Railways diverted for roads

[wrinkly]

In how many places has a railway been permanently diverted to accommodate a new or altered road?

In a previous thread we discussed places where a new road was due to go under an existing railway, and the easiest way to build the bridge was to build it alongside the railway and then divert the railway over the bridge. But I'm not talking about that now.

I'm thinking of several examples, all in GB, one of which never happened because the road plan was dropped.

To give other people a chance I won't name my examples yet.

[RichardA35]

One from my youth IIRC was Rochester Way Relief Road at Eltham

[A307Patrick]

On the A259 I think either the Rye or Winchelsea bypass would have involved a railway being moved. I don't know whether this scheme ever happened or not.

[WHBM]

One from my youth IIRC was Rochester Way Relief Road at Eltham

If i am not mistaken, although the station was substantially resited, the tracks are still on their original alignment.

[nirs]

The railway line here was shifted wholesale out onto the beach to make way for the A2 Holywood Bypass in 1972. The presence of the graveyard was one of the main factors.

[quarella]

A55 Colwyn Bay http://www.2d53.co.uk/colwynbay/A55.htm

[ravenbluemoon]

A19 North of Selby, Riccall/Barlby bypass: this is on the route of the old York - Selby section of the ECML. In fairness, the plan was to divert the railway round to the west anyway, as this avoided the mining subsidence in the coalfields, and provided a faster line avoiding the Selby bridge, which IIRC had a very low speed limit.

[RichardA35]

One from my youth IIRC was Rochester Way Relief Road at Eltham

If i am not mistaken, although the station was substantially resited, the tracks are still on their original alignment.

I always thought there was a track slew to the south to get over the new bridge but looking again I could be mistaken - it's a horrible alignment just east of the curve though.

[RichardA35]

The railway at M1 J37 was diverted ~150m to the north when the motorway was built. You can still see the old route on aerial mapping.

[AndyB]

Same thing happened in Larne - Larne Town used to have quite a station yard if you see old pictures. It's now plain track and moved out towards the sea, all related to the construction of the Harbour Highway.

I think I heard recently that part of the Cherryville-Waterford line was also diverted to facilitate a road (motorway?) development.

[WHBM]

I always thought there was a track slew to the south to get over the new bridge but looking again I could be mistaken - it's a horrible alignment just east of the curve though.

The sharp curve has always been there. Although most trains on the line stop at all stations it does sometimes handle through trains from Kent, and it would surely be eased out in any rebuilding. There was a serious railway accident here in the 1972 (before the RWRR was built) when an express train entered the curve, which had a 20 mph speed limit, at speed and was derailed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eltham_Wel ... rail_crash

There's an areial photograph of the accident scene at the start of the official report here which may allow assessment of how the railway used to lie. I see there the area to the south of the line was always railway tracks, to a coal yard. It's also instructive to read that despite a huge derailment of the bulk of the train, one track was running again less than 24 hours afterwards, and both tracks the morning after that. Nowadays you would reckon on more than a week to deal with it.

http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/docume ... am1972.pdf

[Tinpusher]

A classic is the A483 Welshpool Bypass. The Old Station platform now opens out onto the 483, and the railway has been shifted a good few yards east.

[Jonathan B4027]

The new bit of road they are meant to be building at Porthmadog involves moving the railway.

[RichardA35]

I had a hand in building the new rail route into CAD Kineton diverted due to the vertical alignment of the M40 which then in turn caused a realignment of the A41.
Railway diverted due to road then road diverted due to new railway.

[GrahamP]

It's not a diversion, but in Fort William the railway line was truncated to make room for a rerouted A82, and the station moved back to the new end of the line.

[Stevie D]

A19 North of Selby, Riccall/Barlby bypass: this is on the route of the old York - Selby section of the ECML. In fairness, the plan was to divert the railway round to the west anyway, as this avoided the mining subsidence in the coalfields, and provided a faster line avoiding the Selby bridge, which IIRC had a very low speed limit.

That's kind of a different situation. The railway had to be diverted, because of the mining and because of the bottleneck at Selby. The fact that the A19 was able to use the former trackbed to be upgraded was a happy side effect.

[t1(M)]

A55 Colwyn Bay http://www.2d53.co.uk/colwynbay/A55.htm

I was going to say that! The old railway ran where the eastbound A55 now sits, in the middle of the available swathe of land: if it handn't been moved it would have been in between the carriageways!

I thought there was another example near Abergavenny, but can find no mention of it on the Interweb

[WeirdKerr]

It's not a diversion, but in Fort William the railway line was truncated to make room for a rerouted A82, and the station moved back to the new end of the line.

Did the line not carry on down the coast to Ballachulish and Connel?

[wrinkly]

It's not a diversion, but in Fort William the railway line was truncated to make room for a rerouted A82, and the station moved back to the new end of the line.

Did the line not carry on down the coast to Ballachulish and Connel?

Yes, but that had been closed for some years by the time the dual carriageway was built, so the station had already become a terminus.

All the examples I had in mind originally have now been mentioned, except the one that was planned but not built, and another one which I was probably wrong about - the railway probably wasn't diverted there.

[Mark Hewitt]

Yes, but that had been closed for some years by the time the dual carriageway was built, so the station had already become a terminus.

I had thought it was a similar example to Selby, i.e. the station was moved away from the waterfront to its present location so they could build a new station, and the fact they could then expand the road was a side effect of this?