PAINTING BY M.A. TURNER

With the electrification of the Brighton Division of the Southern Railway, being brought to a 
halt owing to the out break of the Seconds World War. The following Motorman’s depot were established to operated over the various routes that had been electrified. 

All of the Motorman’s vacancies would be filled by other Motormen who had  transferred to 
the new depot, redundant steam drivers or by “Dual link" drivers at the locomotive shed that 
the Motorman depot was grouped to. Some locomotive shed had more than one Motormen depots within its group. The exception to this was being Peckham Rye depot as these positions were filled mainly traffic grades or firemen from New Cross. 

The Brighton section had the most Motorman depots out of the three sections of the Southern Railway. Some of these depot were very small some having a handful of Motorman at the depot to start up and finish the service.

Two sub pages (coastal & suburban) shows as a list of known Motorman depots, which includes when the depot opened, closed and the branch of A.S.L.E.&F. associated with these depots. 

In 1961 the grade of Motorman was done away with and their depot become E.M.U.T. depots and many are still in existence. 

The grade of motormen came under the Civil Mechanical & Electrical Engineering (C.M. & E.E.) and was a separate department from the Motive Power Depot. Once a steam driver transferred to the driving grade of Motorman, it became a one-way move and they would no longer be working on steam and later years diesel locomotives. 

The creation of all these new Motorman's depots being established before the off introduction of electrification within that location. These depots were established earlier than it is recorded above. 

With electrification being extending across the Brighton suburban area and the main lines to the coast, many enginemen had no choice but to opt for these positions or face being made redundant and moving away to other locomotive depots or leave the industry. Those who opted to become Motormen would be able to move back to any locomotive depot. however they could transfer from Motorman's depot to another. The enginemen would be required to learn Electrical Multiple Units and learn new driving techniques. The Electric Multiple Units would accelerate more quickly than speed and there travel faster over the same distance. 

Dual-link drivers were located at all steam depots and each steam depot was paired with a Motorman's depot(s). The purpose of the dual-link drivers was that they would later progress into Motorman grade at their linked depot. The dual-link drivers would work steam and electric turns and as the Motormen had no rostered spare coverage to cover leave and sickness, this work would be covered by the dual-link drivers from the steam depot.

A.S.L.E.& F. members transferring to the new Motormen depot would remain part of the existing locomotive branch and in some cases would such as Brighton, the Brighton Motorman wanted to have their own branch and they created Brighton No.2 branch.  

In the suburban area the larger new depots such as Selhurst were created and no branch of A.S.L.E & F. existed they would create their own branch, even though there may be a branch already in existence nearby.  Some of the smaller suburban depots would come under the mother branch such as Selhurst. Many of these branches were established within a few weeks/months of their depot opening. 

PHOTOGRAPHER UNKNOWN

Above is a list of Electrical Multiple Units that the motormen would have worked on 

the Brighton Section of the Southern Railway in 1938.

PHOTOGRAPHER UNKNOWN