Railways around Coventry

As a youngster growing up in Canley I would often see monobloc four wheel oil tank wagons going into a siding near a railway cottage at Yarmouth Green north of Tile Hill Station. I assume this siding was an oil storage depot with vehicular access via Torrington Avenue? Does anyone have any further info on this please?

Hi PP Growing up in Canley during the 50's & 60's, I used the path that went under the railway line opposite Yarmouth Green to get to Woodlands. Dont ever remember an Oil Depot or a loop in the lines though. There is still a building next to the railway line that is now a nursery. I now live in Duggins Lane and there is a loop at the end of my garden, it is used to hold the goods trains while the express and local trains pass. It was used more recently to store around 5000 sleepers for the HS2 build.

I can see something called Park Wood Cottages in that area (more where Bradney Green is today) on a 1930's map but no specific siding? You can possibly see what remained of them when the then 'new' estate went up here from BFA - from 1949 - though again no siding. There are some great Tile Hill Station Pics though here on the brilliant Warwickshire Railways Website.

Tile Hill station goods yard was to the south east of the level crossing/bridge and is now occupied by the car park. According to An Historic Survey of LMS Stations (Vol 2) there was a 250 foot long siding along the south side of the line towards Canley. An aerial photo from the second world war from Historic England shows the path under the railway, but doesn't show the additional siding at the time it is most likely to have existed. Unfortunately there is no photo of the station itself. The "nursery cottage" is absent from the National Library of Scotland1840-1880 OS map, but is present on the 1885-1900 map so probably dates from the mid-late 19th Century. This is some distance from the goods yard and the surrounding area was fields so I presume the house was for a track worker. The loop on the Birmingham side of the station was added in the 1960's as part of the electrification works. It was signalled for passenger and goods trains and was used to loop a local while a late running InterCity overtook it. It fell out of use as freight trains became too long and regulating policy changed to further delay late trains more rather than make an on-time train late.

Hi Mick, at that time I lived in Templar ave, the oil depot was, I think Esso (my brother will know), this area is now Binns close

The 1968 6 inch OS map clearly shows the depot, with the sidings and storage tanks.

The Office of Rail and Road has published the 2022-23 station usage estimates. These cover the period April 2022 to March 2023. This is the first full year without lockdowns, but does include the rail strikes which started in June 2022. I estimate there were 22 strike days in this period. Locally there was no service on ASLEF strike days and a limited service on RMT strike days. Nationally passenger journeys were up 40% on 2021-22, but a lot of this is due to the Elizabeth Line. The % change from 2021-22 is in brackets. New this year is the most popular destination from each station. Bedworth 54,536 (+41%) Coventry Berkswell 222,208 (+37%) Birmingham New Street Bermuda Park 21,942 (-15%) Coventry Birmingham International 4,185,090 (+74%) Birmingham New Street Birmingham New Street 30,726,280 (+35%) London Euston Canley 363,796 (+41%) Birmingham New Street Coventry 5,976,658 (+29%) Birmingham New Street Coventry Arena 107,660 (+58%) Coventry Hampton-in-Arden 131,182 (+40%) Birmingham New Street Kenilworth 139,132 (+76%) Coventry Leamington Spa 2,090,736 (+26%) London Marylebone London Euston 31,318,488 (+36%) Manchester Piccadilly Nuneaton 960,480 (+14%) Birmingham New Street Rugby 1,913,342 (+12%) London Euston Tile Hill 428,386 (+31%) Birmingham New Street Wolverhampton 4,445,864 (+29%) Birmingham New Street Coventry is still 27% below its peak in 2018/9, but is back at 2013/4 levels which were considered good at the time. The train service has mostly returned to pre-Covid levels with the main changes being the Avanti service to London Euston has gone from a 20 minute "one stop" service to a 30 minute "non-stop" service and an additional hourly "three stop" service. . A separate spreadsheet gives a beak down of station to station journeys. The most popular destinations from Coventry are: Birmingham New Street 36% London Euston 17% Rugby 6% Birmingham International 5% Leamington Spa 4% Milton Keys Central 3% Wolverhampton 2% Banbury 2% Northampton 2% Journeys were made to 1856 stations (72% of the total).