Any old Winchester Bypass (A33) photos?

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QuietInRealLife
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Any old Winchester Bypass (A33) photos?

Post by QuietInRealLife »

Fascinated to find out more about the original alignment of the Road. There are plenty of photos of it just before opening/during construction. But I'm thinking more along the lines of any photo's of it during the later years, 70's/80's/early 90's-ish.

Cheers for any help. :D
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Johnathan404
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Re: Any old Winchester Bypass (A33) photos?

Post by Johnathan404 »

Hampshire County Council have loads of them at the Winchester Discovery Centre. There is a small collection of you look the Winchester Bypass up on the wiki, but this was mostly during deconstruction.
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Re: Any old Winchester Bypass (A33) photos?

Post by Ritchie333 »

The A33 Gallery has a few pictures from the 70s to the 90s. Here's Hockley in 1976

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Re: Any old Winchester Bypass (A33) photos?

Post by Richardf »

2 sections of pre motorway Winchester Bypass still survive. The bit on the A33 just north of the A34 junction is one most know about. There is also another less obvious bit and that's the D2 between J10 and the Spitfire Link/Roundabout. Been chopped about at each end but the middle of it has to be the original bypass alignment. I have seen an old OS map from when the 1980s M3 section was under construction. It clearly show the under construction M3 and the A33 separately at this point. Even lines up with the now lost alignment south and west of J10.

I too would love to see more photos of the old bypass in its later days
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57Tonic
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Re: Any old Winchester Bypass (A33) photos?

Post by 57Tonic »

The rear access roads of Tesco's and Homebase in Winnall are on the old alignment but as to whether there is any of the old tarmac left after the new builds I can't say
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Re: Any old Winchester Bypass (A33) photos?

Post by Johnathan404 »

It won't be original tarmac but I agree it's the old alignment. Although the problem with the Winchester Bypass is there have been so many different incarnations of it.

The overbridge at Bar End is part of the original LILO there. Without having SABRE Maps to hand (am on phone), I believe the P&R entrance is the old eastbound sliproads? The car park was then built over the path of the former carriageway.

I once walked the former route around Twyford Down. Didn't realise that was it until I checked the map later. That part was a former railway line, which was re-routed to make way for the road. The railway went from the Hockley Viaduct to Chesil and then on to Didcot - much of the A34 uses its route, such as the part at Kings Worthy station.
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SteveA30
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Re: Any old Winchester Bypass (A33) photos?

Post by SteveA30 »

Had these for a while.

1983. Pity the Spitfire bridge couldn't have been retained over the s/bnd c/way of the M3.

1984. The old alignment can be seen in the gap in the trees, heading to the other set of lights that used to be just beyond.
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Looking south. The Spifire bridge almost at the end of its working life.
Looking south. The Spifire bridge almost at the end of its working life.
Looking north to the new J9, waiting for the M3 to open.
Looking north to the new J9, waiting for the M3 to open.
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QuietInRealLife
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Re: Any old Winchester Bypass (A33) photos?

Post by QuietInRealLife »

ERROR.
Last edited by QuietInRealLife on Wed Nov 19, 2014 14:51, edited 1 time in total.
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Patrick Harper
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Re: Any old Winchester Bypass (A33) photos?

Post by Patrick Harper »

I still think, had they made the M3 follow the A30 instead of the A33, they could have avoided carving up the Winchester and Chandler's Ford bypasses by making the A34 the main access route.

Still, many of Winchester's residents actually prefer the new M3 because of less noise (and the fact that they can actually visit Twyford Down now) so maybe it was a smart idea in a sense.
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Re: Any old Winchester Bypass (A33) photos?

Post by jlsmith »

Hi,

I found this link to a picture of the cutting being excavated. It seems odd to me that the bridge appears to be complete while there is still a lot of excavation to be done, but that seems to be the way they did it...

http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/new ... to/3260699
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wrinkly
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Re: Any old Winchester Bypass (A33) photos?

Post by wrinkly »

It doesn't seem odd to me. It seems a good way to maintain connectivity of the road over the top whilst allowing access for earthmoving underneath.

Key bridges are sometimes built under a separate advance contract. Maybe it was so in this case??
QuietInRealLife
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Re: Any old Winchester Bypass (A33) photos?

Post by QuietInRealLife »

Paspie wrote:I still think, had they made the M3 follow the A30 instead of the A33, they could have avoided carving up the Winchester and Chandler's Ford bypasses by making the A34 the main access route.

Still, many of Winchester's residents actually prefer the new M3 because of less noise (and the fact that they can actually visit Twyford Down now) so maybe it was a smart idea in a sense.
Personally, I'd have still built the new road along it's current route, but as D2M, in a (somewhat naïve) attempt to lessen the severity of the cutting. I'd also retain & remodel the original bypass as a WS2H for local traffic to try & mitigate the heavy congestion you would inevitably get along this road (try & imagine the M3's current topsy-turvy gradient-heavy route through Winchester without a 3rd lane :shock:)

This (amongst many other reasons) is why I'm not a highway engineer :mrgreen:
Last edited by QuietInRealLife on Sat Nov 22, 2014 02:23, edited 3 times in total.
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Johnathan404
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Re: Any old Winchester Bypass (A33) photos?

Post by Johnathan404 »

Paspie wrote:I still think, had they made the M3 follow the A30 instead of the A33, they could have avoided carving up the Winchester and Chandler's Ford bypasses by making the A34 the main access route.

Still, many of Winchester's residents actually prefer the new M3 because of less noise (and the fact that they can actually visit Twyford Down now) so maybe it was a smart idea in a sense.
That's great, but Winchester, Southampton and Basingstoke still need a motorway between them. In fact the M3 between Winchester and Southampton is chronically congested, so arguably they need two. D2 would have killed the region.

Winchester is noisier since the cutting opened. Most residents would argue about the traffic the motorway generates, especially as the streets of Winchester are still congested. Twyford Down is hardly a local attraction. It's nice but people are hardly shunning Westgate to visit it.
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Patrick Harper
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Re: Any old Winchester Bypass (A33) photos?

Post by Patrick Harper »

Johnathan404 wrote:
Paspie wrote:I still think, had they made the M3 follow the A30 instead of the A33, they could have avoided carving up the Winchester and Chandler's Ford bypasses by making the A34 the main access route.

Still, many of Winchester's residents actually prefer the new M3 because of less noise (and the fact that they can actually visit Twyford Down now) so maybe it was a smart idea in a sense.
That's great, but Winchester, Southampton and Basingstoke still need a motorway between them.
There's the A3, and then there's the A27. Even today that corridor has much potential as an alternative, if the HA was to specialise it. The A27 is already a quality D2/D3 from there to the M27, so how hard can it be to encourage traffic to use it.
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Johnathan404
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Re: Any old Winchester Bypass (A33) photos?

Post by Johnathan404 »

Look at a map and you'll realise why the A3 can't carry ~120,000 vehicles a day between Southampton and Winchester.
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Re: Any old Winchester Bypass (A33) photos?

Post by Patrick Harper »

Yes, at it's present state the A3 cannot handle all of the M3's Southampton traffic. But much of it could have been upgraded to D3M without causing as much controversy as there was at Twyford Down.
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Re: Any old Winchester Bypass (A33) photos?

Post by Ritchie333 »

There is no way you could upgrade the Guildford Bypass section to D3M. It's not going to happen.
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Re: Any old Winchester Bypass (A33) photos?

Post by Patrick Harper »

You could bypass the bypass though, just build a new motorway south of Guildford.
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Re: Any old Winchester Bypass (A33) photos?

Post by Johnathan404 »

Paspie, you are completely missing the point. You cannot force people travelling from Southampton to Winchester to go via Guildford, even if you give them a D3M from Guildford to London.

Please stop hijacking what has, until now, been a very interesting thread.
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Re: Any old Winchester Bypass (A33) photos?

Post by Patrick Harper »

There always seems to be someone who wants to discuss it with me whether my OP was particularly relevant or not, so I'm going to go with the flow if that continues to be the outcome.
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