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LMS Route: Nuneaton to Leamington

Kenilworth Station: lnwrk160

View of the original Kenilworth station with single platform being opened on Monday 9th December 1844 a few months after it had been built

View of the original Kenilworth station with single platform being opened on Monday 9th December 1844 a few months after it had been built. The original station was a modest affair but in keeping with the architecture adopted by the very early railway companies for secondary stations. The platform is barely raised from the ground and in many respects is similar to later Continental and North American railway practice where the steps of the coach were designed to allow the passenger to alight near to ground level. When viewing early railway practice we should not forget that it was evolutionary and in many ways best to be considered as a the development of the stage coach. The locomotive was a mechanical replacement of the horse but instead of one vehicle it was intended to draw a number of road carriage type vehicles on an iron rail roadway. Early railway carriages were therefore developments of the stagecoach with two or three such compartments built on a single chassis.

The stagecoach practice of conveying luggage on the roof continued on the railways until the very early 1860s when the abandonment of the practice could be considered with the introduction of luggage compartments. Robin Leach records in his book Rails to Kenilworth & Milverton that the last vehicle seen above was a guards/luggage van. It is more likely to be a guards van and not a luggage van as Richard Foster in his book, New Street - The years up to 1860, records a LNWR locomotive minute of 18th September 1859 ordering that in future no more coaches were to be built with luggage rails on the roof although this was rescinded in October 1862. (See image 'lnwrbns_str1872a' for an example). The gentleman in the top hat and long tails next to this vehicle was most likely a railway policeman, the precursor of the signalman (hence the signalman's nickname 'bobbies'.

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