The South Eastern and Chatham Railway

The South Eastern & Chatham Railway
by O.S.Nock
The South Eastern & Chatham Railway enjoyed one of the briefest lives of any British main line railway. But in its twenty-four years, 1899 to 1923, it developed into what the author describes as 'one of the smartest, best run and most punctual railways in the whole kingdom'.
It was formed of the working union of the South Eastern and London, Chatham & Dover, rival systems which might have come together sooner but for the anatagonisms of their respective chairmen, Watkin and Forbes. The South Eastern, as first in the field, was the more prosperous of the two, though the term is relative, for the careers of both were chequered. This was reflected in their service to the public, which ranged from bad to quite tolerable, when it came to serving a favoured clientele or resort. The locomotives of both and their successor were efficient and good looking and the rolling stock which the Managing Committee introduced was some of the best in the land.
O.S.Nock brings out the well the idiosyncrasies and characteristics of the system, doing full justice to the metamorphosis which enabled the SE&C to bear the heavy burden of wartime traffic thrust upon it in 1914.
1961, Hardback, 198 pages
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