Geography
The Southern railway covered a large territory in south-west England including Weymouth, Plymouth, Salisbury and Exeter, where it was in competition with the Great Western Railway (GWR). To the east of this area it held a monopoly of rail services in the counties of Hampshire, Surrey, Sussex and Kent. Above all, it had a monopoly of the London suburbs south of the River Thames, where it provided a complex network of secondary routes that intertwined between mainlines.
Unlike the London, Midland and Scottish Railway, the London and North Eastern Railway and the GWR, the Southern Railway was predominantly a passenger railway. Despite its small size it carried more than a quarter of Britain’s passenger traffic because of its network of commuter lines around London, serving some of the most densely populated parts of the country. In addition, South London's geology was largely unsuitable for underground railways, meaning that the Southern Railway faced little competition from underground lines, encouraging a denser network stretching from stations located in close proximity to central London.
Read more about this topic: Southern Railway (UK)
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