Book Review: Slam Doors on the Southern

The humble electric multiple unit has always been overlooked by enthusiasts and photographers, who have always concentrated on locomotives. Michael Welch's Slam Doors on the Southern makes an attempt to redress the balance.

The book covers just about every class of slam-door Southern Railway and Southern Region unit, from the really ancient 4-SUBs converted from Edwardian loco-hauled stock, through the 30s Brighton line 6-PULs and 4-LAVs and Portsmouth line 4-CORs to the BR Mk1 based 4-VEP and 4-CIG units only recently retired from service.

The 150-odd colour images in this album are superb. The earliest images date from the mid 50s, with a couple of views of the very earliest wooden-bodies 4-SUB units, then on their last legs. At the other end of the time scale, the surviving 4-VEP, 4-CIG and 4-CEP units are shown in the post-privatisation liveries of Connex, Southern, and Stagecoach.

Unlike many photo albums, this volume is quite text-heavy, with extensive captions giving the history of the various types of unit. It features quite a few oddballs, such as the 2-BILs with postwar HAL driving trailers (a consequence of accident damage), the short-lived 6-REPs, and even the one-off 6-TC, a push-pull set formed in the mid-60s from redundant EMU stock.

While the routes of the Southern Region lack the epic grandeur of some of the classic routes in the Scottish Highlands or Cornwall, it's not all suburban back gardens by any means. There are still plenty of attractive scenic locations in such places as the New Forest, the North Downs or the south coast, many of which have tended to be overlooked by photographers. Of course there are plenty of images in the Big Smoke; one of the best being a superbly evocative interior shot of Cannon Street in 1957. And many of the urban images just ooze atmosphere, setting the trains firmly in their social and economic context. There's a lot to interest people who aren't even that interested in the trains themselves.

Altogether an excellent volume, whose appeal isn't limited to fans of the Southern third rail.