The Southern around London – R C Riley Archive Vol 4

Railways books on the Southern Railway and its successor the Southern Region have for long tended to concentrate on the more glamorous aspects of the SR – the West Country and its iconic branches, as well as the prestige Pullman and coastal services.

To reach such far flung corners the passenger would first have had to travel through the London suburbs, a conglomeration of routes whose history is as entwined as the rails themselves.

Researchers have in the past tended to shy away from describing this area and with good reason – it is all too easy to go off on the wrong line!

Jeremy Clarke is a man who has studied the London area for decades. As an enthusiast living in the south, he is rightly placed to describe a part of the Southern network previously ignored but now laid bare for all to see.