The Rugby to Leamington Line was a railway line running from Rugby to Leamington Spa. It was a branch line built by the London and North Western Railway (LNWR) and opened in 1851. The branch connected Leamington with the mainline from London to Birmingham (now the West Coast Main Line) which had been opened in 1838 by the LNWR's predecessor, the London and Birmingham Railway (L&BR). History The original proposal for the line were promoted by the Rugby and Leamington Railway Company. The Act for the railway received Royal Assent on 13 August 1846. The line was to be built and operated by the London and Birmingham Railway, which became part of the LNWR the following year. At Rugby, the branch diverged from the main line at a junction west of Rugby railway station and ran south-west for 15 miles and eight chains to Leamington, where it was joined end-on to the LNWR's existing branch line from Coventry to Leamington, which had been extended into Leamington town centre from its original terminus at Milverton station, which had been on the edge of the town. The line from Rugby to Leamington opened throughout on 1 March 1851. The first intermediate station at Marton was opened on 1 January 1852, station opened on 1 February 1853. In February 1854, Leamington Spa Avenue station opened which was closer to the town centre than the original Milverton station, and was alongside the rival Great Western Railway's (GWR) Leamington station. The station at was opened twenty years after the opening of the line on 2 October 1871. The line was originally built as single track, but as traffic grew the line was doubled in stages from Rugby between 1882 and 1884. The lines were designated Up to Rugby and Down to Leamington. Local trains for Leamington used the down (north) end bay platforms at Rugby. At the other end of the line, services from Rugby ran through to Warwick (Milverton) and this practice continued until closure because the loco shed and servicing depot for the Rugby-Leamington-Coventry lines was at Milverton. In 1895, a new junction was created when the LNWR's single track line from Weedon to Daventry was extended westward to join the Rugby to Leamington line at Marton Junction, which was two miles southwest of Marton station in a deep cutting through a ridge of high ground. At Leamington, the LNWR used a single