly active in passenger traffic and handled relatively little freight traffic. Despite the small network of routes, it carried over a quarter of all rail passengers in Great Britain. This was mainly due to commuter traffic in the London area, the most densely populated area in the country.

The density of the rail network and the high volume of traffic led to the extensive electrification of the route network early on . Even before the merger, LSWR and LB & SCR had switched individual routes to electrical operation. However, the networks of the two companies were not compatible (the LB & SCR had used overhead lines with 6600 V AC ). After the unification, these routes were converted to the power system of the former LSWR, power rails with 600 volts direct current (similar to the London Underground ). Immediately south of London, most of the lines were electrified, from 1931 also the long-distance lines to Brighton , Eastbourne and Portsmouth . It was also planned to electrify the outer SE & CR routes and the route to Southampton and Bournemouth . However, because of the Second World War , these plans could only be implemented in the 1950s and 1960s.

On January 1, 1948, the SR went on in the state British Rail . The name " Southern " has been used again since May 2004, after the company South Central, which was created in 1994 when British Rail was privatized, was renamed. Southern operates most of the routes of the former SR network. With the name change, she wants to remember the "good old days" of rail traffic.