The study of British and Irish roads - their construction, numbering, history, mapping, past and future official roads proposals and general roads musings.
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SteveA30 wrote:M4 - the early years.
As with so many of these old new road photos, the lack of trees is the dominant feature, in the top pic.
I think the main feature of the top photo is the comically bad lane discipline of the driver of the Ford Escort (?) in lane three on the left hand carriageway.
owen b wrote:
I think the main feature of the top photo is the comically bad lane discipline of the driver of the Ford Escort (?) in lane three on the left hand carriageway.
I love the massive X-heights of the early motorway signs
The Pre-Worboys sign is interesting - that A20 Folkestone Dover 'patch' contains white text on a dark background. I can't recall seeing a similar colour scheme on a PW sign before. What colour would this patch have been? It looks a similar shade to the newer Motorway A20(M) sign above it which I assume was blue.
Bryn666 wrote:It was green - part of an experimental colour coding scheme between London and the channel ports.
There's at least one still extant, just outside Great Bentley (east of Colchester) in Essex, on the former A604/A120: (from the PW preservation thread) viewtopic.php?f=1&t=21334&p=898155#p901678
graeme_t wrote:There's at least one still extant, just outside Great Bentley (east of Colchester) in Essex, on the former A604/A120: (from the PW preservation thread) viewtopic.php?f=1&t=21334&p=898155#p901678
Thanks for that, it's very reminiscent of how the French sign their primary destinations.
Nice to see a picture with the old dashed edge lines on the A12. There were a number of roads with dashed edge lines up until perhaps the early 1990s when solid edge lines became standard. The A33 Chandlers Ford and Otterbourne bypass had dashed edge lines.
I used to live close to the A20 at Farningham and remember "Death Hill" whilst I was growing up; that picture brought back memories.
It was likely that all those vehicles were heading to Brands Hatch which was just up the road - possibly even for a Grand Prix; the road used to regularly come to a halt for such events. The road is much the same these days except for being marked for 2 lanes instead of 3, and back to being 60 instead of 50.
Tony
Brenley Corner: congesting traffic since 1963; discussing roads since 2002
SteveA30 wrote:
The news is surprisingly contemporary, except for the topless girls in London. Haven't seen that since the Who gig at Charlton FC in 1974.
The Stranglers brought on some strippers at an outdoor gig in London in 1978 to accompany them on 'Nice and Sleazy'. However, in the interests of equality, there were male and female strippers. Students of late 20th century culture may peruse the evidence here.
