WI: Northern and Western Motorway

[NOMISYRRUC]

This might actually be the kick in the backside that the railways need to modernise. Closure of a lot of branch lines seems probable - this will of course mean local road improvements are necessary, with new high quality roads going down some of the old branch lines. Remember too that the precedent has been set for private, tolled motorways. These are likely to be nationalised at the same time as the railways - but would they lose the tolls?

1955 was the start of the British motorway building programme IOTL, but it was also the start of the British Railways 15-Year Modernisation programme.

An important reason why the railways modernised so little is that they were a service industry. The 1920s slump and 1930s depression meant there was little industry to service. Most of the electrification schemes and extensions to the London Underground were paid for with state aid.

I was thinking of starting a thread called No Geddes Axe, where HMG tries to spend the country out of trouble in the early 1920s instead of severely cutting back its expediture. This motorway programme and Lord Wycliff's aircraft carriers could be brances of this programme. But I would also include more state aid for the railways, that is effectively bringing the 1955 Plan forward to 1925.

 

[Simon]

I give you lot a public works programme at a time of high unemployment in a major economy that gives it world class transport infrastructure a generation early, and you obsess about the effect on tank turret sizes fifteen years after the point of divergence.

As much as I love the place the boards can be rather war, and within that World War II, -centric. Hell, I often fall into that trap myself. Not to say that there aren't a number of good social or economic based timelines out there though. After doing some reading about the Channel Tunnel and High Speed 1 rail line I've actually been considering a UK-based infrastructure thread for prospective or our timeline projects such as Crossrail, Severn Barrage, different location for 'Heathrow', remodelling Birmingham, road network etc. that could be built or built sooner respectively. Will keep an eye on this thread.

1955 was the start of the British motorway building programme IOTL, but it was also the start of the British Railways 15-Year Modernisation programme.

As well as closing some of the lines there was also like you mention investment programmes for the network, IIRC one of the main problems though was that they spent a lot of it on new or modernised freight facilities just as the market was beginning to move on to the roads. If they had concentrated instead on the passenger side of the industry and made some better choices, Devvy's The 12:08 Service To... timeline uses that as one part of the point of departure, they would have ended up in a much better position.

 

[Lord Wyclif]

I was thinking of starting a thread called No Geddes Axe, where HMG tries to spend the country out of trouble in the early 1920s instead of severely cutting back its expediture. This motorway programme and Lord Wycliff's aircraft carriers could be brances of this programme. But I would also include more state aid for the railways, that is effectively bringing the 1955 Plan forward to 1925.

Funny you should mention this; thinking it could be the very thing to kick start your improvements for the British Motor Industry.

 

[Devvy]

1955 was the start of the British motorway building programme IOTL, but it was also the start of the British Railways 15-Year Modernisation programme.

An important reason why the railways modernised so little is that they were a service industry. The 1920s slump and 1930s depression meant there was little industry to service. Most of the electrification schemes and extensions to the London Underground were paid for with state aid.

AFAIK, I think the state aid took the form of promoting employment; electrifying the Underground had the advantage of making transit far quicker, reliable, frequent - and cleaner. The benefits to an underground railway are clear (and equally as desirable for the passenger). The benefits aren't anywhere near as clear cut for the mainline network; you would probably get some state aid for city transit networks in other cities (which might give some later rise to some LU rough equivalents in Liverpool, Manchester & Newcastle) and further electrification around London, but not so much for anything else I think.

I was thinking of starting a thread called No Geddes Axe, where HMG tries to spend the country out of trouble in the early 1920s instead of severely cutting back its expediture. This motorway programme and Lord Wycliff's aircraft carriers could be brances of this programme. But I would also include more state aid for the railways, that is effectively bringing the 1955 Plan forward to 1925.

The 1955 Modernisation Plan isn't doable pre-WWII - the railways are still private, and while you can lend money to them at very friendly terms, you can't tell them how to run their own networks. The Modernisation Plan was heavy on (bad) reform to the freight network and ditching steam (is diesel traction ready for this in areas that aren't electrified).

As much as I love the place the boards can be rather war, and within that World War II, -centric. Hell, I often fall into that trap myself. Not to say that there aren't a number of good social or economic based timelines out there though. After doing some reading about the Channel Tunnel and High Speed 1 rail line I've actually been considering a UK-based infrastructure thread for prospective or our timeline projects such as Crossrail, Severn Barrage, different location for 'Heathrow', remodelling Birmingham, road network etc. that could be built or built sooner respectively. Will keep an eye on this thread.

And I shall keep an eye out for that thread!

If they had concentrated instead on the passenger side of the industry and made some better choices, Devvy's The 12:08 Service To... timeline uses that as one part of the point of departure, they would have ended up in a much better position.

And thanks for the nod!

 

[fscott]

Funny you should mention this; thinking it could be the very thing to kick start your improvements for the British Motor Industry.

At this time were cars and gasoline still priced relativity to the US? Did those higher costs keep the ownership rate down then and now?

 

[Simon]

And I shall keep an eye out for that thread!

Speak his name and he shall appear it would seem. I was actually meaning to hit you up for some background information on the original HS1/Channel Tunnel Rail Link at some point next week once I had a bit of free time. The whole things seems to have taken an age to get off the ground but gone fairly smoothly in the construction phase thanks to the new 'New Engineering Contract' agreements from what I've heard.

 

[Dustin]

I have a bad feeling that post war Britain could end up with things like this.

And do you really want that sitting in say the middle of London?

 

[WILDGEESE]

I have a bad feeling that post war Britain could end up with things like this.

And do you really want that sitting in say the middle of London?

Is this real lols lols or a wind-up?

Where was this taken?

Must be California or N-Y state

 

[Dustin]

Is this real lols lols or a wind-up?

Where was this taken?

Must be California or N-Y state

Yeah it's an interchange in Los Angeles. A lot of American cities were torn apart by the interstate highway and public transportation was utterly destroyed. Although of course there were other factors like increasing automobile ownership and postwar suburbanization but all of these factors are connected together.

EDIT:Also this monstrosity of an interchange is probably one of the worst and largest in the US.

 

[Simon]

I have a bad feeling that post war Britain could end up with things like this.

[SNIP]

Not quite on the same scale be we do have something vaguely similar.

Thankfully the Gravelly Hill Interchange, aka. Spaghetti Junction, is at least located some way outside of the city.

And do you really want that sitting in say the middle of London?

Oh we had a pretty good stab at things like that, witness the London Ringways that was thankfully stopped due to public reaction. We also had a number of cities such as Birmingham that decided it would be an interesting idea to run major roads through the centre of town, which is only now finally being un-fucked.

Is this real lols lols or a wind-up? Where was this taken? Must be California or N-Y state

IIRC it's in Los Angeles, if it's the one I'm thinking of whilst it might look horrific from above it's actually a pretty elegant engineering solution considering the amount of roads/traffic they were dealing with and the physically constricted site size they had to work in.

 

[Dustin]

Not quite on the same scale be we do have something vaguely similar.

Thankfully the Gravelly Hill Interchange, aka. Spaghetti Junction, is at least located some way outside of the city.

Yeah it doesn't really bug me since that one is in the countryside and not taking up a town of land in a major city, which is my main issue.

Oh we had a pretty good stab at things like that, witness the London Ringways that was thankfully stopped due to public reaction. We also had a number of cities such as Birmingham that decided it would be an interesting idea to run major roads through the centre of town, which is only now finally being un-fucked.

That reminds me of how my city, Boston, stopped numerous roads through the city and then took one of the few roads they put straight through the city and put it underground. Looks like Britain was more successful with protesting the roads than most of America, since my city was relatively lucky and unscathed compared to a lot of other cities *looks at Houston*.

IIRC it's in Los Angeles, if it's the one I'm thinking of whilst it might look horrific from above it's actually a pretty elegant engineering solution considering the amount of roads/traffic they were dealing with and the physically constricted site size they had to work in.

Yeah I'll admit that it does look like it works fairly well I just posted it for the sheer size and because of its location in an urban environment.

 

[Devvy]

Speak his name and he shall appear it would seem. I was actually meaning to hit you up for some background information on the original HS1/Channel Tunnel Rail Link at some point next week once I had a bit of free time. The whole things seems to have taken an age to get off the ground but gone fairly smoothly in the construction phase thanks to the new 'New Engineering Contract' agreements from what I've heard.

Fire away whenever, always happy to discuss railways

I'd regard HS1 as high speed rail in the UK "done right" - follow existing motorways or railways as far as possible, whack the line in a tunnel to access central London, and reuse existing premises for the terminal (if they'd followed those design principles for HS2, I think it would be nowhere near as controversial).

 

[Workable Goblin]

That reminds me of how my city, Boston, stopped numerous roads through the city and then took one of the few roads they put straight through the city and put it underground. Looks like Britain was more successful with protesting the roads than most of America, since my city was relatively lucky and unscathed compared to a lot of other cities *looks at Houston*.

Houston was not "scathed" by freeways. Houston absorbed freeways and used them to make Houston strong! Houston look down on all those puny, freeway-less cities elsewhere!

Well, in all seriousness you have to remember that Houston has grown enormously over the past century or so, so that most of the city wasn't actually city until quite recently. Much of the city's freeway system, including all of the loops except 610, were actually built outside of the developed area and spurred parallel building rather than going through and bulldozing buildings. Besides, Houstonians mostly don't care about bulldozing buildings, anyways. Given our size, the freeways are also fairly effective in transporting traffic, too. I might like rail and think it's good moving forwards, but we're not really to the Los Angeles 1980s/1990s situation yet.

 

[Simon]

That reminds me of how my city, Boston, stopped numerous roads through the city and then took one of the few roads they put straight through the city and put it underground. Looks like Britain was more successful with protesting the roads than most of America, since my city was relatively lucky and unscathed compared to a lot of other cities *looks at Houston*.

Birmingham here in the UK was one of the main offenders of running major roads through the town centre, if on a slightly smaller scale in comparison. There was wild talk at one point about looking at a Boston-style Big Dig to take the main road that cut through the middle underground but that would have cost billions of pounds, and outside of London getting the government to fork over that kind of money is, seemingly, almost impossible most of the time.

 

[BlueTrousers]

Except that the A1 is brought up to motorway standard between Apex Corner all the way to the start of the Newcastle Western bypass by September 1939. That increases the route open at the end of 1939 to 877.7 miles and at the end of 1945 to 980.7 miles. Furthermore the A74 between Carlisle and Glasgow would be rebuilt to motorway standard between 1945 and 1960 instead upgraded to dual carriageway. That increases the total open at the end of 1960 to 1,653.7 miles and at the end of 1975 to 2,919.4 miles.

Generally agree on the mileage, though as an engineer I'd argue you've got 2 significant figures too many. I'd expect to see a few other routes rebuilt as motorways rather than all-purpose dual carriageways, though without digging through the detail I'm not sure exactly which. Certainly most of OTL's motorway-standard but not officially motorway roads would be officially motorways ITTL.

As well as closing some of the lines there was also like you mention investment programmes for the network, IIRC one of the main problems though was that they spent a lot of it on new or modernised freight facilities just as the market was beginning to move on to the roads. If they had concentrated instead on the passenger side of the industry and made some better choices, Devvy's The 12:08 Service To... timeline uses that as one part of the point of departure, they would have ended up in a much better position.

I'd see some of the Big Four getting modernisation mostly right, some mostly wrong, but none getting it totally correct. There'll probably be diesels earlier, more electrification, attempts at rationalising freight services - and all in a totally haphazard way. Nationalisation will probably still finish up happening, and allow some form of centrally directed modernisation, but finding the railways better off.

Birmingham here in the UK was one of the main offenders of running major roads through the town centre, if on a slightly smaller scale in comparison. There was wild talk at one point about looking at a Boston-style Big Dig to take the main road that cut through the middle underground but that would have cost billions of pounds, and outside of London getting the government to fork over that kind of money is, seemingly, almost impossible most of the time.

Glasgow's highway planners went on site visits to Los Angeles and Houston. They liked what they saw. A fair bit of the resulting network never got built, but the M8 is now the closest thing Britain has to an American urban freeway.

 

[Zman]

Birmingham here in the UK was one of the main offenders of running major roads through the town centre, if on a slightly smaller scale in comparison. There was wild talk at one point about looking at a Boston-style Big Dig to take the main road that cut through the middle underground but that would have cost billions of pounds, and outside of London getting the government to fork over that kind of money is, seemingly, almost impossible most of the time.

Leeds is a prime example of routing main roads through the inner city in the UK, the A58M/A64M through the centre was a major clearance and engineering project.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Generally agree on the mileage, though as an engineer I'd argue you've got 2 significant figures too many.

I borrowed most of the information from the timeline from the Motorway Archive, which does the mileages to one decimal place. The exception was the dual carriageway sections of the A1 which was a guesstimate based on Via Michelin.

I thought my figures for the length of motoway opened between 1940 and 1960 were over optimistic.

However, what was opened between 1971 and 1975 in the real world (and would have opened 1941-45 ITTL if WWII hadn't happened) included the Birmingham to M1 section of the M6 and the Maidenhead Bypass to Bristol section of the M4. Therefore the Government would want to fill in the two most important gaps in the network ASAP.

I'd expect to see a few other routes rebuilt as motorways rather than all-purpose dual carriageways, though without digging through the detail I'm not sure exactly which. Certainly most of OTL's motorway-standard but not officially motorway roads would be officially motorways ITTL.

I also thought that as the British Isles were less built up in the 1930s than the 1960s some of the schemes would be easier and cheaper.

For example I didn't mention the upgrading of the North Circular into the M15. ITTL it would would have been built to at least dual carriageway standard with grade separated or free flow junctions, with provision for the addition of extra lanes and hard shoulders later on in the first place.

ITTL they would be ready to build Ringways 3 and 4 in the 1960s and the country they went through would be less built up then than it was 15 years later. Furthermore as planning for them would have been begun in 1950 if not earlier the Government might have used the recently passed Town and Country Planning Act to protect their routes.

As someone from Teesside I would like the all the A19's junctions to be built to higher capacity. This includes a "spaghetti" junction with the Parkway. I also want the western extension of the Parkway to join the A66 south of Stockton at the current junction between "The 66" and the A135 to be built.

 

[WILDGEESE]

Yeah it doesn't really bug me since that one is in the countryside and not taking up a town of land in a major city, which is my main issue.



That reminds me of how my city, Boston, stopped numerous roads through the city and then took one of the few roads they put straight through the city and put it underground. Looks like Britain was more successful with protesting the roads than most of America, since my city was relatively lucky and unscathed compared to a lot of other cities *looks at Houston*.





Yeah I'll admit that it does look like it works fairly well I just posted it for the sheer size and because of its location in an urban environment.

Just down the road from me, in fact if you look carefully you'll see me driving my HGV. I'm in the tailback behind the wobblebox (caravan) lols

 

[Simon]

I'd see some of the Big Four getting modernisation mostly right, some mostly wrong, but none getting it totally correct. There'll probably be diesels earlier, more electrification, attempts at rationalising freight services - and all in a totally haphazard way. Nationalisation will probably still finish up happening, and allow some form of centrally directed modernisation, but finding the railways better off.

IIRC the Big Four were already handicapped at inception thanks to the government - the railways being taken into state control during the Great War, run at maximum capacity with the minimum maintenance and repair necessary, and then the railway companies got screwed over how much the government would pay them in compensation after the war, the already questionable compensation level actually being cut further at Treasury insistence. You can't really avoid the five years 'stasis' unless you avoid World War I so no great expansions or major new developments, but keeping things in better condition and paying a decent settlement at the end of the war would have put them in a much better footing.

 

[AndyF]

IIRC the Big Four were already handicapped at inception thanks to the government - the railways being taken into state control during the Great War, run at maximum capacity with the minimum maintenance and repair necessary, and then the railway companies got screwed over how much the government would pay them in compensation after the war, the already questionable compensation level actually being cut further at Treasury insistence. You can't really avoid the five years 'stasis' unless you avoid World War I so no great expansions or major new developments, but keeping things in better condition and paying a decent settlement at the end of the war would have put them in a much better footing.

The railways were further handicapped post-1919 by the British Government refusing to release the Big Four railway companies from their obligations as "common carriers", a measure brought in when the railways had a de-facto monopoly on land transport to stop them "cherry-picking" the most profitable freights & leaving the less-valuable ones to find alternate means. This forced them to carry freight goods at nationally-agreed rates set below the level at which they could make a profit. This had the knock-on effect of the less-profitable cargoes effectively being subsidised by the more-profitable ones.

Meanwhile, the fledgling road haulage industry, already subsidised by the cheap sales of thousands of government war-surplus vans & lorries, were under no such restrictions & were free to set their own rates for different types of cargoes on the expanding road networks, which were themselves subsidised by local authorities. It wasn't until 1934 that the Government removed some of the restrictions on rail freight along with introducing licencing & safety regulations for road hauliers & an increase in vehicle excise duty to pay for further road improvements. This levelled out the field & seemed to be working... until September 3rd 1939.

When WWII came along, the same thing happened again; the railways were taken under government control & basically run into the ground with insufficient compensation paid post-war. Basically, the "Big Four" were bankrupt; they faced huge bills for repairs & upgrades that there wasn't enough funds to cover. The railways were nationalised into British Rail as much to allow for central planning as to make good the wartime neglect.

Getting the Northern & Western motorway approved in 1923 (a very early M6?), you'd need to convince the Government to take charge & centralise planning of the proposed national road network much earlier, study what the needs actually are, allocate priorities for the division of haulage & transport travel between road & rail AND make allowances for future expansion. Said future expansion to be based on the perception that ownership of a motor vehicle would undergo a massive expansion that was almost unthinkable in that time period.
To get the early motor transport companies interested, you'd have to first get them thinking about long-distance freight traffic from & to centralised depots in different cities & nationwide instead of fairly local trips... which was thirty years or more developing OTL.
You'd also need to sound the death knell of the railway companies early... & they were bigger business with more government influence.
You might just about get motorway standard two-lane roads... four-lane near the busiest cities. Six- or eight-lane is totally ASB, IMO.