Description - Technical - Service - Livery - Departmental - Numbering

LBSCR built an AC overhead system for the south London suburban area as far back as 1909. It was powered at 6700V AC.

It first operated between Victoria and London Bridge, with extensions to Coulsdon North and Sutton not being finished until the days of Southern Railway.

In 1926 the Southern Railway announced that all AC lines were to be converted to the 660v DC of its neighbouring London & South Western Railway (as more miles were of this system and Southern was standardising its systems). The last AC service ran on 22 September 1929.

Upon the route's conversion to 3rd rail DC, as part of the Southern Railway's standardisation of all electrified routes, the bulk of the standard LBSC stock was converted into standard 3-car EMU's or 2-car trailer sets. For these units, the existing LBSC underframe was reused rather than putting the wooden bodies onto new standard Southern frames. This meant that these sets were "non-standard" and therefore not suitable for underframe re-use after the war. The effect of this was that the ex LBSC sets were the last wooden 4SUB units to run.

The original South London "wide" coaches were treated specially. The 16 Driving Motors were used to construct the 8 2SL (1801-1808) units and the 8 Trailers (reverting back from steam stock) were used to construct the 4 2Wim (1809-1812) units.

The Sutton/Coulsdon Motor Luggage Vans were converted in the mid '30's into bogie goods brakes - the first "Queen Mary's"

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Built 1909 by Metropolitan Amalgamated C & W Co Ltd (for Victoria - London Bridge service)

Formation DMT+FT+DMT

Number built Units 8 (cars 24)

Traction Motors Winter-Eichberg 115hp

Batch two

Built (Unknown) by Metropolitan Amalgamated C & W Co Ltd (34 Motor Car and Control Trailers) & Lancing (LBSCR) Works (36 Trailers)

Batch three (for the then Southern Railway)

Built (Unknown) at Metropolitan Amalgamated C & W Co Ltd (21 MLV's & 14 Trailers) & Lancing works (14 Trailers & 60 Control Trailers) for the Coulsdon North and Sutton extensions

Number built MLV - 21 (later covered to Bogie Brake Vans), Trailers - 28, Control Trailers - 60

Traction Motors GEC 250 hp

Formation 5 car unit DT + T + MLV + T + DT

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Build 1 (SL stock) - 1909. These were made up of eight 3-car sets, Motor-Trailer-Motor, for the South London line. (Route: - London Bridge - Peckham Rye - Battersea Park - Victoria).
Build 2 (CP stock) - 1911/2. These were made up of 30 Driving Motors and 60 Driving Trailers (normally 3-car formation) for the Crystal Palace electrification (Route: - Battersea Park - Balham - Crystal Palace & Peckham Rye - West Norwood).
Build 3 (CW stock) - 1923/4. Based around Driving Motor Luggage Vans, these were 60 Driving Trailers and 20 Trailers (normally 5-car formation) for Coulsdon and Sutton scheme (Balham - Selhurst - Coulsdon & Selhurst - Sutton).

Changes in Service

By 1912 the 3-car South London sets had been reformed with the 8 Trailer Firsts transferred to steam stock and 16 steam coaches converted into Driving Trailers. Thus the 8 3-car sets became 16 2-car sets. The 2-car sets had something of a tadpole appearance, as the original South London stock was wider than standard stock of the time.

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