The Southern since 1948

It was in 1979 that lan Allan first published The Western Since 1948 by Geoffrey Freeman Allen, and in 1981 this was followed by The Eastern Since 1948 by the same author. Both titles were widely praised, and, during the six-year interval which has elapsed since publication of the latter, both author and publisher have received many. requests for similar treatment of the other British Rail regions.

In The Southern Since 1948, Geoffrey Freeman Allen has responded to that demand by providing an objective, incisive and thoroughly readable insight into the immense political, financial and operational challenges faced by those whose task it has been to provide an acceptable service on one of the world's most intensively used railway networks. In 15 chapters, illustrated with a large selection of high quality photographs, the reader will find a comprehensive account of the transformation of the steam-age Southern Region of the late 1940s into the major component of the new image Network SouthEast that it is today. Motive power developments, the traumas of the Beeching era, the modernisation of infrastructure and rolling stock and the continuing programme of electrification are all examined in detail, as is the rise, fall and rise again of the project destined to have the most fundamental effect on the region's future - the Channel Tunnel.