British People

W

Warbler

At the Start
Joined
Jun 6, 2005
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There are times when the Brit embarrases and shames me. There are other times when their apparent eccentricity borders on the endearingly barmy. With the possible exception of www.sleepinginairports.com (I actually think this web site might have an Irish origin in fact). I might just have found another seriously 'tragic' web site, referenced on Radio 5.

CBRD, is a web site dedicated to the motorway network of the UK, :lol: yet as is so often the case after 20 minutes of reading the FAQ's I found myself getting sucked in.

Now for my sins I did know where their oldest stretch of motorway in the UK is. I also knew where the highest was, although that's disputed with a bridge entering the equation (controversial stuff this). Perhaps most frightening of all, I knew where the 2 most foggiest stretches were too, but then I used to be sales rep and you pick up on these things. :shy: I thought I knew where the busiest was, but apparently I didn't. I know where I'd nominate as the most dangerous based on the traffic reports that always seem to be featuring crashes on the section of the M6 around Sandbach and Keele services, stretching as far as Knutsford. I didn't know where the widest was, and dispute the Guniess Book of records entry they report, as the Mexico City Ring Road is about 30 lanes wide I reckon, (though in fairness it isn't apparent if they're claiming a WR on this).

Each motorway has its own database complete with useless facts. I now know what those masts are at the junction of the M1 and M6 that bugger up your radio reception. I now know what a 'secret motorway' is, and now understand how a motorway is allocated its number, particularly controversial as regards the M62, and although disputed, legitimate it seems for the M25.

I've decided to nominate the M50 as my favourite motorway and in a close call I've gone for the stretch of the A4086 Capel Curig and Pen Y Pass as my favourite stretch of A road, as that always makes me feel as if I'm in a car advert on a nice day. The A9 was my other nomination, but I can't remember which stretch I found particularly uplifting? I've decided to nominate the M11 as my most boring, and after due consideration I've gone for the M6 as my most hated. I also have the distinction of having broken down at every service station on the M5 I discovered. I tried giving myself a category for most pathetic or pointless, but couldn't really find a winner
 
But then I'm not Irish. :) I'm actually curious though BtB? That it sort of links England and Wales?

I factored conjestion and scenary as the two biggest factors in my decision, though I think that on reflection, I was actually nominating about 20 miles of the A40 as honourary motorway. That view of Ross and Wye that features regularly on biscuit tins/ calenders etc adds to its merit, although again this is strictly speaking on the A40. I remeber overtaking Tony Blairs 'battlebus' on the M40 in the 1997 campaign, and have childhood memories of some decent picnic sites, although I tried to bring something into play with nostalgia/ happy memories etc it didn't quite work. The Pennines section of the M62 was the other one I considered. And I'd like to nominate the A34 as a road that needs turning into a motorway
 
Read it with a sense of sarcasm Euro. IMO its not that controversial, and doesn't keep me awake at night, but for these 'motorway spotters' it is!

I'll try and reproduce the gist of it for you, but in order for it to make sense it really needs the map as roads are broken down into sectors in the UK radiating from London. I think its nine sectors?. If you divide 360 by nine you get a spoke effect. Sector one is crudely at about 12 o clock, all motorways that start in this sector of prefixed with a 1. M1, M11, M18 etc. Sector 2 then appears as you go clockwise, M2 and M20 and M25 as this starts at the Dartford Tunnel.

I'll try and reproduce the post, but I'm not great at these things, and aren't even sure as to how to produce a link, as the map would be helpful
 
The M50 is sometimes referred to as the biggest car park in Dublin. It is our capital's ring road and was breathtakingly badly designed. Given the amount of new homes being built in West Dublin in the 90's, having a two lane ring road was always going to be insane. And building two massive supermarkets beside the Lucan and Blanchardstown exits (either side of a clogged-up toll bridge) were the nails in the coffin of Dublin traffic.
 
Originally posted by ovverbruv@Oct 26 2006, 09:52 PM
The M6 is my favourite as it leads to home
Click to expand...
Personally Mike I'd possibly nominate it (along with the M5 and the M42) for exactly the opposite reason - it leads away from poxy Birmingham!!!! :P
 
Cheers Bar that make sense now.

And for Euro, the great controversy of the M62 explained, though curiously they omitted the fact that it has a farm in the middle of it, which both carriageway have to divert either side of.


The coast-to-coast motorway across the north of England, this is the road that dares to cross the Pennines and link Lancashire to Yorkshire. In the depths of winter it's often the only road that can be kept open on the bleak moors.

The M62 contains the highest point on the motorway network where it crosses Saddleworth Moor. The actual highest point is the middle of the bridge across the A672 at junction 22, which rises to 1442ft above sea level.

It is also perhaps the most renumbered motorway in Britain. The M62 Stretford-Eccles bypass opened around the west of Manchester in the early 1960s, and was gradually extended around the north of the city and then out across the Pennines, leaving a motorway shaped like a walking stick. When the section west to Liverpool was opened, most of the original M62 became M63. The whole lot was then thrown into confusion in 2000, when the whole Manchester ring road was renumbered M60, biting a chunk out of the M62 which is now missing junctions 12 to 18.

In there somewhere is a numbering anomaly. Originally it was fine as the M62, since it started east of the M6. Since the mid-1970s, though, it has started west of the M6 and by motorway numbering rules its number should therefore be in the fifties, not the sixties. In fact, the original plan was for a Liverpool to Manchester motorway numbered M52, but it was changed to a part of the M62 before opening to provide a coast-to-coast route. The trailing end of the Liverpool to Manchester motorway is now known as M602.

Factfile
Start Liverpool (A5080)
Finish North Cave (A63)
Passes Huyton, St Helens, Warrington, Rochdale, Halifax, Huddersfield, Bradford, Dewsbury, Leeds, Wakefield, Pontefract, Goole
Length 107 miles
Terminates M18, M57
Spurs M602, M606, M621, A627(M)
Meets M1, M6, M60, M66, A1(M)

Hope that clears things up and you sleep peacefully now :D
 
I was about to say, you can tell the flat is drawing to a close and Irish maidens are getting few and far between to rate up!
 
"... and here's the 4.15 from Glasgow in the new colours, with a 2-1-2 engine block by McNeills of Forfars Yard, pulling a traditional 2-2-2-2 carriage arrangement buffered by a Tong & Mills buffet car... note the splendid mono-window by Pilkington to the driver's cab, and the revamped nose fairing by Vospers... "
 
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