page_title: Coventry railway station
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Coventry railway station / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Coventry Station, newly rebuilt. View eastwards, towards Rugby etc.: ex-LNW London - Rugby - Birmingham main line, junction for lines to Leamington Spa and to Nuneaton. The new station had been totally rebuilt with four through platforms, from the original and inadequate two platforms, in connection with main-line electrification - not yet in evidence in September 1962. (See also SP3378&#160;: Coventry Station concourse, from interior).
context_page_description: Coventry railway station is the main railway station serving the city of Coventry, West Midlands, England. It is situated about 250 yards to the south of junction 6 of the inner ring road. The station is on the Birmingham loop of the West Coast Main Line, and is at the centre of a junction where the lines to Nuneaton, and to Leamington converge.
  Coventry station has regular services between London Euston and Birmingham New Street on the WCML. Other services are extended to/from Wolverhampton, Shrewsbury, Preston, Glasgow and Edinburgh Waverley. There are also long distance CrossCountry services to Manchester to the north, and Oxford and Bournemouth to the south. Local services also operate between Coventry-Nuneaton, Northampton and Leamington Spa.
  The station has the PlusBus scheme where train and bus tickets can be bought together at a saving.
context_section_description: The original station was built in 1838 as part of the London and Birmingham Railway and could be entered from Warwick Road, where two flights of stairs took the passengers down to the platform. Within two years it had been replaced, with a new larger station, a few hundred feet nearer to Rugby, this time, accessed via Eaton Road. In the late 19th century the Coventry tram network extended to the station at Eaton Road. The original station remained in service as the station masters offices, until the station was redeveloped in the early 1960s by the London Midland Region of British Railways.
  The new 1840 station saw a significant number of modifications and extensions over the years, there was an engine shed, water column and turntable, in its later days an inclined walkway from the platform directly to Warwick Road for summer excursions, and a parcel depot formed from old carriages. However, the station was constrained by bridges at either end of the station, Stoney Road Bridge to the south, and Warwick Road bridge to the north. The bridges effectively restricted the station to two lines, and prevented the platforms from being extended.
  In the early 1960s both bridges were widened, and the old station finally demolished and re-built, this time with room for four platforms instead of two. At the time it was demolished in 1960, some parts of the old station were 120 years old. The station comprises a two-storey height booking hall with reinforced concrete frame, linked across an adjoining platform by a bridge to an island platform and a single sided platform. It was built to the designs of W R Headley, Regional Architect of the London Midland Region of British Railways and Derrick Shorten, the project architect. It was formally reopened on 1 May 1962. In 1995 it became a Grade II listed building.
  The new station featured a new parcel depot, used to manage the large number of mail order catalogue packages coming into Coventry at the time. The depot was serviced by its own platforms from the Rugby end. The depot has now been replaced by a multi-storey car park, although some of the platforms and an electrification gantry remain.
  A £91 million redevelopment of the station is proposed to commence in 2019. A new bay platform is planned as part of this development. From the mid-2020s Coventry station is also planned to be served by the Coventry Very Light Rail system.
caption: Coventry station in 1962, shortly after being rebuilt
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