Leamington Spa railway station serves the town of Royal Leamington Spa, in Warwickshire, England. It is situated on Old Warwick Road towards the southern edge of the town centre. It is a major stop on the Chiltern Main Line between London and Birmingham, and the branch line to Coventry. History The first station at the site, under the name Leamington was opened by the Great Western Railway (GWR) on its new main line between Birmingham, Oxford and London in 1852. It was later renamed Leamington Spa in 1913. This was not the first station in Leamington; the London and North Western Railway (LNWR) had reached the town eight years earlier in 1844, with a branch line from Coventry. That line, however, terminated about from the town centre, at Milverton station. The opening of the GWR line compelled the LNWR to extend their Coventry branch into the centre of Leamington, and join it end-on to their new branch to Rugby, and in 1854 they opened a new station directly alongside the GWR station known as Leamington Spa (Avenue). In 1864, a connection was made between the GWR and LNWR lines at Leamington, which was mainly used to exchange goods traffic. The GWR station was often referred to as Leamington Spa General in order to distinguish it from the adjacent LNWR station, however it only carried this name officially between 1950 and 1968. 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; one of these improvements was the complete 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. BR also removed passenger services from the Coventry branch at the same time, and closed all