Railways around Coventry

I had the original Hornby Dublo 'City of London' many years ago. It was my favourite model loco of the time, and I still think that the Stanier Coronations and Duchesses are the best looking and most impressive steam locos in the world.

And here it is a few minutes earlier passing through Tile Hill.

Hi Ron Brill

Video of 46233 coming through Berkswell on the same day. They don't make them like this anymore, except for 60163 Tornado, of course.

Thanks for the link MikeH. I watched that and others several times. Nostalgia ain't what it used to be.

Nostalgia 2014, getting all teary eyed as a couple of Class 37s roll into Bedworth Station. Mind you, classes 37 through to 50 are a real hoot to watch while cold starting.

Hi Mike H A fabulous recording, a pair of class 37 locos. Thank you.

I hated diesels with a real passion way back when. I never considered that they had a soul, and paid little attention to them. I missed out for years because the English Electrics 37, 40, 45, and 50 have a character you do not see anywhere else in the world, but I was too blind to see it. Class 40 cold start.

I was there on the footbridge ramp on platform 1

My first railway photographs taken with a 35mm camera rather than an Instamatic were taken way back on 2nd January 1970, whilst in my last year at Woodlands. Taken off both sides of Lythalls Lane bridge, they were views of Three Spires Junction Signal Box, and, looking the other way, towards Bedlam Lane box and level crossing. Finance was very tight in my early days which clearly restricted my early attempts at recording the railway scene around Coventry. As time moved on, I made a determined effort to record on film the railways in our area, something I have continued with especially since the late 1970s. Without doubt the digital age has made things a lot simpler - as well as cheaper in the longer term - once your heart rate and bank balance have gotten over the initial shock of the outlay! I have ensured that many locations have been photographed a few times each and every year since. It really is quite staggering the differences that can be seen - you might think that many views have remained unchanged for some years, but that just is not the case. Not just the railway infrastructure has changed. Semaphore signals have been swept away, as have the signal boxes that controlled them. What only becomes apparent after studying such views are the changed backgrounds. Factory units have been replaced in a number of locations by new housing. Trees have grown restricting views before being cut down, only to grow back once again. Nowhere in the Coventry area is a better example of massive change than the view I first mentioned - off Lythalls Lane bridge, especially looking north towards what is now the Ricoh Arena. The first view was taken in 1986. At that time Coventry Colliery was in a very healthy state, pushing out a minimum of 5 trainloads of coal each Monday though Friday. The 13-road Three Spires Junction yard curves off to the left, two tracks continuing over Hen Lane, over Wheelwright Lane level crossing and on up the hill to Coventry Colliery and Homefire Plant. A single unit on a driver training run crawls to a stand to await the crossing gates at Bedlam Lane to be opened by hand (Coundon Road and Hawkesbury Lane gates were mechanically operated), before continuing north towards Hawkesbury Lane and onwards to Nuneaton. The very last wagon of a coal train for Didcot Power Station can be seen lower left. Once the single unit has passed over the crossing, it will back out onto the right hand track the loco clearing not just the level crossing but also the signal gantry that can be seen on the Nuneaton side of the crossing. It will then set forward towards Coundon Road, Coventry and Leamington on its way to Didcot. The second shot is a recent one from a viewpoint very slightly to the left. Unless you knew, you would never think it is taken off the same bridge. The level crossing has been replaced by a road bridge which now carries a trunk road which already is carrying traffic volumes greater than those originally envisaged. The Ricoh Arena has now replaced the gas holders; the Arena shopping centre the Gas Works itself. The freight yard to the left is no more. A single line - unfortunately presently out of use but still under care and maintenance - continues to what is now ProLogis Park, rather than the Colliery and Homefire plant. The rail coal traffic is no more, but this has been replaced by much more regular Freightliner, export cars and rail infrastructure traffic. The Coventry to Nuneaton shuttle presently utilises a single unit every hour, which enabled me to replicate the single passenger carrying unit in both the 'before and after' views.

Hi & thank you Ron, O'h the memories from the first pic. In my courting days, I biked & drove along Bedlam Lane often. I struck up a friendship with a couple of the signalmen in the crossing box, & even sheltered out of a heavy down-poor with him in the box. He told me that pulling one of the leavers guaranteed scorched trousers from the brazier stove. I look forward to you posts, always informative, but full of atmosphere. Brill in fact. ps. The current unused line going to Prologis is the start of my fiction model, where I continue the line to an imaginary junction at Arley, & also a branch going to Allesley. My imagination can go a long way!

Does anyone know of timetables published online for trains between Coventry and Birmingham between the years 1851 and 1881?

Hi Pixrobin, Let's hope that someone can come up with an answer. In that period, Coventry was not a significant station, the line may have been known then as the London to Derby as well as Birmingham, with Hampton in Arden being the junction Station. Ron maybe able to fill us in on that. Birmingham was at that time a collection of villages & hamlets. PS With tomorrows weather looking very "not do or able to do much day, weather", I might have an old-fashioned day trainspotting.

It was worse than not significant. I found this..

The railway engineer John Rennie proposed a railway line from London to Birmingham in 1823, and formed a company to build it by a route through Oxford and Banbury, a route later taken by the Great Western Railway. Soon afterwards a rival company was formed by Francis Giles whose line would have been through the Watford Gap and Coventry. Neither company obtained backing for its scheme, and in late 1830 the two companies decided to merge. The new company appointed Robert Stephenson chief engineer, and he chose the route through Coventry, largely to avoid possible flooding from the River Thames at Oxford.

Even back then, it was hit and miss as to whether Coventry would be included in the great scheme of things..

Two responses to questions raised.... Unfortunately I have no knowledge of any early timetables being available online for the period you are asking about. Any such original documents are like gold dust and are mostly held in private collections, although the number of original documents that still exist is thought to be very small. There are some collections held by organisations such as the LNWR Society (LNWR - London and North Western Railway, into which the London and Birmingham Railway was amalgamated), whose archive as it happens is housed in Kenilworth. Documents may be inspected there by LNWR Society members. As far as the line of route of the London and Birmingham Railway is concerned, what we all have to remember is that we are looking at this issue with the full benefit of hindsight. The original promoters of the London and Birmingham Railway did not have this benefit. Railways were clearly in their infancy. Railways were originally envisaged as a means of moving freight and commodities between two points. It was only after railways had become firmly established that it became clear that they would also be of great benefit in moving passengers. Passenger carrying services were originally very infrequent, only 5 or 6 services per day on some routes, and often those did not run the full length of the railway. Those passenger trains that did run often also had both open and covered wagons for the carriage of freight, and timetables reflected this with station stops being of sufficient length to allow for the unloading and loading of freight as well as passengers. As railways proved their usefulness, yards dedicated to the carriage of freight were constructed at strategic locations along the route, clearly most locations being where the population was. Passenger traffic was encouraged by the government of the day through the operation of 'Parliamentary Trains', where the railway companies were obligated to run at least one passenger train per day in each direction at a maximum charge of one penny per mile, which was still a non-inconsiderable sum of money. Unfortunately most of my historical notes are stored just at the moment in readiness for some work on my house, but from memory, the importance of the London and Birmingham Railway and its onward connections to Derby was very short-lived. The Birmingham and Derby Junction Railway was ill-conceived from the outset, the London facing junction at Hampton in Arden not facilitating the through running of trains from Derby to Birmingham at all. Only about a year after its opening, the Hampton to Whitacre section (known as the Stonebridge Railway) lost its importance with the opening of a direct line from Leicester to Rugby. Although the traffic on the Stonebridge Railway was already decimated, it was dealt a further major blow by the opening of a direct line from Whitacre to Birmingham a couple of years later. Meanwhile, although Coventry was growing as a city, despite its historical importance, the industries that existed didn't really produce the population growth seen in other town and cities around the UK. It wasn't until the early years of the 20th Century that the city experienced real growth, growth that was driven by the establishment of the motor industry in the city. Coventry saw explosive growth in the 1920s and 30s as aviation had now joined the motor industry in the city and both were employing thousands - and more and more people were moving to the city to take advantage of the employment opportunities that the city was now offering. The real advantage of Coventry developing as 'late' as it did was the high quality housing that was constructed for the ever increasing population, as against that constructed in other towns and cities during the previous thirty or forty years. Clearly those involved in the promotion and construction of the London and Birmingham Railway could never have envisaged that their railway would ever become as essential and important as it is today, nor would they have foreseen that the Historical City of Coventry would ever have grown into what is today, a modern city in every modern sense of the word. The real downside of the eventual route taken by the London and Birmingham Railway all those years ago, has pretty much restricted in physical terms the size of the modern station. Growth in passenger numbers over recent years coupled with the expected growth (remember that Coventry is presently experiencing the largest growth in passenger numbers at any station outside of Greater London) dictates that major rebuilding [again] of the station would be what is really required, but its location and its listed status will unfortunately only limit the improvements that can be carried out.