Rugby railway station serves the market town of Rugby, in Warwickshire, England. The current station dates from 1885; two previous stations dating from 1838 and 1840 respectively existed at locations to the west of the current one. It has been Rugby's only station since the closure of in 1969, on the now-abandoned Great Central Main Line route through the town. Between 1950 and 1970, the station was known as Rugby Midland before reverting to its original title. It underwent an extensive remodelling between 2006 and 2008; new platforms were added and a new ticket office and entrance building were constructed. The original Victorian part of the station was retained in the upgrade.
Rugby station is at the centre of two important junctions of the West Coast Main Line (WCML) connecting London to Birmingham, North West England and Scotland. The junction between the Trent Valley line to the North West and the Rugby–Birmingham–Stafford line to Birmingham is a short distance west of the station. East of the station, the Northampton loop diverges at a junction from the direct line to London. Until the 1960s, it also had routes to , and but these have all since been closed.
The present station, managed by Avanti West Coast, is located roughly half a mile north of Rugby town centre. On the WCML as a whole, it lies north of and south of .
History First station (1838–40) The first railway station to be built in Rugby was a wooden temporary structure located around half a mile to the west of the present station. It opened on 9 April 1838 when the London and Birmingham Railway was constructed. However great difficulty in constructing the Kilsby Tunnel in Northamptonshire delayed the full opening of the line, which was not finished in time for the coronation of Queen Victoria on 28 June 1838. Aware of the lucrative traffic the event would generate, the company opened the north end of the line, between Birmingham and Rugby, and the south end from London to a temporary station at near Bletchley, with a stagecoach shuttle service linking the two parts to allow through journeys to London. The line was officially fully opened on 17 September 1838, with the first passenger train from London to Birmingham arriving that day.
At the time of the railway's construction, the small market town of around 2,500 inhabitants was notable only for Rugby School. The town was around half a mile to the south, uphill from the station, which at the time was located in open countryside. The original station was located on the western side of where the railway crossed Newbold Road (the Rugby to Leicester turnpike road, now the A426) because at the time this was the only road north from Rugby.
Second station (1840–1885) The first station lasted only a few years. When a junction was made with the Midland Counties Railway in 1840, a new station was built at the site of the junction, which opened on 4 July 1840; it was to the east of the original station, and to the west of the present station. A new road, Railway Terrace had to be built to link it to the town centre, because at the time it was located in open countryside.
This second station was effectively managed by two companies – the London and North Western Railway and the Midland Railway – and for this reason grew up in a haphazard fashion. It was at first no more than a temporary wooden structure, but was gradually rebuilt into a more permanent structure over the following decade. This station consisted of platforms at each side of the track with one bay platform. The platforms were rather low and passengers complained of having to perform an "acrobatic feat" to board trains.
The station was at the centre of a busy junction and often saw chaotic scenes. It featured, only lightly disguised, in Charles Dickens's story Mugby Junction: This was inspired by an incident in April 1866, when Charles Dickens was travelling from London to Liverpool. Dickens's train made an unscheduled stop at Rugby due to one of the carriages catching fire. While waiting for his journey to resume, he went into the refreshment room for a cup of coffee, and the proprietess, clearly not recognising the celebrity author, treated him rudely. Inspired by this, his story 'Mugby Junction' in chapter three made a scathing attack on railway refreshment rooms and their staff.
The present station (1885–)
The second station lasted until the 1880s, when a new line from Rugby to Northampton (the Northampton loop) was built, the old station was deemed by the LNWR to be no-longer satisfactory, and in 1882, £70,000 was allocated to replace it with the current station which opened on 5 July 1885. Another £30,000 was allocated to build a hotel, although this was never built. The Midland Railway retained the part of the older station which it had managed, however. One platform of the old station, separate from the new station, continued to be used by local trains on the Midland Railway's branch to Leicester until 8 March 1930. No trace of this now remains, however, as it was demolished in the 1960s to make way for the postal sorting office.
When constructed the station consisted of one large island platform with bay platforms at each end for terminating local services. The main island platforms are accessed from a tunnel at road level and a ramp leading to the platforms. When constructed the station had a large steel and glass trainshed roof which consisted of 117 ft (35.6 m) wide spans on each side, covering the station platforms and tracks. Originally the sides of the station had glass side screens but these were later removed. The condition of the roof deteriorated, and in the 1980s the glass over the tracks was removed, and finally the entire structure was dismantled between 2000 and 2002 when it became unstable, and was replaced with modern canopies over the platforms.Rugby local history.org
The station had one of the longest platforms of any British railway station, at , but the two main island platforms were both shortened as part of the 2007–08 station upgrade. The platform was long enough to allow two trains to call at it at the same time. This unusual feature was enabled by 'scissors crossings' halfway along the platforms. The scissor crossings were X-shaped junctions which allowed one train to pass another one already in the platform, and call into the same platform ahead of it, and allowed the train to the rear to pull out of the station, effectively doubling the capacity of the platform. The scissor crossings remained in use until the railway was electrified in the 1960s.
In 1899 a second station, , was opened; to distinguish it, the present station became known as Rugby Midland. Central station was closed in 1969 and Midland station reverted to Rugby in 1970.
The station came under the management of the London and North Western Railway (LNWR) (1885–1923), and then the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) (1923–1948) and then the nationalised British Railways (1948–1997). It is now owned by Network Rail.
2006–2008 remodelling As a part of the West Coast Main Line modernisation programme carried out by Network Rail, major track restructuring work was carried out to allow higher speed running through Rugby. Previously non-stopping trains passing through Rugby were limited to 75 mph, the track upgrades raised the speed to 125 mph, thus eliminating another bottleneck from the WCML. The station itself also underwent a major £170 million redevelopment which included:BBC Coventry and Warwickshire
The addition of three new through platforms, bringing the total up to five, including a new platform on the south side of the station and a second island platform on the north side. The construction of a new entrance building and ticket office: Historically all of the station's facilities, including the ticket office, were concentrated on the station's single island platform, which was accessed from street level by a subway. The main entrance to the station therefore consisted of a simple opening to the subway. The additional platforms required that the ticket office be moved to a new entrance building at the front of the station.
It was at one time thought that remodelling of the track layout would entail complete demolition of the present station, but the final plans involved retention of the existing island platform and buildings. Work began in September 2006 and was completed late in 2008.
The platform on the south side of the station opened for use on 29 May 2007, and, as a result, all of the platforms were renumbered. This platform became Platform 1, the former Platform 1 became Platform 2 and 2 became 4. The additional platforms on the north side of the station are numbered Platforms 5 and 6 and they opened on 27 August 2008. Platform 8 became Platform 3. At the same time four former westbound bay platforms originally numbered 3 to 6, and one eastbound bay numbered 7 were removed.
Another distinctive feature of the local railway landscape also vanished at this time – the 'bird cage' bridge. This was a 'heavy' girder bridge of two substantial spans over the West Coast Main Line to the east ('up' side) of the station. This was the means by which the Great Central Main Line crossed the London & North Western Railway competing line.
Signalling
Rugby once had the largest concentration of mechanical signalling in the world and was home to one of the most impressive signal gantries in Britain. Situated to the south of the station and erected in 1895, it spanned three tracks and carried forty-four semaphore arms. Every arm was duplicated due to sighting difficulties that resulted from the Great Central Railway's 'Birdcage' bridge crossing the WCML behind the gantry's location. The gantry acquired the nickname of "the Rugby Bedstead" on account of its appearance.
In 1939, the London, Midland and Scottish Railway resignalled the Rugby area with colour light signals, although the mechanical signal boxes were retained. The famous signal gantry became redundant, following which it was divided up into smaller pieces to form a number of smaller structures for re-use elsewhere.
SGE was awarded a contract to resignal the Rugby area in preparation for electrification. Rugby Power Signal Box (PSB) opened in 1964. It is located east of the station, on the south (Down) side of the railway. The whole station area, together with part of the WCML stretching as far south as Castlethorpe, was controlled from this new box. It was equipped with an 'NX' (entrance-exit) panel. In 1991, Rugby PSB took over control of the Northampton area using Solid State Interlocking (SSI). Rugby PSB closed in May 2012 when control of Northampton was transferred to Rugby SCC.
Rugby Signalling Control Centre (SCC), located north-west of the station, opened in 2004. Initially, its area of control was limited to a portion of the WCML between Kings Langley and Linslade Tunnel. The current area of control is Kings Langley, Hertfordshire to Armitage in Staffordshire. Area of control also includes small portions of branch lines around Nuneaton; these include the Coventry-Nuneaton (from Three Spires to Nuneaton) and part of the Arley/Hinckley lines (Arley Tunnel to Padge Hall). In March 2016, the WCML South Rail Operating Centre (ROC) was opened at Rugby – this will supervise the signalling on the entire southern end of the WCML and associated branch routes.Network Rail – Our Future Vision Network Rail Media Centre press release; Retrieved 2013-08-30
Motive power depots