Pre-grouping, 1837–1923 The early history of the WCML is complex, as it was not originally conceived as a single trunk route, but was built as a patchwork of separate lines 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. , an early LNWR express locomotive (built 1847, as pictured circa 1890) The first stretch of what is now the WCML was the
Grand Junction Railway connecting the Liverpool and Manchester Railway to Birmingham, via , , and , opening in 1837. The following year the
London and Birmingham Railway was completed, connecting to the capital via , 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 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, connecting to Edinburgh in February 1848, and to Glasgow in November 1849. 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 12.5hours 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 , bypassing the earlier Liverpool and Manchester line, was opened in 1869, from
Weaver Junction north of 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 in 1879. 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 7hours 15minutes 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 signaling 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. (the hyphen was later dropped) and offering journey times as London to Birmingham in 1 hour 35 minutes, and London to Manchester or Liverpool in 2hours 40minutes (and even 2hours 30minutes for the twice-daily
Manchester Pullman). This represented a big improvement on the 3hours 30minutes 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. The service proved to be so popular that in 1972 these InterCity service frequencies were doubled to deal with increased demand. With the completion of the northern electrification in 1974, London to Glasgow journey times were reduced from 6hours to 5. 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 , , , and . To enable the latter, the famous
Doric Arch portal into the original
Philip Hardwick-designed terminus was demolished in 1962 amid much public outcry. Electrification of the
Edinburgh branch was carried out in the late 1980s as part of the
East Coast Main Line electrification project in order to allow
InterCity 225 sets to access Glasgow via Carstairs Junction. , British Rail's ill-fated
tilting train, seen here next to the WCML at
Crewe Heritage Centre Modernisation brought great improvements in speed and frequency. However some locations and lines were no longer served by through trains or through coaches from London, such as: ; , and ; , , and (via Stockport); ; (via Stockport); and ; (via ); and . Notable also is the loss of through services between Liverpool and Scotland; however these were restored by
TransPennine Express in 2019. British Rail introduced the
Advanced Passenger Train APT project, which proved that London–Glasgow WCML journey times of less than 4hours were achievable and paved the way for the later tilting Virgin
Pendolino trains. In the late 1980s, British Rail put forward a track realignment scheme to raise speeds on the WCML; a proposed project called
InterCity 250, which entailed realigning parts of the line in order to increase curve radii and smooth gradients in order to facilitate higher-speed running. The scheme, which would have seen the introduction of new rolling stock derived from that developed for the East Coast electrification, was scrapped in 1992.
Privatisation, 1997–present As part of the
privatisation of British Rail in the 1990s, the infrastructure was taken over in 1994 by the private company
Railtrack, which later collapsed in 2002, and was replaced by the not-for-profit company
Network Rail. WCML's InterCity services became part of the
InterCity West Coast franchise, which was won by
Virgin Trains who took over in 1997. In 2019,
Avanti West Coast won the new
West Coast Partnership franchise, taking over from Virgin Trains.
Modernisation by Railtrack and Network Rail Pendolino and
EWS freight train on the WCML By the dawn of the 1990s, it was clear that further modernisation was required. Initially this took the form of the InterCity 250 project. The modernisation plan unveiled by Virgin and the new infrastructure owner Railtrack involved the upgrade and renewal of the line to allow the use of tilting
Pendolino trains with a maximum line speed of , in place of the previous maximum of . Railtrack estimated that this upgrade would cost £2 billion, be ready by 2005, and cut journey times to 1 hour for London to Birmingham and 1 hr 45 mins for London to Manchester. However, these plans proved too ambitious and were subsequently scaled back. The upgrade was described as "a classic example of disastrous project management". 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 £13 billion, the plans were scaled down, bringing the cost down to between £8 billion and £10 billion, to be ready by 2008, with a maximum speed for tilting trains of a more modest – equalling the speeds available on the East Coast route, but some way short of the original target, and even further behind BR's original vision of speeds planned and achieved with the APT. The first phase of the upgrade, south of Manchester, opened on 27 September 2004 with journey times of 1hour 21minutes for London to Birmingham and 2hours 6minutes for London to Manchester. The final phase, introducing running along most of the line, was announced as opening on 12 December 2005, bringing the fastest journey between London and Glasgow to 4hours 25mins (down from 5hours 10minutes). 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 Glasgow Central – London Euston run in a record 3hours 55minutes, beating the APT's record of 4hours 15minutes, although the APT still holds the overall record on the northbound run. The decade-long modernisation project was finally completed in December 2008. 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 London-Scottish timings brought under the 4hours 30minutes barrier – with one service (calling only at Preston) achieving a London–Glasgow time of 4hours 8minutes. Some projects that were removed from the modernisation as a result of the de-scoping, such as a flyover at Norton Bridge station, were later restarted. A £250million project to grade-separate the tracks at Norton Bridge that allowed for increased service frequency as well as improved line-speeds was completed in spring 2016. Other projects such as the replacement of a weak bridge in Watford allowed line-speeds to be increased from to , decreasing journey times. == Infrastructure ==