West Coast Main Line
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The West Coast Main Line (WCML) is one of the most important intercity railway lines in the United Kingdom, part of the British railway system. The line links London and Glasgow on a 401-mile route which also takes in other important towns and cities including Milton Keynes, Northampton, Rugby, Nuneaton, Coventry, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Stafford, Stoke-on-Trent, Crewe, Warrington, Wigan, Manchester, Liverpool, Preston, Lancaster, Carlisle and Edinburgh.
Image:Pendolino and Freight train.jpg
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History
The line was built in parts between the 1830s and the 1870s, with the first parts being the Grand Junction Railway (Warrington - Birmingham) and the London and Birmingham Railway, both completed in the 1830s. The line came mostly under the control of the London and North Western Railway (LNWR) in 1846, and north of Carlisle, the Caledonian Railway. Following amalgamation, in 1922, it became part of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS). In 1947, following nationalisation, it came under control of British Railways London Midland and Scottish Regions, when the term "West Coast Main Line" officially came into being. The running of services on the WCML came under the InterCity brand in the late 1970s, which prior to privatisation in 1996 was known as "InterCity West Coast". Following the privatisation, the principal operator on the line has been Virgin Trains who operate all long-distance express services, but many regional operators along the route also run local commuter sevices.
Partly to appease the concerns and anger of landowners along the route, in places the line was built so that it avoided large estates and rural towns, but also to reduce construction costs the line in places followed natural contours, resulting in many curves and bends. The WCML also passes through some of the more hilly areas of the British mainland, such as the Chilterns (Tring cutting), the Watford Gap and Northampton uplands followed by the Trent Valley, the mountains of Cumbria with a summit at Shap and the Beattock summit in the Leadhills area of southern Lanarkshire. This has left a legacy of lower maximum speeds on the line compared to the East Coast route, and the principal solution to the problem has been the adoption of tilting trains, formerly British Rail's ill-fated APT, and latterly the Pendolino trains introduced by Virgin in 2003. Services from Liverpool to the South West and the South Coast were withdrawn by Virgin in September 2003.
The WCML is not a single railway; although its main "spine" runs between London and Glasgow with a branch from Carstairs to Edinburgh. The route from Rugby to Birmingham Wolverhampton and Stafford was the original main line until the shorter line was built via the Trent Valley. There is a loop that serves Northampton and a branch north of Crewe to Liverpool. The WCML includes loops that branch off to serve Manchester, one from Colwich Junction in the Trent Valley south of Stafford via Stoke-on-Trent, one north of Stafford also via Stoke-on-Trent and one via Crewe and Wilmslow. A north-south junction line in Manchester constructed by British Rail has made possible a through service via Bolton back to the main line at Preston.
Image:WCML near Ansty.jpg The line was modernised and electrified in stages between 1959 and 1974 - initial electrification was in 1959 between Crewe and Manchester and Liverpool, with the rest of the southern section of the line following a few years later; the line from Weaver Junction (where the route to Liverpool diverges) to Glasgow was electrified in 1974. It is currently undergoing a major upgrade along almost its entire length. The original plans estimated that this upgrade would cost £2bn, be ready by 2005, and cut journey times London to Birmingham to 1hr (currently 1hr 40mins) and 1hr 45mins London to Manchester. This would be achieved through increasing the line speed to 225 km/h (140 mph), in place of the previous maximum of 175 km/h (110 mph).
However the plan was doomed from the beginning, since Railtrack had not assessed the technical viability of "moving block signalling" (see the Railway Signalling page for more details) prior to promising the speed increase to Virgin and the Government. No-one had attempted to implement moving block on a line as complex as the WCML anywhere on the world, and it soon became apparent to engineers that the technology was not mature enough to be used on the line. The bankruptcy of Railtrack in 2001 following the Hatfield crash put paid to the plans whilst the original cost of the upgrade soared. The revised estimates indicate that the cost will £13bn, be ready by 2008 with a maximum speed for tilting trains of a more modest 200 km/h (125 mph). The first phase of the upgrade, south of Manchester, opened on 27 September 2004 with London to Birmingham journey times of 1hr 21mins and London to Manchester 2 hours. The final phase was announced as opening on December 12, 2005, bringing the journey from London to Glasgow to about 4½ hours, [1] although considerable work such as the quadrupling of the track in the Trent Valley, upgrading the slow lines, the second phase of remodelling Nuneaton, and the remodelling of Stafford, Rugby, and Coventry stations was still planned and yet to be done.
The North Wales Coast Line from Crewe to Holyhead and the line from Manchester to Preston are not electrified. Services from London to Holyhead and from Manchester to Scotland are mostly operated either by Virgin Super Voyager tilting diesel trains or Pendolino sets "hauled dead" by a diesel locomotive.
The route in detail
The cities and towns served by the WCML are listed below. Stations on loops and branches are marked ** Those stations in italics are not served by main-line services run by Virgin Trains but only by local trains. Stations between London and Watford are used only by local services and are not shown.
London to Glasgow and Edinburgh
Branches and loops
Rugby-Birmingham-Wolverhampton-Stafford
Crewe-Holyhead (North Wales Coast Line)
| Town/City | Station | Ordnance Survey grid reference |
|---|---|---|
Crewe-Manchester-Preston
| Town/City | Station | Ordnance Survey grid reference |
|---|---|---|
See also
External links
Template:British main lines Template:Railway lines in Central England Template:Railway lines in North England Template:Railway lines in Scotlandfr:West Coast Main Line
Categories: Transport in London | Transport in Hertfordshire | Transport in Buckinghamshire | Transport in Bedfordshire | Transport in Northamptonshire | Transport in Warwickshire | Transport in Staffordshire | Transport in Birmingham | Transport in Cheshire | Transport in Merseyside | Transport in Greater Manchester | Transport in Lancashire | Transport in Cumbria | Transport in Dumfries and Galloway | Transport in South Lanarkshire | Transport in North Lanarkshire | Transport in Glasgow | Transport in Edinburgh | Transport in North Wales