Opinion & Answer 23 Edition 42: Tracing the Path of London,Brighton and South Coast Railway Company to the Big 4

 Hi Folks, 

Good Sunday Afternoon everyone, It's time for another edition of Opinion & Answer. In today's edition, I wanted to trace the path of London Brighton & South Coast Railway to the Big 4. So it will be covering the origin of the LB&SCR and how it became part of the Southern Railway under the Big 4 Mergers in 1921. 

Please Note: Most of this information will be from the Wikipedia page with the link below to read. 

-Conductor Wolf 

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Before we go into tracing the path of the London,Brighton & South Coast Railway, I just wanted to say that the LB&SCR is one of handful of railways that I enjoy reading about on my own time through research and learning more about based on available information. Now on with tracing the path of the LB&SCR. 

The London, Brighton and South Coast Railway was created in 1846 based on an Act from the British Parliament on July 27th,1846 that consolidated  the London and Croydon Railway (L&CR), the London and Brighton Railway (L&BR),the Brighton and Chichester Railway, the Brighton, Lewes and Hastings Railway, the Croydon and Epsom Railway into one company based on the shareholders in the L&CR and L&BR who were dissatisfied with the early returns from their investments brought about the amalgamation against the wishes of the boards of directors of the companies.

• The 5 railways that merged to formed the London Brighton & South Coast Railway Company
• The London and Croydon Railway (L&CR), created in 1836 and opened in 1839.*
• The London and Brighton Railway (L&BR), created in 1837 and opened in 1841.*
• The Brighton and Chichester Railway, created in 1844 and opened in stages between November 1845 and June 1846, with an extension to Havant under construction at the time of amalgamation.
• The Brighton, Lewes and Hastings Railway, created in February 1844, opened in June 1846.
• The Croydon and Epsom Railway, created in July 1844, under construction at the time of amalgamation.
• **Only the first two were independent operating railways: the Brighton and Chichester and the Brighton, Lewes and Hastings had been purchased by the L&BR in 1845,and the Croydon and Epsom was largely owned by the L&CR.

After the consolidation of the five railway companies that merge into the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway in 1846, the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway company operated for 76 years from 27th July 1846- 31st December 1922. A year earlier in 1921, London, Brighton and South Coast Railway merged with London & South Western Railway and South Eastern & Chatham Railway to form the Southern Railway portion of the Big 4 due to the Railway Act 1921 passed by the British Parliament. 

London Brighton & South Coast Railway Company's Rail Network

At the time that LB&SCR was established in 1846, the Rail Network was an estimated 170 route miles (274 km) that were either already established or were under construction. Hence the rail network consisted of 3 main routes and a number of branch lines.

London Brighton & South Coast Railway Company's Territory:

According to Wikipedia page "London, Brighton and South Coast Railway", the LB&SCR's territory is roughly a triangle-shaped that includes London at its apex. Its territory pretty much covered the whole coastline of Sussex as its base and a large part of Surrey.  

Sketch Map of LB&SCR routes in 1922          

(I drew the triangle to show the rough Triangle shape)

LB&SCR's Territory on the West side (left side of the map) boarded London and South Western Railway and South Eastern Railway bordered LB&SCR's Territory on the east side (Right side of Map).  Within the territory, London Brighton & South Coast Railway had the most direct routes from London to the south coast seaside resorts. The railway also,"served the inland towns and cities of Chichester, Horsham, East Grinstead and Lewes, and jointly served Croydon, Tunbridge Wells, Dorking and Guildford. At the London end was a complicated suburban and outer-suburban network of lines emanating from London Bridge and Victoria, and shared interests in two cross-London lines." according to London Brighton & South Coast Railway Wikipedia page. 

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And that folks concludes another edition of Opinion and Answer. We'll be back with another edition next Sunday. Please click on the link for further reading. 

London, Brighton and South Coast Railway Wikipedia Page

The Sketch Map of LB&SCR routes in 1922 By Das48 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8950793