Coventry to Nuneaton Line

Coventry to Nuneaton Line
Bedworth railway station.
Overview
Type	Commuter rail, Rail freight
System	National Rail
Status	Operational
Locale	Warwickshire Coventry West Midlands (region)
Termini	Nuneaton Coventry
Stations	5
Operation
Opened	1850
Owner	Network Rail
Operator(s)	London Midland
Rolling stock	Class 153 Class 230 (future)
Technical
Number of tracks	2
Track gauge	4 ft 8 ^1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge

Coventry to Nuneaton Line
Legend
Trent Valley Line (WCML) to Stafford Nuneaton North Chord Ashby & Nuneaton Joint Rly Birmingham to Peterborough Line to Birmingham Nuneaton Birmingham to Peterborough Line to Leicester Trent Valley Line (WCML) to Rugby Coventry Canal Chilvers Coton Griff Colliery & Brickworks Bermuda Park Charity Colliery Bedworth Newdigate Colliery Murco Bedworth Oil Terminal Exhall Colliery Hawkesbury Lane Wyken & Craven Collieries Longford & Exhall Coventry Arena ProLogis Park Coventry Three Spires Junction Bell Green goods station Foleshill Daimler Halt Coundon Road Spon End Viaduct Rugby–Birmingham–Stafford Line to Birmingham New Street Coventry Coventry to Leamington Line Gosford Green goods station Humber Road Junction Rugby–Birmingham–Stafford Line to Rugby

The Coventry to Nuneaton Line is a railway line linking Coventry and Nuneaton in the West Midlands of England. The line has a passenger service. It is also used by through freight trains, and freight trains serving facilities on the route.

The current passenger stations on the route are Nuneaton, Bermuda Park, Bedworth, Coventry Arena and Coventry. Freight services run to Bedworth Murco Oil Terminal and Prologis Park Industrial Estate. The line has previously served many other small stations and now-closed goods yards.

Until 2016, the only intermediate station on the route was Bedworth. On 14 December 2011, the UK Government announced an £18.8 million project to upgrade the line, which included new stations at the Ricoh Arena and Bermuda Park (opened January 2016), lengthening of the platforms at Bedworth, and increasing the service frequency from hourly to half-hourly.^[1][2][3]

The line is currently not electrified, but it is proposed to electrify it at 25 kV AC overhead as part of the Electric Spine scheme.

Services

All passenger services on the line are operated by London Midland who run an hourly service in each direction, provided by a single coach Class 153 diesel unit.^[4] In July 2016 it was announced that a prototype three coach Class 230 unit, would be trialled on the line for an initial period of 12 months. The unit consists of three rebuilt carriages of a former London Underground D78 Stock train.^[5]

Freight trains also use the line, travelling from the Chiltern Main Line via Leamington Spa, heading towards the West Coast Main Line.

History

The replacement Spon End viaduct

The line was built for the London and North Western Railway and was opened on 2 September 1850.^[6]

On 26 January 1857, 23 of the 28 arches of the Spon End viaduct collapsed. This meant trains travelling south terminated at Coundon Road while the viaduct was rebuilt. This took three and a half years to complete and services to Coventry were restored on 1 October 1860.^[6]

The line originally had intermediate stations at Coundon Road, Foleshill, Longford and Exhall, Hawkesbury Lane, Bedworth and Chilvers Coton. In 1917, Daimler Halt was opened between Coundon Road and Foleshill. But this was a private halt for the use of workers at the adjacent Daimler factory, and was not accessible to the general public. There were also various branches and sidings running from the line to serve local coal mines and factories, the longest of which was the 'Coventry Loop Line' (see below)^[6]

The line came under the ownership of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) in 1922, and then British Railways in 1948. The little-used Longford and Exhall station was closed in 1949. All of the other intermediate stations were closed on 18 January 1965 (along with those on the Coventry to Leamington Line) when passenger services were withdrawn as a consequence of The Reshaping of British Railways report. Following this, the line became freight-only for the next 22 years.^[6]

British Rail restored passenger services to the line on 11 May 1987, under the Speller Act. Initially there were no intermediate stations on the re-opened line until 16 May 1988 when the rebuilt Bedworth station was opened.^[6]

Coventry Loop Line

The Coventry Loop Line was a freight-only branch which ran from Three Spires Junction on the Coventry–Nuneaton Line to Humber Road Junction on the Coventry–Rugby Line. The line was built so freight trains could avoid running through Coventry station, and was first opened in 1914. It had two goods stations at Bell Green and Gosford Green, as well as a number of sidings serving local industries,^[7] but never had any scheduled passenger service, although passenger trains occasionally used the line as a diversionary route during engineering works.^[6]

Humber Road Junction was closed in 1963, after goods traffic dwindled, and so the branch became a long siding from Three Spires Junction. The last traffic to the Chrysler factory ended in 1981, and the rest of the branch closed in September that year. The track was lifted in 1982.^[6] Much of the former trackbed of the line has since been built over as part of the A444 Phoenix Way.^[7]

2016 station openings

The line runs near to the Ricoh Arena stadium on the northern edge of Coventry. Funding for two new stations, Coventry Arena and Bermuda Park, was approved in December 2011.^[2] New plans will also see the number of carriages increased from 1 to 3 and the service upgraded to half hourly, a new platform built at Coventry station and also future extensions of the line to Kenilworth and Leamington Spa.^[8] After the completion of the Electric Spine project, such a service would be operated by electric multiple units.

On 26 June 2014 Buckingham Group were announced as the company awarded the contract to build the two new stations.^[9]

Work on building the stations started in October 2014^[10] with the stations opening on 18 January 2016,^[11] however the upgrade at Coventry station to allow additional train services between Coventry and Nuneaton, calling at the new stations, will not be ready until summer 2017.^[12]

References

1. "London Midland: Coventry - Nuneaton timetable". London Midland. London Midland. Retrieved 18 January 2016.
2. "Coventry to Nuneaton rail upgrade given go ahead". BBC. 14 December 2011. Retrieved 14 December 2011.
3. "Coventry to Nuneaton rail upgrade approved". Coventry City Council. Retrieved 8 April 2013.
4. "London Midland hires rolling stock to plug sports gap". Railnews. 11 February 2016. Retrieved 24 August 2016.
5. "Recycled Tube trains to re-enter passenger service this year". Global Rail News. Retrieved 22 July 2016.
6. Hurst, Geoffrey (1993). LNWR Branch Lines of West Leicestershire & East Warwickshire (First ed.). Milepost Publications. ISBN 0-947796-16-9.
7. "LMS Route: Coventry Loop Line". Warwickshire Railways.com. Retrieved 8 April 2013.
8. Galland, Paul (2 March 2009). "NUCKLE Phase 1 - Nuneaton to Coventry Rail Line upgrade" (PDF). Warwickshire County Council. Retrieved 31 May 2009.
9. "Work to start on two new rail stations in Coventry and Nuneaton". Coventry Telegraph. 26 June 2014. Retrieved 26 June 2014.
10. "Work on Bermuda Park railway station in Nuneaton starts". BBC News. BBC. 6 October 2014. Retrieved 6 October 2014.
11. "Two new rail stations will open on Monday 18 January" (Press release). London Midland. 15 January 2016. Retrieved 15 January 2016.
12. "Ricoh rail line and Coventry station upgrade faces TWO YEAR delay". Coventry Observer. 7 September 2015. Retrieved 16 September 2015.