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The West Coast Main Line (WCML) is one of the most important intercity railway lines in the United Kingdom, part of the British railway system. It begins
at Euston station in Central London and ends 400 miles north west at
Central station in Glasgow. It also links several of the UK's largest cities and towns on the way, including Milton Keynes, Northampton,
Rugby, Nuneaton, Coventry, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Stafford, Stoke-on-Trent, Crewe, Manchester, Liverpool, Lancaster and Carlisle.
The line was built in parts between the 1830s and the 1860s with the first parts being the Grand
Junction Railway (Warrington - Birmingham) and then the London and Birmingham Railway, both completed in
the 1830s.
Because of the need to appease the concerns and anger of landowners along the route, very often the line was built so that it
dodged huge swathes of farmland, resulting in many curves and bends. The WCML also passes through some of the more hilly areas of
the Great British mainland, such as the Trent Valley, parts of the Peak District, the mountains of Cumbria and the Leadhills area
of southern Lanarkshire. This has left a legacy of lower safe maximum speeds on the line compared to the East Coast route, and the principal solution to the problem has
been the adoption of tilting trains, formerly British Rail's ill-fated
APT, and latterly the Pendolino trains introduced by Virgin in 2003.
The WCML is not a single railway; although its main "spine" runs between Glasgow and London, the WCML consists of several
loops which branch off it to serve Manchester (One via Stoke-on-Trent
and one via Crewe). There is also a loop which serves Northampton.
The line was modernised and electrified in stages between 1959 and 1974 - initial electrification was in 1959 between Crewe and Manchester and Liverpool, with the rest of the
southern section of the line following a few years later; the line from Weaver Junction (where the route to Liverpool diverges)
to Glasgow was electrified in 1974. It is currently undergoing a major upgrade along almost its entire length. The original plans
estimated that this upgrade would cost £2bn, be ready by 2005, cut journey times to
Birmingham to one hour (currently 1hr 40mins) and 1hr 45mins to Manchester. After a series of setbacks, in particular the
bankruptcy of Railtrack, the revised estimates indicate that the cost will £10bn,
be ready by 2008, Birmingham journey times will be 1hr 10mins and 2hrs to Manchester.
See Also
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