A1(M) Leeming - Barton

[Osthagen]

Typical Britain, piecemeal improvements, really the A1 should have been upgraded to motorway in North Yorkshire in the sixties, rather than as D2, to tie in with the M1 and A1(M) in County Durham. Ideally the whole road from Doncaster to Seaton Burn should be D3M.

Like I said, anywhere else in Europe would have done this a long time ago, along with much more!. If this were France, for example, we'd have had continuous motorway from Edinburgh to London by the eighties.

[Berk]

Makes you think, though. What will happen to the rest of the A1?? The Hunts/Beds section looks likely to be replaced by motorway. So that just leaves the Lincs/Notts section.

[Osthagen]

Makes you think, though. What will happen to the rest of the A1?? The Hunts/Beds section looks likely to be replaced by motorway. So that just leaves the Lincs/Notts section.

I imagine that it will stay as it is for the time being. I don't think the 70 miles of A1 in Lincs/Notts will be upgraded anytime soon.

[wrinkly]

I had a look round today (Sunday). The northbound exit slip at Barton is now closed for reconstruction as promised, and the LAR is open from Scotch Corner to Barton, though its newly-opened southern mile is northbound only. The VMSs instruct non-motorway traffic to leave at Scotch Corner northbound.

The old Catterick South bridge over the former A1 is still carrying local traffic and will close permanently at 20:00 on Friday. Over next weekend it will be prepared for demolition and over the following weekend it will be demolished. Both weekends require closure also of the nearby recently-built bridge over the motorway, so diversions will be set up for local traffic. These involve temporarily opening the LAR from Leeming Bar to Catterick (2-way, I think) and then closing it again at the end of each weekend.

I think that hthe first reopening of the local E-W route at Catterick South on the morning of Moday 20th, traffic that has hitherto crossed over the ex-A1 on Catterick South Bridge will use the new links down to the ex-A1, and a short section of the ex-A1 between them, as shown by the green lines in the Phase 6 layout here. This route will be part of the repeated closures on the second weekend. A stretch of the former northbound has been reconstructed and will eventually become part of the LAR.

[wrinkly]

LAR open Leeming-Catterick today in both directions.

I assume the charade of re-closures and re-re-openings is to prevent people using the LAR to get to/from Catterick before Fort Bridge and the remains of the original bypass are reopened.

Catterick South bridge was closed but I didn't see any work being done to it.

[Osthagen]

Is anybody aware as to wether or not any of the signs are up?

[IanRB]

Is anybody aware as to wether or not any of the signs are up?

As of yesterday (18th March) a lot of the support posts were in place, but I cannot remember seeing any actual signs.

[Repmobile]

LAR open Leeming-Catterick today in both directions.

I assume the charade of re-closures and re-re-openings is to prevent people using the LAR to get to/from Catterick before Fort Bridge and the remains of the original bypass are reopened.

Catterick South bridge was closed but I didn't see any work being done to it.

It is currently a nightmare getting between Catterick Village and the Garrison (and vice versa).

The original plan from a couple of years ago was that the demolition of Catterick South overbridge and its associated road closures was only going to be carried out once Fort Bridge had reopened (The original closure of Fort Bridge for replacement was scheduled to be from from November 2015 to February 2017 but this time frame has 'slipped' somewhat).

I went to the exhibition in Catterick Village earlier this month and they did say they would look at diverting traffic heading from the Garrison to Catterick Village via the A1 Northbound from Catterick Central to Scotch Corner, then round Scotch Corner roundabout and down the A1 southbound to the temporary exit at Catterick North, but they seem to have had second thoughts on that (probably as Scotch Corner is a bit of a mess anyway at the moment). However this would have been an easier diversion.

The opening, closing, then reopening then closing of the LAR between Leeming and Catterick during the weekends is pretty bad planning really and has certainly caused a lot of 'lost looking' confused motorists around Catterick Village.

[wrinkly]

Is anybody aware as to wether or not any of the signs are up?

Some black and yellow temporary signs. Other than that, as Ian says, a lot of posts but no signs - except in one or two cases, where the metal for the sign is up but it is plain grey all over, with the sign face yet to be either added or uncovered.

Some months ago, as reported on here, there were a few DLSs, and one flag-type sign for the northbound on-slip at Catterick Central, but they were soon covered up and then removed.

Unlike all previous online motorway upgrade contracts I've seen, they seem to be working on the assumption that it would be a capital offence for any blue to appear in advance of legal motorway status.

It's still the case that the direction signs on the J51 slip roads for the J51 roundabouts are those from before the A684 Bedale bypass was built.

[Burns]

I drove through this area today. Lots of the southern section look done. If they hurry up and finish the work around junction 51, they could open a few miles of it up. Save some 50 tedium.

[Mikeg]

Northbound over the bridges at Brompton is now using the new hard shoulder and Lane 1

[wrinkly]

Northbound over the bridges at Brompton is now using the new hard shoulder and Lane 1

... after being on the southbound side for many months. This extends from just north of Fort Bridge to just north of Catterick North bridge.

The west abutment of the rebuilt Fort Bridge is clear of scaffolding and looks good.

I was under the impression that the LAR between the Hackforth turnoff and Catterick South was due to be re-closed after last weekend until this evening, but this afternoon it was still open, or open again.

It appears there is to be a connection after all between the LAR and Low Street. There's a cluster of blank-faced signs there, something of a trademark of this contract.

Catterick South Bridge has steel propping round its central pier. The bridge still carries lighting columns, which I would have expected to have been removed by now, and parapet rails with added wire grids, but the carriageway has been dug up and removed on the immediate approches (not sure whether this also applies on the bridge itself).

The southbound offslip at Scotch Corner is being reconstructed one lane at a time with the other lane open, so traffic backs up onto the main carriageway.

[fras]

Is this improvement ever going to be finished ? This thread started in 2012.

[wrinkly]

Is this improvement ever going to be finished ? This thread started in 2012.

Work between Leeming Bar and Scotch Corner started in early March 2014, and Scotch Corner to Barton in about October 2014.

I think we're now about the original completion date. I'd guess completion about June-July.

[Jeni]

Went up on Thursday and got some video of the progress.

Mainline progress:


LAR progress:

[wrinkly]

I passed the bridge demolition site twice today. At 14:00 I passed going north from the LAR to the ex-ex-A1 through Catterick village. The superstructure and central pier had been reduced to a pile of rubble but the abutments seemed still intact. At 20:00 I passed in the reverse direction and they were working under floodlights. It was difficult to tell but the abutments were probably largely gone.

[fras]

Having to rebuild an existing road rather than building a new one nearby surely has to be very difficult as the poor old contractor has to keep traffic moving, and the A1 here is not lightly trafficked ! I didn't realise they'd only started in 2014, so they seem to have done fairly well.
When I was working at BR, the West Coast Main Line modernisation was going on, and this took nearly 10 years and would have ruined the train operator, Virgin, if they hadn't got compensation. It did, however, make lots of dosh for many coach operators running the substitute road services !!

HS2 is virgin-build so the engineers can be pretty confident in their estimates and timescales, bearing in mind there is the recent experience of building HS1, which also had a lot of tunneling.

[M19]

Having to rebuild an existing road rather than building a new one nearby surely has to be very difficult as the poor old contractor has to keep traffic moving, and the A1 here is not lightly trafficked ! I didn't realise they'd only started in 2014, so they seem to have done fairly well.
When I was working at BR, the West Coast Main Line modernisation was going on, and this took nearly 10 years and would have ruined the train operator, Virgin, if they hadn't got compensation. It did, however, make lots of dosh for many coach operators running the substitute road services !!

HS2 is virgin-build so the engineers can be pretty confident in their estimates and timescales, bearing in mind there is the recent experience of building HS1, which also had a lot of tunneling.

That's good because it's taking longer to convert the M1 between J16 and J19 to "Smart" Motorway. They must have about 5 blokes and an office cat being paid by the hour on that one, and hence, seem to be eeking that one out nicely!

[wrinkly]

Has the LAR now closed again between Leeming Bar and Catterick South following the bridge demolition? If you scroll down the scheme page to the Q&A it's full of statements by HE saying it's not officially open yet.

[mark3evo]

it may have been covered in the previous 55 pages.

Bottleneck is currently warmsworth, doncaster.

Compulsory purchase houses knock them down widen the cutting with a new span over the River Don
Unless D3 with no hard shoulder