Leamington Spa railway station

Leamington Spa railway station serves the town of Royal Leamington Spa, in Warwickshire, England. It is situated on Old Warwick Road towards the southern edge of the town centre. It is a major stop on the Chiltern Main Line between London and Birmingham, and the branch line to Coventry.

Leamington Spa
Leamington Spa railway station exterior
Location
PlaceRoyal Leamington Spa
Local authorityDistrict of Warwick
Grid referenceSP317652
Operations
Station codeLMS
Managed byChiltern Railways
Number of platforms4
DfT categoryC1
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections
from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2014/15 2.316 million
2015/16 2.434 million
2016/17 2.554 million
2017/18 2.665 million
2018/19 2.774 million
History
Original companyGreat Western Railway
Pre-groupingGWR
Post-groupingGWR
1852Opened
1939Rebuilt
National Rail – UK railway stations
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Leamington Spa from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.

History

The first station at the site was opened by the Great Western Railway (GWR) on its new line from Birmingham to Oxford in 1852.[1]

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 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from the town centre, at Milverton station. In 1851 the LNWR extended their Coventry branch in to the centre of Leamington and joined it end-on to their branch to Rugby, and in 1854 opened a new station directly alongside the GWR station known as Leamington Spa (Avenue).[2]

A 1909 Railway Clearing House Junction Diagram showing (left) railways in the vicinity of Leamington

James G. Batterson, the founder of American insurance giant The Travelers Companies, claimed that he first became aware of accident insurance in 1859 when he bought a railway ticket from this station to London which included accidental death insurance up to the amount of £1,000.[3]

In the 1930s the GWR took advantage of a government loan guarantee scheme to fund improvements to their railway network in the West Midlands area; one of these improvements was the rebuilding between 1937-39 of their station at Leamington in the then popular Art Deco style.[1][4]

The station came under the control of the Western Region of British Railways in 1948. In 1965 British Railways closed down the adjacent Avenue station and the branch to Rugby, and diverted the Coventry branch into the ex-GWR station via a new connection. Prior to this there had only been sidings connecting the Coventry line to the ex-GWR line, used for the exchange of goods wagons.[2]

In 1996, Chiltern Railways took over the running of the station and the London to Birmingham services, upon the privatisation of British Rail.[5]

In 2011 the two waiting rooms were restored and refurbished as part of £395,000 improvements that also include 80 new parking spaces at the front of the station and improved disabled access.[6]

The station building and platform structures became grade II listed buildings in 2003.[7]

The station today

Routes

Three lines radiate from Leamington Spa:

  • one heading northwest to Birmingham by way of Warwick and Solihull, with a branch to Stratford-upon-Avon diverging at Hatton, some 6 miles (9.7 km) from Leamington;
  • one going north through Kenilworth to Coventry;
  • one heading south east towards Banbury, beyond which it splits into routes heading for London (Marylebone) and for Reading via Oxford.

Layout
Leamington station layout, showing the main building and platforms

The present art deco-style station, which dates from immediately prior to the Second World War (it was comprehensively rebuilt between 1937 and 1939), has four platforms, numbered one to four from south to north. Platforms one and four 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 two and three are through platforms: platform two is used by services to Stratford-upon-Avon, Birmingham Snow Hill or Coventry, Birmingham New Street and beyond; platform three 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 two and three are occupied.

Services
A West Midlands Trains service to Coventry, a CrossCountry service to Reading, and a Chiltern Railways service to Birmingham.

Chiltern Railways services run at frequent intervals (mostly half-hourly) between Marylebone station in London and Birmingham Moor Street (limited stop, alternate trains continue through to Birmingham Snow Hill), with further trains (at approximately two-hourly intervals) from here to Stratford-upon-Avon and to Moor Street (stopping service). A number of the Birmingham trains start from Kidderminster in the mornings and terminate there in the evenings, whilst there is also a limited through service between Marylebone and Stratford-upon-Avon.[8]

Four long-distance trains an hour, operated by CrossCountry, also serve Leamington station throughout most of the day, two northbound and two southbound. Typically, these alternate between services between Manchester and Bournemouth via Stafford, Birmingham New Street, Coventry, Oxford and Basingstoke and others running between Newcastle and Reading via Doncaster and Sheffield, with certain trains extended to/from Southampton Central.[9]

West Midlands Trains operates peak-hour trains to Birmingham Snow Hill, Stourbridge Junction, Kidderminster and Worcester Shrub Hill at the beginning of the day and from there in the evening.[10] From May 2018 the company began operating an hourly local service to Coventry, calling at the reopened Kenilworth station, in May 2019 this was extended to Nuneaton.[11]

On Sundays, the frequency of trains is in most cases about half of that indicated above, though the service to and from Stratford remains two-hourly.

Motive power depots

The London and Birmingham Railway opened a motive power depot on the west side of the line at their Milverton station in 1844. It was replaced by a larger engine shed nearby in 1881, which was known as Warwick (Milverton). This depot closed 17 November 1958 and was demolished.[12] Locomotives were then serviced at the former Great Western Railway depot at Leamington Spa.

The Great Western Railway opened a motive power depot on the east side of the line south of Leamington Spa General Station in 1906. This was closed by British Railways 14 June 1965 and demolished.[13]

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References
  1. "Leamington Spa Station (GWR)". Warwickshire Railways. Retrieved 24 May 2020.
  2. Hurst, Geoffrey (1993). LNWR Branch Lines of West Leicestershire & East Warwickshire (First ed.). Milepost Publications. pp. 44–59. ISBN 0-947796-16-9.
  3. "The Travelers' Fortieth Anniversary". Insurance Monitor. New York: C.C. Hine's Sons Company. 52 (4): 160–162. April 1904.
  4. Hendry, R. Preston; Hendry, R. Powell (1992). Paddington to the Mersey. Oxford Publishing Company. pp. 139–143. ISBN 9780860934424. OCLC 877729237.
  5. "Railways to Leamington Spa" (PDF). Leamington History Group. Retrieved 26 May 2020.
  6. "Leamington Spa railway's 1930s waiting rooms restored". BBC News. 3 May 2011. Retrieved 26 May 2020.
  7. Historic England. "LEAMINGTON SPA STATION, INCLUDING ATTACHED PLATFORM STRUCTURES (1390496)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 9 February 2019.
  8. GB eNRT December 2015 Edition, Tables 71 & 115
  9. GB eNRT December 2015 Edition, Table 51
  10. GB eNRT December 2015 Edition, Table 71
  11. "When direct trains from Nuneaton and Leamington start". Coventry Telegraph. 18 May 2019. Retrieved 25 May 2020.
  12. Roger Griffiths and Paul Smith, The directory of British engine sheds:1 (Oxford Publishing Co., 1999), p.154. ISBN 0 86093 542 6.
  13. Roger Griffiths and Paul Smith, The directory of British engine sheds:1 (Oxford Publishing Co., 1999), p.154. ISBN 0 86093 542 6.
Preceding station National Rail Following station
Warwick   Chiltern Railways
London to Birmingham		   Banbury
  Chiltern Railways
Leamington Spa–Stratford		   Terminus
Coventry   CrossCountry
Manchester-Bournemouth		   Banbury
Birmingham
New Street		   CrossCountry
Leeds/Newcastle–Southampton Central/Reading		  
Warwick
Limited Service		   West Midlands Railway
Leamington Spa to Worcester		   Terminus
Kenilworth   West Midlands Railway
Coventry-Leamington line		   Terminus

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