The first station at the site was opened by the Great Western Railway on its new line from Birmingham to Oxford in 1852. The London and North Western Railway had reached Leamington eight years earlier, in 1844, with a branch from Coventry. That line, however, terminated about from the town centre, at Milverton station. In 1851 the LNWR extended their Coventry branch in to the centre of Leamington and joined it end-on to their branch to Rugby, and in 1854 opened a new station directly alongside the GWR station known as Leamington Spa. Junction Diagram showing railways in the vicinity of Leamington James G. Batterson, the founder of American insurance giant The Travelers Companies, claimed that he first became aware of accident insurance in 1859 when he bought a railway ticket from this station to London which included accidental death insurance up to the amount of £1,000. In the 1930s the GWR took advantage of a government loan guarantee scheme to fund improvements to their railway network in the West Midlands area; one of these improvements was the rebuilding between 1937-39 of their station at Leamington in the then popular Art Deco style. The station came under the control of the Western Region of British Railways in 1948. In 1965 British Railways closed down the adjacent Avenue station and the branch to Rugby, and diverted the Coventry branch into the ex-GWR station via a new connection. Prior to this there had only been sidings connecting the Coventry line to the ex-GWR line, used for the exchange of goods wagons. In 1996, Chiltern Railways took over the running of the station and the London to Birmingham services, upon the privatisation of British Rail. 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 building and platform structures became grade II listed buildings in 2003.
one heading south east towards Banbury, beyond which it splits into routes heading for London and for Reading via Oxford.
Layout
The present art deco-style station, which dates from immediately prior to the Second World War, has four platforms, numbered one to four from south to north. Platforms one and four are west-facing bays, used only by local trains to and from Birmingham Snow Hill or Stratford-upon-Avon starting or terminating at Leamington. Platforms two and three are through platforms: platform two is used by services to Stratford-upon-Avon, Birmingham Snow Hill or Coventry, Birmingham New Street and beyond; platform three is for departures to Banbury and London Marylebone or Reading. Two central lines allow freight trains or other non-stop services to pass through the station when platforms two and three are occupied.
Services
services run at frequent intervals between Marylebone station in London and , with further trains from here to and to Moor Street. A number of the Birmingham trains start from in the mornings and terminate there in the evenings, whilst there is also a limited through service between Marylebone and Stratford-upon-Avon. Four long-distance trains an hour, operated byCrossCountry, also serve Leamington station throughout most of the day, two northbound and two southbound. Typically, these alternate between services between Manchester and via, Birmingham New Street,, and and others running between Newcastle and via and, with certain trains extended to/from. West Midlands Trains operates peak-hour trains to Birmingham Snow Hill,, Kidderminster and at the beginning of the day and from there in the evening. From May 2018 the company began operating an hourly local service to Coventry, calling at the reopened Kenilworth station, in May 2019 this was extended to. On Sundays, the frequency of trains is in most cases about half of that indicated above, though the service to and from Stratford remains two-hourly.
Motive power depots
The London and Birmingham Railway opened a motive power depot on the west side of the line at their Milverton station in 1844. It was replaced by a larger engine shed nearby in 1881, which was known as Warwick. This depot closed 17 November 1958 and was demolished. Locomotives were then serviced at the former Great Western Railway depot at Leamington Spa. The Great Western Railway opened a motive power depot on the east side of the line south of Leamington Spa General Station in 1906. This was closed by British Railways 14 June 1965 and demolished.
