The only Southern Railway designed underground stock was built by the English Electric Company and introduced in 1940 to replace the original stock which was bought by the LSWR. They were the first Southern EMUs with sliding doors. The twelve motor coaches and sixteen trailers were similar to contemporary London underground stock but were shorter to fit onto the hoist from the surface and their windows were smaller to reflect the fact that the route was entirely under ground and much shorter than most underground lines. Electrically the units were similar to 4 Sub stock, with one motor bogie on each motor coach. The motor cars had a cab at each end and could run singly or with another motor car sandwiching up to three trailers. From new until the late 1960s the cars were painted green with aluminium ends and doors. The green was then replaced by the all-pervading BR blue, and in turn was then replaced by Network SouthEast colours which also involved painting for the ends and doors. The units were replaced in 1994 by new stock produced as a run-on order of London Underground 1992 Central Line stock. The Waterloo and City line was sold to London Underground Limited in 1994 in preparation for the privatisation of the railways as it was not thought viable to be part of a Train Operating Company franchise.

Waterloo & City Nº56, a driving motor car in daylight at Waterloo. It is in BR blue livery with NSE markings. Unusually for the Southern Region, the W&C line did not use fixed formation trains, so although these motor cars were used either end of up to three trailers there were no set numbers.

photograph by John Lewis

photograph by David Smith

photograph by Colin Duff

photographs by John Lewis