Southern Railway (UK)

Southern Railway was a British railway company and one of the Big Four operators created through the 1923 Grouping, though its network traced its origins to the London and Southampton Railway, which opened in 1838 and later became the London and South Western Railway. Formed principally by merging the London and South Western Railway, the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway, and the South Eastern and Chatham Railway, it linked London with the Channel ports, South West England, the south coast resorts and Kent, and it operated from 1923 until nationalization in 1947.