LMS Route: Coventry Loop Line

Select a station or subheading to view associated images. Numbers in [brackets] specify the number of photos on each page.

Coventry Loop Line is a spur off the Nuneaton to Coventry line built to divert traffic away from the congested lines through Coventry station and on to the Coventry to Rugby main line.

		Three Spires Junction [8]
		Lineside Views [3] - Photos Needed
		Bell Green [1] - Photos Needed
		Foleshill Railway
		Gosford Green [9]
		Humber Road Junction [10]

Mr R A Walford writes, 'I hope the following will be of help. When I was a boy in the 1940s & 1950s I lived near the Coventry Loop line. In the 1940s I lived near the Bell Green good yard and from my bedroom I could watch the shunting engines working there. I recall there being various 0-6-0s and 0-8-0s, being used as the main engines. During the war, when Coventry was being subjected to regular bombings, I remember seeing a train going regularly along the line with a large anti-aircraft gun mounted on a long flat wagon. I think it was being used to defend the large factories in the area, (e.g. Alfred Herbert, Morris Engines, etc.). During the above time I recall that every lunchtime, a small freight train used to leave the Bell Green yard and head to Gosford Green yard. On route it would stop at the Morris Engines factory to shunt wagons into the factory and collect wagons from there.

The Morris factory had a small 0-4-0 diesel to marshal the wagons around the factory. There would also be a pickup and exchange of wagons at this stop from sidings on the other side of the main line which were used by the Royal Ordinance factory. Their factory was about half a mile from the main line and they had a spur line from the sidings to the factory. There main motive power was provided by a small 0-4-0 steam tank engine. If I recall correctly the line went right through the factory, across the Stoney Stanton Road, via a level crossing, to a large scrap yard at Priestly Bridge. I think that the line may have continued to Courtaulds factory, and perhaps link up with the Coventry – Nuneaton line near Foleshill Station. After this round of shunting the freight train continued onto Gosford Green Yard. I am sorry if the above is a bit vague but it is now my memory trying to drag back events from 60 years ago!'