What's wrong with Southern?

[Oldddudders]

Again today, I've read a contribution where the poster, commenting on a pretty decent layout, says something like "Like the locos - pity they're Southern!" He goes on to laugh it off, but I sense there are plenty of RMWebbers who actively resent or dislike the former Southern Railway and its trains.

 

Being born in Surrey, lived my adult life in Kent until retirement, and worked 24 years for Southern Region and NSE, I am naturally quite fond of this railway and its history. But, on the other hand, model or prototype, I have no bad words to say for railways beyond London. I see models from north, east and west on here, and will offer praise if they cut the mustard for me. Quality is everything. I have no resentment for the GWR, LMS or LNER - why on earth should I?

 

Yet I see comments like the one quoted, or,as I recall not long ago, someone (he's not young) saying he didn't like Bulleid Pacifics. Is it because there are quite a number preserved? [i think this happened because the Southern, despite being very electric minded well before the Hitler war, had the last steam worked main line in the UK, and thus more locos in fit condition at the end of steam.] Is it because they feature on plenty of preserved lines well away from the home counties, where locals might prefer something more indigenous - if they had been preserved?

 

Is it because the trade in OO has been rather generous to Southern in recent years - after what some might call a relative famine?

 

Is it because the Southern network, with a myriad tight and criss-crossing suburban lines still heavily used, is in contrast to thinner surviving systems north of the Thames - a fear of complexity? I did come across this in BR, where gung-ho operators from other Regions dismissed the Southern as a tram-track - yet got palpitations at the thought of having to work there.

 

C'mon, you "Southern Resenters" - tell us what we've done wrong. At least we may then understand how best to avoid stepping on your corns!

[Guest Max Stafford]

Ian, as I suspect I may be responsible for one of these 'digs', I'd like to go on public record as having no gripe with the Southern. I throw the occasion tongue-in-cheek 'sour grapes' jibe purely because you boys are perceived as getting the lion's share of new items right now. However, I completely accept the assertion that perceptions and reality can and frequently do bear no relation to one another and I'm old enough to recall the days when all you guys had was Sir Dinadan and a sheep truck! Nope, I don't grudge you a bit of it after so long in the shadows. I just hope those of us up north and out east get a good slice of the pie too. The western boys seem to be getting their turn now and we've at least had some bonny LMS and Standard types!

 

Dave.

['CHARD]

Sheep truck!!!!

 

SHEEP TRUCK!!!!!!

 

How very dare they! There's no North British sheep truck at Hobbycraft, not that I can see. Damn and blast those Southern mongrels and their fancy Sir Dinadan.

 

Pah

[Oldddudders]

Sheep truck!!!!

 

SHEEP TRUCK!!!!!!

 

How very dare they! There's no North British sheep truck at Hobbycraft, not that I can see. Damn and blast those Southern mongrels and their fancy Sir Dinadan.

 

Pah

My case rests!

[Barry Ten]

There's a picture of some locos on the scrap line, maybe at Barry, where someone had scrawled "southern rubbish" on one of them, which seemed a very peculiar thing to do. Like Oldddudders I don't really care for this kind of regionalist nonsense. Not all railways, after all, can be as fantastic as the GWR and it's unfair to pick on them for not measuring up.

[Guest Phil]

I think that if there are negative attitudes against the SR it's probably because of the pre conceived notions of it being a "unit" railway. The early 1980s was a pretty drab blue and grey sea of Mk1 style EMUs with just a few oddities for the enthusiast who craved oddities.

 

On the other hand, i went and partook of a few of the SRs bits and pieces. I did a bash one day to East Grinstead, Uckfield, Eridge, Tunbridge Wells and back to London, entirely on diesel units. I did the newspapers to Seaford with a 73, Up and Down Waterloo-Weymouth parcels/mixed etc. Apart from some pretty hellfire runs on 4 REPs and the REP replacement pairs of 73s.

 

From a modelling point of view there is undoubtedly some jealousy with all the Margate product on offer, but I believe the LMS GWR and LNER will get it's fair share eventually !!!!! (tongue in cheek)

[Oldddudders]

Like Oldddudders I don't really care this kind of regionalist nonsense. Not all railways, after all, can be as fantastic as the GWR and it's unfair to pick on them for not measuring up.

Priceless!

[beast66606]

I also throw the odd quip in - but I've nothing against the Southern, well nothing more than I have against the GWR - and don't start me on the LNER, but like I said, I've no bias.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Yes I was joking, I like all British Railways, just prefer LNWR lines as I live a couple of hundred yards from one).

[tre pol and pen]

i dont know Barry 10, I reckon 3 bullied pacifics probably measure up to a small pannier tank

[Jamie]

Again today, I've read a contribution where the poster, commenting on a pretty decent layout, says something like "Like the locos - pity they're Southern!" He goes on to laugh it off, but I sense there are plenty of RMWebbers who actively resent or dislike the former Southern Railway and its trains.

 

Nothing gets my proverbial goat more than that style of response. The one I've noted is "shame it's not blue diesel". There's a local saying, hereabouts, which comes to mind but it doesn't become me to repeat it...

 

It's a mark of respect to the modeller's own preferences. Humour's all well and good but it's a bit of a back-handed compliment really.

 

 

Anyway, Southern region - Drummond steam, standards and BRCW diesels. Sounds as good as the ScR when you look at it like that

[Oldddudders]

Nothing gets my proverbial goat more than that style of response.

 

Anyway, Southern region - Drummond steam, standards and BRCW diesels. Sounds as good as the ScR when you look at it like that

Topping!

[jamie92208]

There,s nothing at all wrong with the Southern. I grew up on the Settle and Carlisle and my first love will always be the Northern part of the Midland, but I spent part of a summer holiday in London in 68 and then worked there for 8 months in 1971. Working on Clan Line for 2 Sundays at Longmoor ga ve me an appreciation of Bullied's loco's and I came to have high regard for the various older southern Electric's especially the 4 Cor's that rattled and swayed through Ashford where I lived for 3 months. The intensity of service, all the flying and burrowing junctions all appeal to me and I have always had a soft spot for electric traction. One day I might even run a O gauge leader on my Midland layout. I don't know why people diss the Southern, normally is that railway that had copper caps on it's chimneys that gets dissed at our club.

 

Jamie

[Flying Pig]

Priceless!

 

Topping!

 

Were you ever a sub-editor at Viz, Oldddudders?

[PhilH]

We've had all sorts of junk from the Big Four to play with on the Mid Hants - I can confirm from personal experience that Southern locos can be as bad as all the rest....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

..but I just love playing with Bulleids finest.

[Oldddudders]

Were you ever a sub-editor at Viz, Oldddudders?

No, sir - far too intellectual for me! But I am enjoying the rich humour of the responses!

[JohnR]

It seems daft that any implied criticism should be made due to the number of models we've had over the last few years? After all, we've got a good tank engine (M7), two good mid range tender engines (T9 and schools) and some top link passenger stuff (KA, LP and MN). Oh and some decent coaches. Thats the bear minimum that the southern should have, and is less than many other regions have had.

 

There has always been some sniffines from the western region, and I wonder if that has translated across to others....

[Oldddudders]

There has always been some sniffines from the western region,

In another virtual place, I find people who are Southern enthusiasts and abhor the GWR and its successor Western Region. The mere mention of that railway may prompt a visit from a Roman Catholic prelate, which I am told is an old Monty Python theme. Sigh. Their logic stems from WR taking over the Southern Region west of Wilton South in the early '60s - and promptly singling large swathes of the West of England Main Line, ensuring no Waterloo services could ever again get to Exeter within an hour's journey time of the Paddington trains. Clearly old rivalries have not been forgotten. But Monty Python?

[griffgriff]

I feel a poll coming on

[Leicester Thumper]

I like all the railways but i mostly despise the GWR for being the most popular railway to have drivveling people associated with it who bang on and on and on about something great western, when really i couldn't give the monkeys. (No offence seriously meant to GWR lovers, you are nice people its just the odd 'basket case' whos like this). The GW was also one of the most modelled railways (yes im a hippocrite i am going to build a gwr layout... young and naive eh?)

 

If there's really on railway i take the mick out of the most it's BR in coporate era as it just turned into a complete farce (much like their sandwiches).

 

there's nothing wrong with the Southern Railway of yesteryear, they had some stylish and practical rolling stock for goods and humans... they also had some fantastic locomotives which were designed by some great engineers. Look at the Spamcans. they were the result of a stroke of genius, they were strong haulers with a fantastically low route availability making them accessibly to the majority of the Southern system. Now that's what i call Genius.

[PhilH]

Look at the Spamcans. they were the result of a stroke of genius, they were strong haulers with a fantastically low route availability making them accessibly to the majority of the Southern system. Now that's what i call Genius.

 

Um, I don't think the fitters who had to work on the things called him a genius - and having had to work on the valve gear inside the oil bath on quite a few occasions I concur.

 

But they are great fun to drive....until you need to get up 3 1/2 miles of 1 in 60 on a drizzly day.

[pointstaken]

I'm a Southern man through and through. You can't blame non-Southern enthusiasts for their lack of taste. They're just bred that way.

 

Dennis

[Forester]

As a kid brought up in Kent most of the negativity about the Southern came from the people who had to use it every day! Those nice Maunsell coaches now sparklingly portrayed by Mr Hornby were everywhere in a most deplorable state. Old pre-grouping stock was everywhere. Bulleid stock was largely restricted to expresses. Mark 1's were very slow in coming south. The locos (before electrification released pacifics from the main line) were ancient, dilapidated, rough-running and under-powered for the jobs they were called upon to do. I don't recall any pride in the Southern that I met when I first travelled on the Great Western.

 

And then suddenly it all changed. Comfy electrics. Nice diesels on the Hastings. Pacifics everywhere they could run. New Standards everywhere they couldn't....

 

...and that's the (extremely short) era today remembered as The Southern: a rebuilt Battle of Britain and a rake of Bulleids. The years of misery riding in a Birdcage behind a wheezing Wainwright are forgotten.

 

But for all that, there seemed to me far greater interest and variety in the Southern than the Western - as long as you didn't have to travel in them, or I guess, work on them.

Bring on those Wainwrights, Hornby.

[Oldddudders]

If there's really on railway i take the mick out of the most it's BR in coporate era as it just turned into a complete farce (much like their sandwiches).

I say, old chap - you do know how to put a bloke on the spot! Did you actually eat a BR sandwich in the Corporate era? Let me tell you a story. In the '80s, a well-known mayonnaise company (not Heinz) had a great idea for an ad campaign - we'll tell the world that our mayo would even improve the BR sandwich! Funny - eh? Except that all BR sandwiches at that time already contained that company's mayo, for which they had a rather large contract! In recent times on-train and buffet sandwiches have been made by the same people who make sandwiches for Marks & Spencer. The curled up sandwich music hall joke dates from long before Corporate BR, although, as the Consumer's Association pointed out in the late '70s - it did help if you liked ham or cheese!

[Leicester Thumper]

I say, old chap - you do know how to put a bloke on the spot! Did you actually eat a BR sandwich in the Corporate era? Let me tell you a story. In the '80s, a well-known mayonnaise company (not Heinz) had a great idea for an ad campaign - we'll tell the world that our mayo would even improve the BR sandwich! Funny - eh? Except that all BR sandwiches at that time already contained that company's mayo, for which they had a rather large contract! In recent times on-train and buffet sandwiches have been made by the same people who make sandwiches for Marks & Spencer. The curled up sandwich music hall joke dates from long before Corporate BR, although, as the Consumer's Association pointed out in the late '70s - it did help if you liked ham or cheese!

 

No i have never been able to eat one, although i will admit i know enough people who did and some funny stories have hence been told.

 

and yes i know which brand you mean, i do get fed up with their Xmas adverts as well.

 

and yes, Mayo and ham is great

[PhilH]

I pity the poor so and sos who spent their days curling the edges of the sandwiches before they went on sale.