The West Coast Main Line (WCML) is a significant railway corridor in Great Britain, connecting the major cities of London and Glasgow with branches to Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Edinburgh. It is one of the busiest mixed-traffic railway routes in Europe, carrying a mixture of inter-city rail, regional rail, commuter rail and rail freight traffic. The core route of the WCML runs from London to Glasgow for and was opened between 1837 and 1881; this totals a route mileage of by including its many branches. The Glasgow–Edinburgh via Carstairs line connects the WCML to ; however, the main London–Edinburgh route is the East Coast Main Line (ECML) via . Several sections of the WCML form part of the suburban railway systems in London, Coventry, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow, with many more smaller commuter stations, as well as providing links to more rural towns.
It is one of the busiest rail freight routes in Europe, carrying 40% of all UK traffic.; it is the principal corridor linking the European mainland (via the Channel Tunnel) through London and South East England to the West Midlands, North West England and Scotland. The line has been declared a strategic European route and designated a priority Trans-European Networks (TENS) route. A number of railway writers refer to it as "The Premier line".
The WCML was not originally conceived as a single route, but was built as a patchwork of local lines by several companies which were linked together. The largest of these amalgamated in 1846 to create the London and North Western Railway (LNWR), which then gradually absorbed most of the others; the exceptions were the Caledonian Railway in Scotland and the North Staffordshire Railway (NSR), which both remained independent until 1923. The core route was built mostly between the 1830s and 1850s, but several cut-off routes and branches were built in later decades. In 1923, the entire route came under the ownership of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS), when the railway companies were grouped under the Railways Act 1921. The LMS itself was nationalised in 1947 to form part of British Railways (BR).
As the WCML is the most important long-distance railway trunk route in Britain, BR carried out an extensive programme of modernisation of it between the late 1950s and early 1970s, which included full overhead electrification of the route and the introduction of modern inter-city passenger services at speeds of up to . Further abortive modernisation schemes were proposed, including the introduction of the Advanced Passenger Train (APT) in the 1980s; this was an ill-fated high speed train which used tilting technology, which was required to allow faster speeds on the curving route, and the abortive InterCity 250 project in the early 1990s. Further modernisation of the route occurred during the 2000s in the period of privatisation, which saw speeds raised further to and the introduction of tilting Class 390 Pendolino trains.
As much of the line has a maximum speed of , it meets the European Union's definition of an upgraded high-speed line, although only Class 390 Pendolinos with tilting mechanisms operated by Avanti West Coast travel at that speed. Non-tilting trains are limited to .
Geography
The spine between and is long, with principal InterCity stations at , , , , , , , , , , and .
The spine has bypasses serving the major towns and cities of Northampton, Coventry, Birmingham and Wolverhampton. Spurs serve Stoke-on-Trent, Macclesfield, Stockport, Manchester, Runcorn and Liverpool. There is also a branch to Edinburgh, from Carstairs in Scotland, although this is not the most direct route between London and Edinburgh. It provides a direct connection between the WCML and the ECML.
Originally, the lines between Rugby, and Stafford were part of the main spine, until the Trent Valley Line was built in 1847. This line formed a direct connection between Rugby and Stafford, becoming the a part of the spine. South of Rugby, there is a bypass loop that serves . There is a spur at Weaver Junction north of Crewe to , which is the oldest flyover-type junction in Britain. A spur branches off from Crewe to serve Manchester; two more branch off to : one between Colwich Junction in the Trent Valley, south of Stafford, with another north of the town.
The geography of the route was determined by avoiding large estates and hilly areas, such as the Chiltern Hills, including 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 South Lanarkshire. This legacy means that the WCML has limitations as a long-distance main line, with lower maximum speeds than the ECML route. The principal solution has been the adoption of tilting trains, initially with British Rail's APT and latterly the Pendolino trains constructed by Alstom, which were 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.
History Pre-grouping 1837–1923
The early history of the WCML is complex, as it was not originally conceived as a single trunk route; it was built as a patchwork of separate lines instead by different companies, mostly during the 1830s and 1840s, but some parts were opened as late as the 1880s. After the completion of the pioneering Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 1830, schemes were mooted to build more inter-city lines. The business practice of the early railway era was for companies to promote individual lines between two destinations, rather than to plan grand networks of lines, as it was considered easier to obtain backing from investors.
The first stretch of what is now the WCML was the Grand Junction Railway connecting the Liverpool and Manchester Railway to Birmingham, via Warrington Bank Quay, Crewe, Stafford and , opening in 1837. The following year the London and Birmingham Railway was completed, connecting to the capital via , Rugby and the Watford Gap. The Grand Junction and London and Birmingham railways shared a Birmingham terminus at Curzon Street station, so that it was now possible to travel by train between London, Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool. These lines, together with the Trent Valley Railway (between Rugby and Stafford, avoiding Birmingham) and the Manchester and Birmingham Railway (Crewe–Manchester), amalgamated operations in 1846 to form the London and North Western Railway (LNWR). Three other companies, the North Union Railway (Parkside–Wigan–Preston), the Lancaster and Preston Junction Railway and the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway, completed a through route to Carlisle by the end of 1846; these were later absorbed by the LNWR.
North of Carlisle, the Caledonian Railway remained independent and opened its main line from Carlisle to on 10 September 1847; it connected to Edinburgh in February 1848 and to Glasgow in November 1849. The route to Scotland was marketed by the LNWR as 'The Premier Line'. Through trains consisted of jointly-owned West Coast Joint Stock to simplify operations because the cross-border trains ran over the LNWR and Caledonian Railway. The first direct London to Glasgow trains in the 1850s took 12.5 hours to complete the journey.
Another important section, the North Staffordshire Railway (NSR), which opened its route in 1848 from (connecting with the LNWR from Manchester) to Stafford and Colwich Junction via , also remained independent. The NSR provided a useful alternative route to Manchester, however poor relations between the LNWR and the NSR meant that through trains did not run until 1867.
The final sections of what is now the WCML were put in place over the following decades. A direct branch to Liverpool Lime Street, 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.
At the northern end, the Caledonian replaced its original terminus in Glasgow, with the much larger and better located Glasgow Central in 1879.
To expand capacity, the line between London and Rugby was widened to four tracks in the 1870s. As part of this work, the Northampton Loop was built, opening in 1881, connecting to Northampton before rejoining the main line at Rugby.
LMS 1923–1948
The entire route came under the control of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) on 1 January 1923 when the railway companies were grouped, under the Railways Act 1921.
The LMS competed fiercely with the rival London and North Eastern Railway's East Coast Main Line for London to Scotland traffic. 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, hauled by streamlined Princess Coronation Class locomotives, which made the journey in 6 hours 30 minutes, making it competitive with the rival East Coast Flying Scotsman (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 1948–1997 In 1948, 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.
Modernisation by British Rail
As part of the 1955 modernisation plan, British Rail carried out a large programme of modernisation of the WCML in stages between 1959 and 1974; the modernisation involved upgrading the track and signalling to allow higher speeds, rebuilding a number of stations and electrification of the route with overhead line equipment. The first stretch to be upgraded and 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 south to London.
The first electric trains from London ran on 12 November 1965, with a full public service to Manchester and Liverpool launched on 18 April 1966. Electrification of both the Birmingham branch and the routes to Manchester via was completed on 6 March 1967, allowing electric services to commence to those destinations. In March 1970, the government approved electrification of the northern half of the WCML, between Weaver Junction (where the branch to Liverpool diverges) and Glasgow, and this was completed on 6 May 1974. The announcement, after five years of uncertainty, was made 48hours before the writ was issued for a by-election in South Ayrshire. The Observer commented that, if the £25 million decision was politically rather than financially motivated, it would have the makings of a major political scandal.
A new set of high-speed long-distance services was introduced in 1966, launching British Rail's highly successful InterCity brand and offering journey times as London to Birmingham in 1 hour 35 minutes, and London to Manchester or Liverpool in 2 hours 40 minutes (and even 2 hours 30 minutes for the twice-daily Manchester Pullman). This represented a big improvement on the 3 hours 30 minutes to Manchester and Liverpool of the fastest steam service. A new feature was that these fast trains were offered on a regular-interval service throughout the day; initially hourly to Birmingham, two-hourly to Manchester and so on.