Railway Station at Royal Leamington Spa

Leamington Spa railway station serves the town of Royal Leamington Spa, in Warwickshire, England. It is situated on Old Warwick Road towards the southern edge of the town centre.

HISTORY

It is located on the site of the first through-station in the town, opened by the Great Western Railway (GWR) on its new line from Birmingham to Oxford in 1852.

The station booking hall was sympathetically refurbished over the five months to March 2008 to resemble the original Great Western Railway art-deco style, including the installation of ticket barriers. GWR-style running in boards have been installed at the 'up' end of platforms 2 & 3. In 2011 the two waiting rooms were restored and refurbished as part of £395,000 improvements that also include 80 new parking spaces at the front of the station and improved disabled access.

THE STATION TODAY

ROUTES - Three lines radiate from Leamington:

* One heading northwest to Birmingham by way of Warwick and Solihull, with a branch to Stratford-upon-Avon diverging at Hatton, some six miles from Leamington;
* One going north through Kenilworth to Coventry
* One heading southeast towards Banbury, beyond which it splits into routes heading for London (Marylebone) and for Reading via Oxford.

OPERATORS

As of December 2007, Leamington station is served by three passenger train operators: Chiltern Railways, CrossCountry, and London Midland. Chiltern Railways operate the station, which is owned by Network Rail. The huge expansion in investment by the Chiltern Railways franchise has Chiltern Railways operating two trains per hour to London Marylebone.

SERVICES

CHILTERN MAIL LINE - Chiltern Railways services run at frequent intervals (mostly half-hourly) between Marylebone station in London and Birmingham Snow Hill, with further trains (at approximately two-hourly intervals) between Marylebone and Stratford-upon-Avon. A number of the Birmingham trains start from Kidderminster in the mornings and terminate there in the evenings.

Four long-distance trains an hour, operated by CROSS COUNTRY, also serve Leamington station throughout most of the day, two northbound and two southbound. Typically, these alternate between services from Manchester to Reading and Bournemouth by way of Southampton Central (and vice versa) and others running from Newcastle by way of Sheffield to Reading (and vice versa). Half of these CROSS COUNTRY services also serve Coventry and Birmingham International, and all of these services serve Birmingham New Street.

LONDON MIDLAND operates at peak-hour trains to Birmingham Snow Hill, Stourbridge Junction, Kidderminster and Worcester at the beginning of the day and from there in the evening.

On Sundays, the frequency of trains is in most cases about half of that indicated above.