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The West Coast Main Line (WCML) is a major inter-city railway route in the United Kingdom. It is Britain's most important rail backbone in terms of population served. The route links Greater London, the West Midlands, the North West, North Wales and the Central Belt of Scotland. Since an upgrade in recent years, much of the line has a maximum speed of , thereby meeting the European Union's definition of an upgraded high-speed line,〔(【引用サイトリンク】International Union of Railways ">url=http://www.uic.org/spip.php?article971 )〕 although only the Class 390 Pendolinos and Class 221 Super Voyagers operated by Virgin Trains are permitted to travel up to that speed, as they have tilting mechanisms and can speed through corners faster than conventional trains which, including the Class 350s, are limited to 110 mph (177 km/h). The WCML has a significantly higher number of curves than most other main lines in Britain, hence the requirement for tilting operation for higher speeds. The WCML is the most important intercity rail passenger route in the United Kingdom, connecting the major cities of London, Coventry, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and Edinburgh which have a combined metropolitan population of over 24 million people. In addition, several sections of the WCML form part of the suburban railway systems in London, Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow, with many more smaller commuter stations, as well as providing a number of links to more rural towns. In 2008 the WCML handled 75 million passenger journeys.〔(Network Rail media centre ), December 2008.〕 The WCML is also one of the busiest freight routes in Europe, carrying 43% of all UK rail freight traffic.〔 The line is the principal rail freight corridor linking the European mainland (via the Channel Tunnel) through London and South East England to the West Midlands, North West England and Scotland.〔(West Coast Main Line ), Network Rail, October 2007.〕 The line has been declared a strategic European route and designated a priority Trans-European Networks (TENS) route. == Geography == Central to the WCML is its -long core section between and Glasgow Central〔(【引用サイトリンク】 West Coast Main Line Pendolino Tilting Trains, United Kingdom )〕 with principal InterCity stations at , Wigan, , , , and . The length of the WCML's main core section is nominally quoted as being 401.25 miles (645.7 km). The basis of this measurement is taken as being the distance between the midpoint of Platform 18 of London Euston to that of Platform 1 of Glasgow Central, and has historically been the distance used in official calculations during speed record attempts. The central core〔British Railways Board (1974).(Electric All The Way ). Information booklet.〕 has expanded into a complex system of branches and divergences serving also the major towns and cities of Northampton, Coventry, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Stoke-on-Trent, Macclesfield, Stockport, Manchester, Runcorn, and Liverpool; there is also a link to Edinburgh, but this is not the direct route between London and Edinburgh.〔(''History of the West Coast Main Line'' ), Virgin Trains, July 2004.〕 The WCML is not a single railway; rather it can be thought of as a network of routes which diverge and rejoin the central core between London and Glasgow. The route between Rugby and Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Stafford was the original main line until the shorter line was built in 1847 via the Trent Valley. South of Rugby there is a loop that serves Northampton, and there is also a branch north of Crewe to Liverpool which is notable since Weaver Junction on this branch is the oldest flyover-type junction in use. Among the other diversions are loops that branch off to serve Manchester, one between Colwich Junction in the Trent Valley south of Stafford via Stoke-on-Trent, one north of Stafford also via Stoke-on-Trent, and one via Crewe and Wilmslow. A further branch at Carstairs links Edinburgh to the WCML, providing a direct connection between the WCML and the East Coast Main Line. Because of opposition by landowners along the route, in places some railway lines were built so that they avoided large estates and rural towns, and to reduce construction costs the railways followed natural contours, resulting in many curves and bends. The WCML also passes through some hilly areas, such as the Chilterns (Tring cutting), the Watford Gap and Northampton uplands followed by the Trent Valley, the mountains of Cumbria with a summit at Shap, and Beattock Summit in South Lanarkshire. This legacy of gradients and curves, and the fact that it was not originally conceived as a single trunk route, means the WCML was never ideal as a long-distance main line, with lower maximum speeds than the East Coast Main Line (ECML) route, the other major main line between London and Scotland. In recent decades, the principal solution to the problem of the WCML's curvaceous line of route has been the adoption of tilting trains, formerly British Rail's APT, and latterly the Class 390 Pendolino trains constructed by Alstom and introduced by Virgin Trains in 2003. A 'conventional' attempt to raise line speeds as part of the InterCity 250 upgrade in the 1990s would have relaxed maximum cant levels on curves and seen some track realignments; this scheme faltered for lack of funding in the economic climate of the time. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「West Coast Main Line」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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