Chris Bertram wrote: ↑Wed Oct 18, 2023 09:07
Just as well that A14 had vacated its historic, rather less strategic route a few years earlier then.
I'm not sure it did. I think the renumbering of the old route to A1198 happened at pretty much the same time as the number was assigned to the new route. Presumably for the sole purpose of giving the new route a consistent two digit number.
They could have just used the A45 number. Okay they would have had to renumber the bit of the A45 through to Higham Ferres, but it would have saved them renumbering the whole of the A45 between Cambridge and Felixstowe and the old A14.
Well at the time the A45 from Cambridge to the A1 was what is now the A428. The old A45 (now B645) crosses the A1 here hence the fancy slip roads. It had been expected that the new road would be come the A604.
The A604 was an important major cross country route across East Anglia from the 1930s to the 1990s. At one point it was one of the main roads for traffic heading from the Midlands to the ports at Harwich and Felixstowe.
Most of the A604 was created in the 1935 Road numbering revision which joined several local cross-country routes, including the original A604, to form a long-distance road that could act as an alternative to the A45. The A14 was created partly out of
KeithW wrote: ↑Sun Oct 22, 2023 09:56
Well at the time the A45 from Cambridge to the A1 was what is now the A428. The old A45 (now B645) crosses the A1 here hence the fancy slip roads. It had been expected that the new road would be come the A604.
Yes thanks Keith you are in granny-teaching mode again. I've been travelling this route for almost 40 years thanks so are very familiar with its history.
Chris Bertram wrote: ↑Wed Oct 18, 2023 12:35
So the complementary question is when did A14 become A1198. Our wiki doesn't seem to have a date for that, other than "1980s".
I was using the road down to Royston from Huntingdon up until 1986, as far as I can remember it was always the A14 while I used it.
The A1198 follows the Old North Road, the Roman Ermine Street, from Royston to Godmanchester, following most of the line of the original A14.
The road starts at a roundabout on the A505Royston northern bypass and heads slightly west of north along a largely straight route, showing its Roman history. It passes the Bassingbourn barracks (a former RAF station), after which a wooded section on the right marks the southern end of an avenue of
KeithW wrote: ↑Sun Oct 22, 2023 09:56
Well at the time the A45 from Cambridge to the A1 was what is now the A428. The old A45 (now B645) crosses the A1 here hence the fancy slip roads. It had been expected that the new road would be come the A604.
Yes thanks Keith you are in granny-teaching mode again. I've been travelling this route for almost 40 years thanks so are very familiar with its history.
You are not the only person who has read this I suspect, if you want chapter and verse I can give all the variants since the 1970's including when the route went over the Town Bridge and then through Great and Little Stukely, I used that for the first time in 1973.
I have a AA route map from 1985 that shows the A45 from Felixstowe to M11 J14 and A604 from Girton to the A6 just east of Kettering. As I recall there was quite a fuss when what had expected to be the A604 was renumbered pretty close to the opening date, there were lots of minor roads that had signs to the A604 long after the new road to Catthorpe had opened.
