Southern 4-letter depot codes

[eastwestdivide]

When I started spotting in the late 1970s, SR units had a 4-letter code on the front end, lower right I think, which were soon superseded by the 2-letter TOPS (?) depot codes. A quick google finds a few odd passing references, but no definitive list. From memory…
SLGN, SLEO, RMGT, BTON, SHST, WDON, ELGH?, BOMO, FTON?
for
Slade Green, St Leonard’s (DEMU), Ramsgate, Brighton, Selhurst, Wimbledon, Eastleigh (DEMU), Bournemouth, Fratton

I can’t even find any photos online at the moment to illustrate one.

Anything I’ve missed or got wrong?

 

[Gloster]

A search through some books makes it probable that it was ELGH, but the position of the air pipes means the letters are normally obscured. I found one ending GH and another starting in E and ending in H. Few seem to have carried this and EH seems to have been adopted fairly early, or perhaps it is just that many photographers took a while before they took up the camera again after the end of steam.

ELGH chimes with my failing memory.

 

[Falcon1200]

My 1973 Ian Allan Locoshed book has exactly those codes (including ELGH), plus C/E and C/W for fleets divided between the Central, Eastern and Western sections, as at February 5th 1973. The C/E etc was presumably not shown on the units though, not sure what was?

 

[eastwestdivide]

Suspect not many ELGH were photographed (and put on the internet) as there were only relatively few DEMUs allocated there, and while neither depot had EMUs, SLEO had a much bigger DEMU fleet.
I wonder when those codes were first applied.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Dec 2025 ==

My 1973 Ian Allan Locoshed book has exactly those codes (including ELGH), plus C/E and C/W for fleets divided between the Central, Eastern and Western sections, as at February 5th 1973. The C/E etc was presumably not shown on the units though, not sure what was?

Thanks. I think the suburban fleets were shared between two divisions at one point, although no SUBs on the SE division.

 

[Gloster]

Suspect not many ELGH were photographed (and put on the internet) as there were only relatively few DEMUs allocated there, and while neither depot had EMUs, SLEO had a much bigger DEMU fleet.
I wonder when those codes were first applied.

My impression from the photos is that it only came in with or after the full yellow fronts and blue livery appeared. I would reckon that they probably disappeared when the national two-character depot code system came in.

 

[eastwestdivide]

My impression from the photos is that it only came in with or after the full yellow fronts and blue livery appeared. I would reckon that they probably disappeared when the national two-character depot code system came in.

The two-letter depot codes were already applied to locos by 1976/77 when I started spotting, but the SR MUs were still using the four-letter codes and only changed to the two-letter codes later (maybe 1980ish?). I might have some notebooks somewhere where I could have noted this… Christmas project I think.

 

[SargeNpton]

Not a very good picture (1970s 126 Kodak Colour Film), but in this photo you can just make out the ..GH on the front of this DEMU at Eastleigh, awaiting a departure to Fareham.

 

[norbitonflyer]

A hazy memory that Wimbledon's code was originally DSRD (Durnsford Road) and only later became WDON