Last Updated on April 23, 2026
A few pages are falling out but are still in the right places
The enlightened traveller has always travelled more happily. This book is intended for those who wish to travel happily on the main-line railways of Southern England. Unlike the often abandoned and overgrown branch lines, these lines are still busy with traffic; far from being obscured by neglect, evidence of their past has almost been obliterated by development. With, however, Edwin Course as his guide, the passenger will be able to interpret what he sees outside the carriage window or on the station platform.
Dr Course systematically describes all the main lines in the South of England, east ton line, highlighting the main deve, ip-of (and including) the London-Southamp-ments and events-from the opening, 1830, of the first public railway between Canterbury and Whitstable to the present day. Every mile of track is charted in a diagram, and there also almost
evocative photographs of stations, train sheds, signal boxes and gantries, water columns, cuttings, bridges and tunnels, as well as of distinctive locomotives and stock. The detailed Appendices include a full list of all the companies involved, before their absorption into the Southern Railway in 1923.
A frequent contributor to the railway magazines, Dr Edwin Course is the author booklets, including one
Portsmouth Railways, and of the standard work on London Railways. He is Senior Lecturer in the Department of ExtraMural
Studies at the University of
Southampton, where he lectures
transport history and industrial archaeo-logy. He plans to follow up this present work with companion volumes on the Secondary and Branch Lines and on the Independent Railways of
Southern
This book was previously for sale at Margot’s Books. The shop is now closed — this post is kept as an archive record only.
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