Railways around Coventry

The Office of Rail and Road has published the 2019-2020 station usage estimates (2018-19 figures in brackets). The entrance & exit figures below are for 1st April 2019 to 31st March 2020. These figures include the first two weeks of the Coronavirus lockdown. Bedworth 102,112 (101,386) Bermuda Park 38,078 (36,088) Berkswell 334,268 (355,928) Birmingham International 6,519,612 (6,975,002) Birmingham New Street 46,510,526 (47,927,772) Canley 369,574 (398,880) Coventry 7,876,772 (8,207,914) Coventry Arena 122,400 (111,462) Hampton-in-Arden 182,390 (196,678) Kenilworth 211,896 (170,912) [Opened 30th April 2018] Leamington Spa 2,823,282 (2,773,782) London Euston 44,776,804 (46,146,456) Nuneaton 1,342,706 (1,364,294) Rugby 2,679,580 (2,695,802) Tile Hill 678,866 (724,504) Wolverhampton 5,122,820 (5,305,828) The official figures include a note "Poor performance on Coventry line following May 2019 timetable change". There was also strike action on West Midlands Trains in the run up to Christmas 2019. All stations show an increase in usage. Coventry saw a 4.0% decrease remains the second busiest station in the West Midlands. Birmingham New Street (-3.0%) remains the busiest station outside London. The new stations continued their growth, particularly Kenilworth which was the first full years service and also gained a Sunday service during the year. Official figures show that railway usage started to fall off in mid-March, about a week before the actual start of Lockdown. Based on these figures, Coronavirus would be responsible for a 3% drop in 2019-20 passenger numbers. Peter.

The Avanti West Coast franchise will terminate in June 2021 when the current emergency management contract expires. The franchise system has become unworkable with the drop in passenger numbers due to Covid-19. The franchise will be replaced with a management contract where the Department for Transport takes all the revenue risk. This will probably go to Avanti and run until April 2026. The January fares increase has been delayed and will probably occur at the end of the month. This seems to be due to the DfT and train operators failing to agree the new fares in time. It is now too late to enter the fares in the system for the traditional first weekend in January date.

Many of you will have noticed that freight trains that run through Coventry, via the single track Leamington line, seem very long, especially when compared to passenger trains. The latter are normally about 190m long. The longer freight trains, you will have observed, take ages to pass. Not only is their speed limited, but they have to keep stopping on passing loops to give way to passenger trains. Then they have to accelerate again from a standstill - a slow process. Up to 30 freighters use the COV-LMS line in a 24 hour period. They travel from Southampton docks, to Brum, then go further up north. Then back again. Well it turns out that your observations and suspicions are correct - since Lockdown 1.0, they have been experimenting with longer trains. Freight trains are normally 600m or so in length, but for nine months they have been increased to the maximum permissible length of 775m, about 4 times as long as a passenger train. They have been able to do this since Lockdown 1.0 owing to vastly reduced passenger numbers, which are still just over a quarter of the normal pre-Lockdown 1.0 level, and quite likely may never return. So much so that some rail companies are reducing the number of hourly services - well there's not much point running a virtually empty train, is there? The rail network is being freed up a bit, enabling longer freight trains, which are more efficient - fewer locomotives are needed, so less pollution (diesels spew out nitrogen oxides, and you don't want to breathe that stuff in, do you?). More freight trains mean fewer HGVs on our roads. And one train driver can move stuff that would typically need 30 lorry drivers. That might be the reason that so many HGVs appeared after WW2: many demobbed soldiers did not have other skilled trades - but they could drive lorries, as they had learned to do in the army.

Another day, and there's more to this story. The chairman of the Rail Freight Forum (bet you'd never heard of it either) has added his two penn'orth in a letter to one of the posh daily newspapers. Apparently: boosting rail freight and having trains half a mile long is a must; most lines are electrified, and allegedly have zero emissions (I'm not fully convinced of this by the way), but another 700 miles of track needs to be electrified, because diesels belch out pollutants by the bucket load... okay, by the chimney- or exhaust pipe-ful; my estimate of 30 lorries equalling one train has been amplified to at least 50 lorries; we need to get as many lorries off the road as possible (I could add a few other forms of transport of my own to this list!). Passenger trains get in the way of freight. Making freighters wait on a loop line at a red light increases nasty diesel pollution by 20%. This is one weapon which the pro-HS2 lobby have in their armour for justifying its construction and cost. HS2 will take passenger trains off other routes, enabling more freight trains. It may be their only justifying weapon. This boost to the rail freight industry is not going to go away.

A rare sight since Monday. Reduced timetables have been introduced due to Lockdown 3 and most passengers "Staying at Home" (and drivers etc. self isolating). Nuneaton-Coventry-Leamington Spa Hourly Replacement Bus Birmingham Locals Two trains an hour all stations. One to/from London and one to/from Northampton Avanti West Cost Alternate one or two trains an hour. Some continue north beyond Wolverhampton. Cross Country Hourly Manchester-Reading, continue to Bournemouth every other hour.

Does anyone remember catching a train from Coundon station? We went on a school trip to London - can you imagine a hoard of kids and a few teachers on that day out? The girls took their little vanity cases that were all the rage then and one of my friends dropped hers into the Thames on a boat trip.

Freightliner Class 86 passing through Canley today on driver training. Originally built for the west coast main line electrification they operated most of the Birmingham - London Euston services through Coventry until replaced by the Pendolinos. Amazingly the locomotive is 54 years old. Only 6 years younger than Evening Star.

The temporary Coventry Station building, as seen here circa 1960-1962? (the Jag here standing in front of it is an absolute beauty!).

Don't think I've seen this one before, looking towards the old station from the side of The Railway Hotel/Rocket.

The new footbridge is taking shape. I hope it looks better when it is finished. The station feels like a building site at the moment. Not helped by the lack of passengers.

Trains between Nuneaton and Leamington resume on Monday 26th April with a train every two hours (timetable). A bus will continue to operate on the alternate hours.

My friend Brian Burrows has given me permission to show this photograph he took on 17 Dec 1962

That's a terrific shot Cliff! Many thanks to Brian. Any idea whereabouts exactly that was in relation to today?

According to the Telegraph report, the locomotive had hauled 18 wagons from Hawkesbury to the sidings at Coundon Road Wharf, when it skidded and went through the stop-block. It came to rest close to the River Sherborne, alongside Coventry Corporation Water Depot. It looks like it was close to here in today's money