West Coast Main Line

The West Coast Main Line (WCML) is the busiest mixed-traffic railway route in Britain, and the country's most important rail backbone in terms of population served. It provides fast, long-distance inter-city passenger services between London, the West Midlands, the North West, North Wales and southern Scotland. Since the route was upgraded in recent years, large stretches of it have trains running at 125 mph (200 km/h), so it may be classed as a high-speed line.

The WCML is the most important intercity rail passenger route in the UK, connecting London with the major cities of Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow as well as many other smaller towns and cities. In addition, several sections of the WCML form part of the suburban railway systems in London, Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow, with many more smaller commuter stations, as well as providing a number of links to more rural towns. In 2008 the WCML handled 75 million passenger journeys.

The WCML is also one of the busiest freight routes in Europe, carrying 43% of all UK rail freight traffic. It has been declared a strategic European route and designated a priority Trans-European Networks (TENS) route. It is the principal rail freight corridor linking the European mainland (via the Channel Tunnel) through London and south-east England to the West Midlands, north-west England and Scotland.

Geography
Central to the WCML is its 641.6 km-long core section between and Glasgow Central with principal InterCity stations at Watford Junction, Milton Keynes, Rugby, Nuneaton, Stafford, Crewe, Warrington, Wigan, Preston, Lancaster, Oxenholme, Penrith,  Carlisle and Motherwell. Strictly speaking, this section alone is the West Coast Main Line, but the term is now used to describe a complex system of branches and divergences, all connected from London Euston and serving also the major towns and cities of Northampton, Coventry, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Stoke-on-Trent, Macclesfield, Stockport, Manchester, Runcorn, and Liverpool; there is also a link to Edinburgh, but this is not the direct route from London to Edinburgh.

The WCML is not a single railway; rather it can be thought of as a network of routes which diverge and rejoin the central core between London and Glasgow. The route from Rugby to Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Stafford was the original main line until the shorter line was built in 1847 via the Trent Valley. South of Rugby there is a loop that serves Northampton, and there is also a branch north of Crewe to Liverpool which is notable since Weaver Junction on this branch is the oldest flyover-type junction in use. Among the other diversions are 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 further branch at Carstairs links Edinburgh to the WCML, providing a direct connection between the WCML and the East Coast Main Line.

Because of opposition by landowners along the route, in places some railway lines were built so that they avoided large estates and rural towns, and to reduce construction costs the railways followed natural contours, resulting in many curves and bends. The WCML also passes through some hilly areas, 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 Beattock Summit in southern Lanarkshire. This legacy of gradients and curves, and the fact that it was not originally conceived as a single trunk route, means the WCML was never ideal as a long-distance main line, with lower maximum speeds than the East Coast Main Line (ECML) route, the other major main line from London to Scotland.

In recent decades, the principal solution to the problem of the WCML's curvaceous line of route has been the adoption of tilting trains, formerly British Rail's ill-fated APT, and latterly the Class 390 Pendolino trains constructed by Alstom and introduced by Virgin Trains in 2003. A 'conventional' attempt to raise line speeds as part of the InterCity 250 upgrade in the 1990s would have relaxed maximum cant levels on curves and seen some track realignments; this scheme faltered for lack of funding in the economic climate of the time.

Early history
The WCML was not originally conceived as a single trunk route, but was a number of separate lines built by different companies between the 1830s and the 1880s. After the completion of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 1830, schemes were mooted to build a network of intercity lines. The first was the Grand Junction Railway connecting the Liverpool and Manchester to Birmingham, opening in 1837. This was followed by the London and Birmingham Railway in 1838, forming the skeleton of the southern section of the WCML. These lines, together with the Trent Valley Railway (Rugby-Stafford), and the Manchester and Birmingham Railway (Crewe-Manchester), amalgamated operations in 1846 to form the London and North Western Railway (LNWR). Three other sections, the North Union Railway (Wigan-Preston), the Lancaster and Preston Junction Railway and the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway were later absorbed by the LNWR.

North of Carlisle, the Caledonian Railway remained independent, and opened its main line from Carlisle to Beattock in September 1847, Edinburgh in February 1848 and Glasgow in November 1849. Another important section, the North Staffordshire Railway (NSR), which opened in 1848 from Macclesfield (connecting with the LNWR from Manchester) to Norton Bridge and Colwich via Stoke-on-Trent also remained independent. Poor relations between the LNWR and the NSR meant that through trains did not run until 1867.

The route to Scotland was marketed by the LNWR as 'The Premier Line'. Because the cross-border trains ran over the LNWR and Caledonian Railway. Through trains consisted of jointly-owned "West Coast Joint Stock" to simplify operations. The first direct London to Glasgow trains in the 1850s took 12.5 hours to complete the 400 mi journey.

The final sections of what is now the WCML were put in place over the following decades by the LNWR. A direct branch to Liverpool, bypassing the earlier Liverpool and Manchester line was opened in 1869, from Weaver Junction north of Crewe to Ditton Junction via the Runcorn Railway Bridge over the River Mersey.

To expand capacity, the line between London and Rugby was widened to four tracks in the 1870s. As part of this, a new line, the Northampton Loop was built, opening in 1881, connecting Northampton before rejoining the main line at Rugby.

LMS era


The whole of the present route came under the control of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) on on 1 January 1923 when railway companies were grouped, under the Railways Act 1921.

During the grouping era the LMS competed fiercely with the rival London and North Eastern Railway's East Coast Main Line for London to Scotland traffic (see Race to the North). Attempts were made to minimise end-to-end journey times for a small number of powerful lightweight trains that could be marketed as glamorous premium crack expresses, especially between London and Glasgow, such as the 1937-39 Coronation Scot, which made the journey in 6 hours 30 minutes, making it competitive with the rival East Coast Flying Scotsman.

War-ravaged British Railways in the 1950s could not match this, but did achieve a London-Glasgow timing of 7 hours 15 minutes in the 1959-60 timetable by strictly limiting the number of coaches to eight and not stopping between London and Carlisle.

British Rail era
In 1947, following nationalisation, the line came under the control of British Railways' London Midland and Scottish Regions, when the term "West Coast Main Line" came into use officially, although it had been used informally since at least 1912. However, it is something of a misnomer as the line only physically touches the coast on a brief section overlooking Morecambe Bay between Lancaster and Carnforth for barely half a mile.

Modernisation by British Rail
Following the 1955 modernisation plan, the line was modernised and electrified in stages between 1959 and 1974. The first stretch to be electrified was Crewe to Manchester, completed on 12 September 1960. This was followed by Crewe to Liverpool, completed on 1 January 1962. Electrification was then extended southwards to London. The first electric trains from London ran on 12 November 1965, but full public service did not start until 18 April the following year. Electrification of the Birmingham line was completed on 6 March 1967. In March 1970 the government gave approval to electrification of the northern section from Weaver Junction (where the route to Liverpool diverges) to Glasgow, and this was completed on 6 May 1974.

Once electrification was complete between London, the West Midlands and the North-West, a new set of high-speed long-distance services was introduced in 1966, launching British Rail's highly successful "Inter-City" brand (the hyphen was later dropped) and offering such unprecedented journey times as London to Manchester or Liverpool in 2 hours 40 minutes (and even 2 hours 30 minutes for the twice-daily Manchester Pullman). A significant new feature was that these fast trains were not just the occasional crack express but a regular-interval service throughout the day: hourly to Birmingham, two-hourly to Manchester, and so on. Along with electrification came the gradual introduction of modern coaches such as the Mark 2 and, following the northern electrification scheme's completion in 1974, the fully integral, air-conditioned Mark 3 design. These vehicles remained the mainstay of the WCML's express services until the early 2000s. Line speeds were raised to a maximum 110 mph (177 km/h), and these trains, hauled by powerful Class 86 and Class 87 electric locomotives, came to be seen as BR's flagship passenger product, immediately restoring the WCML to its premier position after a long period in the doldrums. Passenger traffic on the WCML doubled between 1962 and 1975.

The modernisation also saw the demolition and redevelopment of several of the key stations on the line: BR was keen to symbolise the coming of the "electric age" by replacing the Victorian-era buildings with new structures built from glass and concrete. Notable examples were Birmingham New Street, Manchester Piccadilly, Stafford, Coventry and London Euston. To enable the latter, the famous Doric Arch portal into the original Philip Hardwick-designed terminus was demolished in 1962 amid much public outcry. Recently, plans have been mooted to completely rebuild both New Street and Euston stations.

Electrification of the Edinburgh branch was carried out in the late 1980s as part of the ECML electrification project in order to allow InterCity 225 sets to access Glasgow via Carstairs Junction. The Preston-Manchester (via Bolton) and Crewe-Holyhead branches remain unelectrified.

Modernisation culminated in the adoption of air brakes for locomotive-hauled express trains. Also under British Rail, freight train operations and practices changed drastically, resulting in the virtual elimination of the traditional slow-moving and generally unbraked pick-up goods train and the introduction of faster-moving point-to-point trainload operations using air-braked vehicles.

The running of express passenger services on the WCML came under the Inter-City brand in the late 1960s, which following the "sectorisation" of British Rail in the 1980s became known as "InterCity West Coast". "InterCity CrossCountry", using the West Midlands sections of the WCML, was also greatly developed with the introduction of HST units transferred from the ECML after the latter's electrification. Modernisation brought great improvements, not least in speed and frequency, to many WCML services but there have been some losses over the years. Locations and lines served by through trains or through coaches from London in 1947 but no longer so served include: Windermere; Barrow-in-Furness, Whitehaven and Workington; Huddersfield and Halifax (via Stockport); Blackpool; Colne (via Stockport); Morecambe and Heysham; Southport (via Edge Hill); and Stranraer Harbour. Notable also is the loss of through service from Liverpool to Scotland.

A less successful venture was the Advanced Passenger Train (APT); British Rail's attempt in the 1970s and 80s to introduce a tilting train to the West Coast Main Line, in order to overcome the problem of high speed running on the curvaceous route. In test service, the train proved that London-Glasgow journey times of less than 4 hours were possible, but the tilting technology suffered from numerous reliability problems, and would become a public relations embarrassment for BR, leading to the eventual scrapping of the project in the early 1980s.

In the late 1980s British Rail put forward a more conventional scheme to raise speeds on the WCML; a proposed project called InterCity 250, which planned to re-engineer parts of the line in order to reduce curves and gradients in order to facilitate higher speed running, and which would have seen the introduction of new rolling stock derived from that developed for the East Coast electrification. The scheme was scrapped in 1992, a victim of the recession of the period and the intervention of privatisation.

Modernisation by Network Rail


By the dawn of the 1990s, it was clear that further modernisation was required. Initially this took the form of the InterCity 250 project. But then the privatisation of BR intervened, which saw Virgin Trains win the franchise in 1996 for the running of long-distance express services on the line. The modernisation plan unveiled by Virgin and the new infrastructure owner Railtrack would have seen the upgrade and renewal of the line to allow the use of tilting Pendolino trains with a maximum line speed of 140 mph, in place of the previous maximum of 110 mph. Railtrack estimated that this upgrade would cost £2bn, be ready by 2005, and cut journey times to 1 hour for London to Birmingham and 1hr 45mins for London to Manchester.

However, these plans proved too ambitious and were subsequently aborted. Central to the implementation of the plan was the adoption of moving block signalling which had never been proven on anything more than simple metro lines and light rail systems - not on a complex high speed heavy rail network such as the WCML. Despite this, Railtrack made what would prove to be the fatal mistake of not properly assessing the technical viability and cost of implementing moving block prior to promising the speed increase to Virgin and the government. By 1999, with little headway on the modernisation project made, it became apparent to engineers that the technology was not mature enough to be used on the line. The bankruptcy of Railtrack in 2001 and its replacement by Network Rail following the Hatfield crash brought a reappraisal of the plans, while the cost of the upgrade soared. Following fears that cost overruns on the project would push the final price tag to £13bn, scaling-down of the plans brought the cost down to between £8bn and £10bn, to be ready by 2008, with a maximum speed for tilting trains of a more modest 125 mph - equalling the speeds available on the East Coast route, but some way short of the original target, even further behind BR's original vision of >150 mph speeds with the APT.

The first phase of the upgrade, south of Manchester, opened on 27 September 2004 with journey times of 1 hour 21 minutes for London to Birmingham and 2 hours 6 minutes for London to Manchester. The final phase, introducing 125 mph running along most of the line, was announced as opening on 12 December 2005, bringing the fastest journey from London to Glasgow to 4 hours 25 mins (down from 5 hours 10 minutes). However, considerable work remained, 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, Milton Keynes and Coventry stations, and these were completed in late 2008. The upgrading of the Crewe-Manchester line via Wilmslow was completed in summer 2006.

In September 2006, a new speed record was set on the WCML — a Pendolino train completed the 401 mi Glasgow Central — London Euston run in a record 3 hours 55 minutes, beating the APT's record of 4 hours 15 minutes, although the APT still holds the overall record on the northbound run.

December 2008 saw the final completion of the decade-long modernisation project. This allowed Virgin's VHF (Very High Frequency) timetable to be progressively introduced through early 2009, the highlights of which are a three-trains-per-hour service to both Birmingham and Manchester during off-peak periods, and nearly all Anglo-Scottish timings brought under the 4 hours 30 minutes barrier — with one service (calling only at Preston) achieving a London-Glasgow time of 4 hours 10 minutes.

Track
The main spine of the WCML is quadruple track almost all of the way from London to Crewe, (where the line diverges into sections to Manchester, North Wales, Liverpool, and Scotland) except for a short section between Rugby and Nuneaton on the Trent Valley Line which is three track. The remaining sections are mainly double track, except for a few busy sections around Manchester and Liverpool.

The complete route has been cleared for W10 loading gauge freight traffic, allowing use of higher 9 ft hi-cube shipping containers.

Rolling stock
The majority of stock used on the West Coast Main Line is new-build, part of Virgin's initial franchise agreement having been a commitment to introduce a brand-new fleet of tilting Class 390 "Pendolino" trains for long-distance high-speed WCML services. The 53-strong Pendolino fleet, plus three tilting SuperVoyager diesel sets, were bought for use on these InterCity services. One Pendolino was written off in 2007 following the Grayrigg derailment. After the 2007 franchise "shake-up" in the Midlands, more SuperVoyagers were transferred to Virgin West Coast, instead of going to the new CrossCountry franchise. The SuperVoyagers are used on London-Chester and Holyhead services because the Chester/North Wales line is not electrified, so they run "under the wires" between London and Crewe. SuperVoyagers are also used on Virgin's Birmingham-Scotland services, even though this route is entirely electrified.

By 2012, the WCML Pendolino fleet will be strengthened by the addition of two coaches to 31 of the 52 existing sets, thus turning them into 11-car trains. Four brand new 11-car sets are also part of this order, one of which will replace the set lost in the Grayrigg derailment. Although the new stock has been supplied in Virgin livery, it is as yet unclear if they will enter traffic before the InterCity West Coast franchise is re-let in 2012. One unit is presently earmarked for a 9-month trial on the East Coast Main Line in 2010.

Previous franchisees Central Trains and Silverlink (operating local and regional services partly over sections of the WCML) were given 30 new "Desiros", originally ordered for services in the south-east. Following Govia's successful bid for the West Midlands franchise in 2007, another 37 Desiros were ordered to replace its older fleet of 321s.

The older BR-vintage locomotive-hauled passenger rolling stock still has a limited role on the WCML, with the overnight Caledonian Sleeper services between London Euston and Scotland using Mark 3 and Mark 2 coaches. Virgin has also retained and refurbished one of the original Mark 3 rakes with a Driving Van Trailer and a Class 90 locomotive as a standby set to cover for Pendolino breakdowns.

The following table lists the rolling stock which forms the core passenger service pattern on the WCML serving its principal termini; it is not exhaustive since many other types use sections of the WCML network as part of other routes - notable examples include the InterCity 125 HST on certain CrossCountry services (primarily through the West Midlands area) and the InterCity 225 uses the Edinburgh branch in order to reach Glasgow Central.

Virgin Trains
The current principal train operating company on the West Coast Main Line is Virgin Trains, which runs the majority of long-distance services on the route. Virgin operates 9 trains per hour from, with three trains per hour to each of Birmingham and Manchester, one train per hour to each of Chester and Liverpool, 13 trains per day to Glasgow, and 6 trains per day to. There is also one daily train in each direction to. Additional terminating services run from London to, and.

In addition, Virgin operates one train per hour from to either Glasgow or Edinburgh (alternating each hour).

Average Journey Times 

London Midland
London Midland provides commuter and some long-distance services on the route, most of which terminate at London Euston. They are all operated under the "Express" brand. There is one train every 30 mins from London to, calling at the majority of stations en route, one of these per hour being extended to Birmingham. This London-Birmingham stopping service is roughly one hour slower, end to end, than the Virgin Trains fast service.

London Midland also operates an hourly service from London to, serving , , , , , , , , , , , , and. This service was introduced in 2008 to coincide with the withdrawal of the similar Virgin Trains service.

A service to is provided every 20 minutes from Euston, calling at Harrow & Wealdstone, Bushey, Watford Junction, Kings Langley, Apsley, Hemel Hempstead and Berkhamsted, with an hourly extension to, calling additionally at Cheddington, Leighton Buzzard and Bletchley.

During peak periods London Midland offers "The Watford Shuttle", which operates between Euston, Harrow and Wealdstone, Bushey, and Watford Junction. One service in each direction is extended to Tring and Milton Keynes.

London Midland also operates an hourly stopping train on the Marston Vale Line as well as a 45-minute service on the St Albans Branch Line. These are both local branches off the WCML.

After the Central Trains franchise was revised, London Midland took over services running on the WCML between Birmingham and Liverpool.

First Transpennine Express
As part of its North West route, First Transpennine Express provides services along the WCML between Preston and Glasgow/Edinburgh (alternating serving each roughly every 2 hours) as part of its Manchester Airport to Scotland service. Also as part of its North West route, services run from Preston and Manchester to branches off the WMCL encompassing Blackpool North, Windermere and Barrow-in-Furness.

Felixstowe and Nuneaton freight capacity scheme
A number of items of work are proposed to accommodate additional freight traffic between the Haven ports and the Midlands including track dualling and the 'Nuneaton North Chord' which will simplyify access for some trains between the Birmingham to Peterborough Line and the WCML.

Increased line speed
Virgin Trains put forward plans in 2007 to increase the line speed in places on the WCML — particularly along sections of the Trent Valley Line between Stafford and Rugby from 125 to 135 mph (200 to 218 km/h) after the quadrupling of track had been completed. This would permit faster services and possibly allow additional train paths. 135 mi/h was claimed to be achievable by Pendolino trains while using existing lineside signalling without the need for cab signalling via the use of the TASS system (Tilt Authorisation and Speed Supervision) to prevent overspeeding. In practice regulations introduced by the HMRI (now ORR) at the time of the ECML high-speed test runs in 1991 are still in force prohibiting this. Network Rail was aware of Virgin Train's aspirations; however, on 4 November 2009 Chris Mole MP (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Transport) announced that there were no plans for this to happen and thus for the foreseeable future the maximum speed will remain at 125 mi/h.

In promoting this proposal, Virgin Trains reported that passenger numbers on Virgin West Coast increased from 13.6 million in 1997/98 to 18.7 million in 2005/6, while numbers on CrossCountry grew from 12.6 million to 20.4 million over the same period.

Accidents

 * Grayrigg derailment (at Lambrigg Crossovers, south of Grayrigg) - 23 February 2007; 1 killed
 * Tebay rail accident - 15 February 2004; 4 workers killed (no public involvement)
 * Norton Bridge rail crash - 16 October 2003; 1 injured
 * Winsford rail crash - 23 June 1999; 31 injured
 * Watford rail crash - 8 August 1996; 1 killed, 69 injured
 * Stafford rail crash (1996) - 8 March 1996; 1 killed, 22 injured
 * Newton rail crash - 21 July 1991; 4 killed; 22 injured
 * Stafford rail crash (1990) - 4 August 1990; 1 killed, 35 injured
 * Colwich rail crash - 19 September 1986; 1 killed 60 injured
 * Wembley Central rail crash - 11 October 1984; 3 killed, 18 injured
 * Nuneaton rail crash - 6 June 1975; 6 killed 67 injured
 * Watford Junction rail crash - 1975; 1 killed, 11 injured
 * Hixon - 6 January 1968; 11 killed, 27 injured
 * Stechford rail crash - 28 February 1967; 9 killed, 16 injured
 * Cheadle Hulme - 28 May 1964; 3 killed
 * Coppenhall Junction - 26 December 1962; 18 killed, 34 injured
 * Harrow and Wealdstone - 8 October 1952; 112 killed, 340 injured — worst accident in England and London.
 * Weedon - 21 September 1951; 15 killed, 36 injured
 * Lambrigg Crossing signal box between Grayrigg and Oxenholme - 18 May 1947 (express hit light engine through driver missing a signal while looking in his food box); 4 in hospital, 34 minor injuries
 * Lichfield - 1 January 1946; 20 killed, 21 injured.
 * Bourne End rail crash - 30 September 1945; 43 killed, 64 injured
 * Winwick Junction - 28 September 1934; 12 killed
 * Quintinshill rail crash - 22 May 1915; 227 killed, 246 injured. - worst ever accident in the United Kingdom.
 * Wigan North Western railway station - 1 August 1873; 13 killed, 30 major injuries.

The route in detail
Network Rail, successor from 2001 to Railtrack plc, in its business plan published in April 2006, has divided the national network into 26 'Routes' for planning, maintenance and operational purposes. Route 18 is named as 'that part of the West Coast Main Line that runs between London Euston and Carstairs Junction' although it also includes several branch lines that had not previously been considered part of the WCML. The northern terminal sections of the WCML are reached by Routes 26 (to Motherwell and Glasgow) and 24 (to Edinburgh). This therefore differs from the "classic" definition of the WCML as the direct route from London Euston to Glasgow Central.

The cities and towns served by the WCML are listed in the tables 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. Between Euston and Watford Junction the WCML is largely but not exactly paralleled by the operationally independent Watford DC Line, a local stopping service now part of London Overground, with 17 intermediate stations, including three with additional platforms on the WCML.

The final table retraces the route specifically to indicate the many loops, branches, junctions and interchange stations on Route 18, which is the core of the WCML, with the new 'Route' names for connecting lines.

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 Super Voyager tilting diesel trains or, in the case of one of the Holyhead services, by a Pendolino set hauled from Crewe by a Class 57/3 diesel locomotive.

Branches and loops
The WCML is noted for the diversity of branches served from the London to Edinburgh and Glasgow main line. The following map deals with the very complex network of lines in the West Midlands that link the old route via Birmingham with the new WCML route via the Trent Valley (i.e. 1830s versus 1840s):

In the following tables, related to the WCML branches, only the Intercity stations are recorded:

Network Rail Route 18 (WCML) - Branches and junctions
The length of the WCML's main core section is nominally quoted as being 401.25 miles (645.7 km). The basis of this measurement is taken as being the distance between the midpoint of Platform 18 of London Euston to that of Platform 1 of Glasgow Central, and has historically been the distance used in official calculations during speed record attempts.