The Coventry to Leamington Line is a railway line linking the city of Coventry with the town of Leamington Spa. The line was opened in 1844 by the London and Birmingham Railway, as far as Milverton. The line was extended to Leamington Spa Avenue in 1851. A connecting line to opened in 1884. Late in the 19th century, most of the route was doubled to increase capacity. Only a small section just outside Kenilworth, at Gibbet Hill, remained single track. Most of the line was singled in 1972. History In 1839, an independent company the Warwick and Leamington Union Railway, under the chairmanship of Joseph Frederick Ledsam, submitted plans for a new line connecting Leamington with the London and Birmingham Railway (L&BR) at Coventry; the plans were approved by an Act of Parliament in 1842. The following year, before the line was built, the Warwick and Leamington Union Railway was purchased by the L&BR, which itself became part of the London and North Western Railway (LNWR) three years later. The line was opened on 9 December 1844 from Coventry via to the original terminus, at what was then known as Leamington station but later became known (after numerous name changes) as Warwick (Milverton) station. The Milverton terminus was inconveniently located a mile from the centre of Leamington, as it had been intended as a compromise to serve both Leamington and Warwick, located midway between the two towns; this was considered unsatisfactory and so, in 1851, the line was extended closer to Leamington town centre and joined end-on to the LNWR's branch line to Rugby. A new, more centrally located station, Leamington Spa (Avenue), was opened on this extension in 1854; this was alongside the rival Great Western Railway (GWR) station at Leamington. An accident occurred on the line on 11 June 1861, when a bridge collapsed between Leamington and Kenilworth as an empty goods train was passing over it, killing the train driver and fireman. Originally built as a single track line, the route between Leamington and Kenilworth was widened to double track in 1884 and the stations at Milverton and Kenilworth were rebuilt; however, the section from Kenilworth Junction to Gibbet Hill Junction, just south of Coventry, remained single track. At the same time, a new cut-off line known as the Berkswell Loop was opened from Kenilworth to on the Coventry-Birmingham line. This line avoided Coventry and allowed the