CT Abbreviations etc.

Railway Companies often have long names, and if I were to write them out in full, there would be little room for anything else. The first table below explains abbreviations used, and the second table explains some of the railway jargon which appears in this history.

Abbreviations

ACE	Atlantic Coast Express
ATC	Angel Train Contracts
B&ALR	Basingstoke and Alton Light Railway
B&H	Berks and Hants Railway
DN&SR	Didcot, Newbury and Southampton Railway
EL	Eversholt Leasing
GWR	Great Western Railway
ICCC	InterCity Cross Country
LC&DR	London, Chatham and Dover Railway
L&SR	London and Southampton Railway
L&SWR	London and South Western Railway
LMR	Longmoor Military Railway
LS&YJ	London, Salisbury and Yeovil Junction Railway
MoD	Ministry of Defence
PB&GR	Portsmouth, Basingstoke and Godalming Railway
PL	Porterbrook Leasing
RCH	Railway Clearing House
ROF	Royal Ordnance Factory
SB&CR	Surrey Border and Camberley Railway
SER	South Eastern Railway
SECR	South Eastern and Chatham Railway Joint Management Committee
SR	Southern Railway
SWT	South West Trains

bay	A dead-end platform - for example, in 1997 platforms numbered 1 to 4 at Basingstoke are not bays, but platform 5 is. (There was also a bay platform called 1c at Basingstoke in the past, but this track has been taken up.)
contractor	The person who constructs the railway (or in some cases, sub-contracts the construction to others).
engineer	In this history, the engineers are the civil engineers who designed the route that the railways would follow, and in some cases defined the architecture of the stations as well. (There are other engineers on railways, such as engine drivers, and the mechanical engineers who design the locomotives; these people do not appear as main players in this history.)
gauge	The internal distance between the rails on a railway. (There is also a related term - loading gauge - which refers to the cross-section of railway vehicles.)
multiple-unit	A train which has the engines or motors built into it, and therefore requires no locomotive. Such trains running on local lines are typically formed into "units" of 2, 3, 4 or 5 coaches. These units can be coupled together, and driven from the leading cab, when they are said to be running "in multiple".
navvy	A labourer working under a contractor. The name is derived from the canal builders of the eighteenth century, who constructed the "navigations".

Abbreviations and Glossary

Abbreviations