Leamington Spa railway station
Leamington Spa railway station, situated on Old Warwick Road towards the southern edge of the centre of Leamington (see map), is on the site of the first through station in the town, opened by the Great Western Railway (GWR) on its new line from Birmingham to Oxford in 1852.
The London and North-Western Railway (LNWR) had reached Leamington eight years earlier, in 1844, with a branch from Coventry. That line, however, terminated about a mile and a half from the town centre, at Milverton, and the LNWR did not open a more central station until 1854 (see Leamington Avenue and Leamington Milverton stations below).
| Contents |
The station today
Layout
The present station, which dates from immediately prior to the Second World War (it was comprehensively rebuilt in 1937–1939), has four platforms, numbered 1 to 4 from south to north. Platforms 1 and 4 are west-facing bays, used only by local trains to and from Birmingham (Snow Hill) or Stratford-upon-Avon starting or terminating at Leamington. Platforms 2 and 3 are through platforms: platform 2 is used by services to Stratford-upon-Avon, Birmingham (Snow Hill), or Coventry, Birmingham (New St), and beyond; platform 3 is for departures to Banbury and London (Marylebone) or Reading. Two central lines allow freight trains or other non-stop services to pass through the station when platforms 2 and 3 are occupied.
Operators
As of the current (December 2004 to June 2005) timetable, Leamington station is served by three passenger train operators: Chiltern Railways, Virgin Trains, and Central Trains. Chiltern operates the station, which is owned by Network Rail.
Routes
Three lines radiate from Leamington: one heading northwest to Birmingham by way of Warwick and Solihull — with a branch to Stratford-upon-Avon diverging some 6 miles from Leamington; one going north to Coventry; and one heading southeast towards Banbury, beyond which it splits into routes heading for London (Marylebone) and for Reading via Oxford.
Services
- Chiltern Trains services run at frequent intervals (mostly half-hourly) between Marylebone station in the northwest part of central London and Birmingham (Snow Hill), with further trains (at approximately two-hourly intervals) between Marylebone and Stratford-upon-Avon. A number of the Birmingham trains start from Kidderminster in the mornings and terminate there in the evenings.
- Four long-distance trains an hour, operated by Virgin Trains, also serve Leamington station throughout most of the day, two northbound and two southbound. Basically, these alternate between services from Manchester to Reading (and vice versa) and others running from Edinburgh and/or Newcastle by way of Sheffield to Reading and Bournemouth by way of Southampton (and vice versa). All these Virgin Trains services also serve Coventry, Birmingham International Airport, and Birmingham (New St).
- Central Trains operates a limited number of peak-hour trains to Birmingham (Snow Hill) at the beginning of the day and from there in the evening.
- Although the station no longer sees, as it once did, through expresses to London (Paddington), the number of train services calling at Leamington today is probably higher today than it has ever been.
- Note that the frequency of trains on Sundays is in most cases about half of that indicated above.
Leamington Avenue and Leamington Milverton stations
As mentioned above, the first railway line to reach Leamington Spa did so in December 1844. It was a branch line from Coventry, built by the London and Birmingham Railway (amalgamated two years later into the London and North-Western Railway (LNWR)). The terminus (named "Leamington") was immediately north of Rugby Road in New Milverton, roughly half-way between the centres of Warwick and Leamington (that is to say, about a mile and a half from each).
In March 1851 the LNWR opened another branch, this time from Rugby, which ran through Leamington and made an end-on connection to the Coventry branch at Milverton. Although the new line ran briefly parallel to the route of the Great Western Railway's Birmingham to Oxford line, which was then under construction in southern Leamington, and within spitting distance of the more central GWR station which opened in 1852, the LNWR did not open a station of its own alongside the GWR station until February 1854. This was evidently a somewhat hastily constructed timber affair: a more permanent brick-buit station followed in 1860. The LNWR's new station, with its entrance off Avenue Road, was called, appropriately enough, "Leamington Avenue" — the old station (with an eye on Warwick traffic?) being renamed "Warwick (Milverton)".
The two railways in Leamington remained "so near and yet so far" for many years. Although a link to allow the transfer of goods traffic between the two lines was installed in 1864, it was not until 1908 that a junction was constructed for passenger trains. This (in principle) permitted LNWR trains from the Rugby direction to use the GWR station — and incidentally allowed the latter to describe itself more grandly as "Leamington Spa General".
In October 1883 the LNWR moved its Milverton station to a new site no more than 200 yards further south, where the railway crossed Warwick New Road. As the new station was on an embankment, the platforms and shelters were constructed of wood, with the other station offices being built below at road level. The original station at Milverton remained the site of the LNWR's Leamington locomotive depot and turntable, and right up until the final closure of the line from Rugby, trains from that direction terminated and turned round there.
Leamington Avenue and Milverton stations — by then called respectively "Leamington Spa (Avenue)" and "Leamington Spa (Milverton) for Warwick" (see below) — both suffered closure under the Beeching cuts in 1965. Almost all the trains from these stations had been local services, to Kenilworth, Coventry, Rugby and (earlier) Daventry and Weedon. Although the route to Coventry survives (a new junction was installed in 1966 allowing access from the west end of the surviving (former Great Western) station) and now carries an intensive service of long-distance trains, all the intermediate stations were closed. The line to Rugby was lifted entirely. Most of its trackbed is extant, but there is a substantial gap in south-eastern Leamington where the new housing estate of Sydenham has been built over the former route.
What's in a name?
Milverton must be a candidate for the title of "most renamed station in Great Britain". The station there has been officially called, successively:
1844: Leamington — 1854: Warwick (Milverton) — 1856: Warwick — 1857: Warwick (Milverton) again — 1875: Leamington Milverton (Warwick) — 1876: Milverton (for Warwick) — 1884: Warwick (Milverton) yet again — 1952: Leamington Spa (Milverton) for Warwick.
Strangely enough, the change of site in 1883 did not occasion a renaming!
External links
- Train times for Leamington Spa railway station from National Rail
- Street map and aerial photo of Leamington Spa railway station from Multimap.com
| Preceding station | National Rail Lines | Following station | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Terminus | Central Trains (Leamington-Worcester) | Warwick | ||
| Banbury | Chiltern Railways (London-Birmingham) | Warwick | ||
| Terminus | Chiltern Railways (Leamington-Stratford upon Avon) | Warwick | ||
| Banbury | Virgin Trains (Reading-Birmingham via Coventry) | Coventry | ||
| Virgin Trains (Reading-Birmingham via Solihull) | Solihull | |||
| UK railway stations: |