B753 Coatbridge

[rileyrob]

Following the recent addition of the 1936 10 mile map to Sabre Maps, I've noticed that the B753 to the south of Coatbridge Town Centre is coloured Red, as in an A road, on the 1932 and 1936 sheets. The route still largely follows its 1922 route, and is back to purple on the 1939 sheet.
I've looked on old-maps, and the only clear and relevant sheet is the 1936-39 1:2500, which shows the western part of the loop as the B753, and the eastern half (erroneously?) as the B758. the 1935-8 1:10560 seems to say B753 at the eastern end of the route. However, both these maps probably post-date 1936, as they seem to show the A89 in place of the A8.

My thought, therefore, is is it possible that the B753 was temporarily upgraded to an A road to help take traffic away from Coatbridge town centre, prior to the opening of the Glasgow - Edinburgh new A8 route? If so, it could account for one of the A80xx numbers which are so far unaccounted for (or even the original A898?). Or was it just a mapping error?

[Euan]

It's quite possible that if the B753 ever was an A road, it would have been given an A80xx number. As yet there have been no confirmed uses of the A8007-9 numbers, so these seem the most likely candidates for a temporary "relief road" south of Coatbridge. It's also worth noting that by 1932 the A8010 was in use in Airdrie as it is now, so it may have formed part of a sequence in the Monklands area that we are not yet aware of alongside some or all of the A8007-9 numbers.

Notice that on the 1932 map the start of the B803 is in red as far as the B804 (which isn't even shown as going all the way into Coatbridge). The B802 in the centre of Airdrie is also shown in red, between the rest of the road to the north and the road to the south which was the B799 at the time. However on the 1936 map, both of these roads including the A8010 in Airdrie are shown in white - I can't tell whether it is just the map fading, but it does seem like there is some sort of connection between the roads. Could it be that the A8007/A8008 were initially used in Coatbridge and the A8009/A8010 in Airdrie? It would seem that the A8010 may have been the only number to survive to the present day.

On the other hand, using these numbers would have been a zone violation as some of them would have been to the south of the A8 through Coatbridge and Airdrie. But by 1939 the A8 had been rerouted to the south with the old road becoming the A89, so maybe there wouldn't have been such a big fuss if there were long running plans to reroute the A8.

[Euan]

On second thought, there are several routes on the 1936 map whose colour seems to fade when they reach the large towns and are printed on top of the black backgrounds. It does not seem to just be confined to Coatbridge and Airdrie, but it is impossible to tell whether the roads that are faded are supposed to be red or whether they are supposed to be purple.

[rileyrob]

However on the 1936 map, both of these roads including the A8010 in Airdrie are shown in white - I can't tell whether it is just the map fading, but it does seem like there is some sort of connection between the roads.

You may have spotted this, but note that the Glasgow inset for 1936 is still floating in the North Sea, whereas on all the other editions it has been overlaid into the main map.

On second thought, there are several routes on the 1936 map whose colour seems to fade when they reach the large towns and are printed on top of the black backgrounds. It does not seem to just be confined to Coatbridge and Airdrie, but it is impossible to tell whether the roads that are faded are supposed to be red or whether they are supposed to be purple.

As above, but also B roads generally don't seem to be carried into urban areas, while A roads are. The exception (in Scotland at least) being a curious dashed south/west ring road around Glasgow, which is quite clearly shown on the MOT map, so I don't quite know why this is shown at all /so badly on the 10 mile map.

[Steven]

My thought, therefore, is is it possible that the B753 was temporarily upgraded to an A road to help take traffic away from Coatbridge town centre, prior to the opening of the Glasgow - Edinburgh new A8 route? If so, it could account for one of the A80xx numbers which are so far unaccounted for (or even the original A898?). Or was it just a mapping error?

It may be worth knowing that the relevant MoT sheet (Lanark), is the only Scottish MoT sheet that has two post 1922-23 editions; and also the only one that has the later 1935-36 edition. Unfortunately, the NLS don't have copies of the post 1922-23 editions, and neither do I.

Does anyone have a copy of those MoT maps?