Major / trunk roads built upon former railway routes?

[D365]

Three important roads in the Fens are on old railways:

A141 Chatteris-March
A17 Kings Lynn-Sutton Bridge
A16 Spalding-Boston

And a portion of the A1123 St Ives (Cambs) bypass.

 

[AndrewE]

neither a major nor a trunk road, but the Market Drayton by-pass uses the railway alignment for a mile or two west of the town.

Actually it is the A53 and shown in green on my OS map, so it is a "primary route!"

 

[6Gman]

Part of the old Vale of Clwyd alignment leaving Ruthin to the south is called "Beechings". The Craft Centre there, on the old station site, still has an old railway crane in its grounds.

Some of the closed rail alignments in North Wales were reused for roads, eg the A541 at Nannerch (Mold-Denbigh), the A494 between Bala and Dolgellau, and the A483 through Welshpool.
In fact at Welshpool the modern A483 runs through the old station (station building and platform still in place), while the railway was shifted eastwards via new platforms.

Following the fire in the original tubular bridge structure, the A5 was diverted to run on top of the railway Britannia bridge across the Menai Straits, with the railway, now singled, running underneath the road deck.
The A487 nearby also reuses some of the alignment of the Bangor-Caernarfon line.
A feasibility report into reopening that line says a new rail alignment would need to be built in places, as a result.

Another conversion was on the GWR Market Drayton-Wellington route where in several places the A53/A442 now uses the old rail alignment.

And the A470 at the Dolgellau bypass? (Or is that the A494 mentioned above?)

 

[Mcr Warrior]

The vicinity certainly, although I think he may have lived outside the town itself in the surrounding countryside.

Understand he lived at a biggish property just off the A22 (Lewes Road) at the edge of East Grinstead. Believe this was actually a nine-bedroomed mansion house set in six landscaped acres! It looks about a mile-and-a-half from East Grinstead railway station.

 

[JamesT]

The A34 Newbury bypass.

 

[Ploughman]

Around Ainsdale, Birkdale and the South end of Southport, the Coastal Road is built on the formation of the Cheshire Lines Railway.

 

[cadder toad]

The new road bridge over the Tummel at Ballinluig(A827) is built on the alignment of the branch to Aberfeldy

 

[Sun Chariot]

The A34 Newbury bypass.

I've driven that many times and yet I didn't know it was on an old railway alignment. Which former line is the road built on?

 

[Dai Corner]

The A465 Heads of the Valleys road was built partly over the former Merthyr, Tredegar and Abergavenny Railway in south Wales.

 

[Llanigraham]

The A470 Llanidloes by-pass follows the route of the old Cambrian line from just before the southern Llanidloes junction all the way to just after the Rugby Club to the north of the town.
And the old Llanidloes station buildings and Cambrian Railways Offices can be viewed as you drive by.

 

[JamesT]

I've driven that many times and yet I didn't know it was on an old railway alignment. Which former line is the road built on?

The old Didcot, Newbury and Southampton line, at least the section between Newbury and Winchester.

 

[Morayshire]

The A94 at Coupar Angus and the A926 Kirriemuir road both use small sections of the old Strathmore line

 

[WibbleWobble]

A579 Atherleigh Way is built along the course of the Bolton & Leigh Railway.

A338 Spur Road and Fordingbridge Bypass are built along the course of the Ringwood, Christchurch and Bournemouth Railway and Salisbury and Dorset Junction Railway respectively.

(both roads primary but not trunk)

 

[dastocks]

A283 Steyning Bypass which passes through the site of Steyning station.
The A617 south east of Chesterfield is built on the GCR Chesterfield loop.

 

[steamybrian]

The M25 also uses the trackbed of part of the Staines West- West Drayton line between the site of Yeoveney Halt to Poyle.
also an unusual bit of history that around Leatherhead it uses the route reserved for the unbuilt Chessington South to Leatherhead line.

 

[swt_passenger]

The A34 Newbury bypass.

Also some older parts of the A34 a bit further south, near Whitchurch and Lichfield, are built over the former DNS, and theres a relatively short buried stretch just north of the A33/A34 merge near Kings Worthy.

 

[Zamracene749]

The A689 now follows a couple of short sections of old railway, through Crook and more notably, over the impressive Newton Cap viaduct in Bishop Auckland

There is a lengthy stretch of the A66 from west of Keswick to just east of Cockermouth which mostly uses the trackbed of the former railway line between those two towns.

It also lies on a couple of short stretches of railway near Bowes and Kirby Thore.

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

Ripon by-pass on the A61 lies right on top of the route of the former Leeds Northern Railway route. Accordingly any re-opening from Harrogate would have to have its Ripon station a little to the south-east of the city itself and would make restoration northwards to Northallerton near impossible.

 

[bluenoxid]

A65 Otley bypass sits on Otley station site.

 

[Recessio]

A22 in East Grinstead. It’s called Beeching Way.

IIRC, the 'good doctor' was a resident of East Grinstead.

Sadly an attempt to name that section of the A22 "Beeching Cut" didn't go through - the road travels through what was a very deep railway cutting!

 

[stuu]

The A3088 between Yeovil and the A303. Still has several original arched over bridges

 

[DelW]

Doesn't the M25 use the former Westerham branch alignment between just west of Junction 5?

Re: M25 - yes, I think you're right. I forgot that I had watched YouTube "Auto Shenanigans" about that very topic.
The old station master's house is off to the side of the M25's boundary.
I can't recall if the M25 used the old railway alignment, or the area of the old goods yard.

The M25 is over the Westerham branch alignment from just west of junction 5 to just east of Beggars Lane in Westerham (now the A233).

I set out the original centreline and fence lines on that stretch! East of Brasted Hill Road the centre line was within the old railway cutting, which was full of fallen trees, and partly flooded as the old railway drainage was blocked. There was no simple way to set pegs through there, so I think in the end I calculated an offset line clear of the cutting and we set the fence lines from that.

At Brasted station there was still a coal merchant operating out of the old goods yard. We took part of their land, but I think the business did survive for a while after the motorway was built.

When we removed the old railway embankment west of the station, the lower levels were big lumps of uncompacted clay with voids between them. Below that was a layer of dead grass and topsoil from the original field surface, as the railway builders hadn't even stripped the topsoil.

 

[Friary Yard]

A38 in Devon between Chudleigh and Chudleigh Knighton on the Teign Valley Railway

 

[steamybrian]

A382 around Bovey Tracey uses the trackbed of the former Moretonhampstead branch

 

[hermit]

A stretch of the line from Brockenhurst to Ringwood (‘Castleman’s Corkscrew’) is now followed by the road from Brockenhurst to Burley. Not an A or B road but a useful cut through the New Forest from Lymington if heading west.

The station at Holmsley survives and is now a tearoom.

 

[DaleCooper]

In Peterborough part of the A47 Soke Parkway follows the route of the M&GNJR to Wisbech.

 

[Sun Chariot]

I set out the original centreline and fence lines on that stretch! East of Brasted Hill Road the centre line was within the old railway cutting, which was full of fallen trees, and partly flooded as the old railway drainage was blocked. There was no simple way to set pegs through there, so I think in the end I calculated an offset line clear of the cutting and we set the fence lines from that.

At Brasted station there was still a coal merchant operating out of the old goods yard. We took part of their land, but I think the business did survive for a while after the motorway was built.

When we removed the old railway embankment west of the station, the lower levels were big lumps of uncompacted clay with voids between them. Below that was a layer of dead grass and topsoil from the original field surface, as the railway builders hadn't even stripped the totopsoil.

What a fascinating backstory and many thanks for sharing it. I love learning about things like this.
So, the Victorian civil engineers weren't always as rigorous as they should have been....

 

[DelW]

What a fascinating backstory and many thanks for sharing it. I love learning about things like this.

It was my second project after graduating - hard to believe it's nearly 50 years ago! I still regularly meet a couple of other engineers from that job (all of us now retired of course).

So, the Victorian civil engineers weren't always as rigorous as they should have been....

We only see their successes today. I think contractors have always been tempted to shortcuts where they could get away with them - not that we ever tried that of course

 

[Sun Chariot]

I think contractors have always been tempted to shortcuts where they could get away with them.

Indeed and some are etched into railway folklore:

Thomas Bouch's viaducts at Belah and Deepdale (Stainmore line) and the far more tragic original Tay Bridge high girders.

The South Eastern Railway's contractor, who cut and (barely) lined the tunnels along the Tonbridge-Hastings route.

 

[Lloyds siding]

Several bits of the A55 Expressway in North Wales, whilst not built along the exact route, were built next to the railway line, resulting in the road being built on or above railway land (mainly goods yards, sidings, embankments, former marginal land) in the vicinity of Colwyn Bay, Penmaenmawr and LLanfairfechan.