An Illustrated History of Southern Push-Pull Stock

An Illustrated History of Southern Push-Pull Stock

When the Southern Railway was formed following the 1923 Grouping it inherited the problem of how to provide cost-effective services over its numerous branch lines. The pre-Grouping companies had started to address this by provision of pull-push trains: incorporating a driving cab at the end of a rake of coaches, with the locomotive coupled at the other end - pulling in one direction and pushing in the other. Originally these services ran on inner city or town mutes and the Southern extended this process into the countryside. The Great Western Railway came up with a similar solution at the same time. resulting in their easily identifiable auto-coach, about which a considerable amount has been published over the years. However the Southern equivalent is perhaps less well known. These coaches. either convened from older rolling stock or built specially, became an essential pan of the operation of the SR's branches right through to Nationalisation and beyond. Indeed many lines were still using such stock when the Beeching 'axe' fell in the 1960s.

Author Mike King is one of the country's foremost experts on the subject of Southern Railway rolling stock. Well-known both in modelling circles and through his involvement in many of the SR-oriented societies, he has written a number of highly regarded studies of SR wagons and coaches for OPC. In this title Mike King explores the great variety of Southern Railway/Region pull-push stock. Comprehensively illustrated with both photographs and 4mm scale drawings. this authoritative book is the definitive guide to modellers and historians to this type of rolling stock.


The front cover has a small indentation. The rest of the book is fine.