A8004

The remains of a railway bridge which once crossed the A8004

The A8004 is a short link road existing in its entirety as part of a sliproad for the M876 at J1. It is a bit of an anomaly, with other similar roads elsewhere generally being numbered as a spur of the main route, rather than being given their own number. Indeed, the OS 1:2500 map from 1969 marks this road as a spur of the A883, and it is not until the 1970s that the A8004 number appears on mapping. The change seems to have happened in 1974 when the road was upgraded from a dual carriageway A876 to motorway as the M876. When the A876 Dual carriageway was first opened, the corresponding sliproad to the north of the roundabout was part of the B905. Some old maps suggest that this also later became part of the A8004, but it is no longer shown as such, with the motorway sliproad now ending on the unclassified Denovan Road which leads on to the B905.

Although the A8004 is two-way throughout there is considerably more traffic heading west on to the motorway than in the opposite direction as the motorway's northbound offslip joins the A883 slightly further north. The equivalent southbound offslip is, as noted above, a spur of the B905, which meets Checkbar opposite the A8004.

The A8004 therfore starts at Checkbar Roundabout where the B905 meets the A883 and heads west, signposted for Glasgow and Bonnybridge. It runs adjacent to the A883 for a short distance before bearing sharply left to run alongside the M876. The road soon splits, with the left fork leading into Bonnybridge (and curiously signed as the A803), whilst the right fork passes the motorway chopsticks sign and turns into the westbound onslip of the M876. Traffic coming from Bonnybridge has to give way to traffic joining the motorway.

The line of the A8004 is almost identical to the pre-bypass line of the A876, leading onto the A883. It approached from the south through Bonnybridge, passed under the former railway line on the line of the A8004 - the old bridge abutment can still be seen alongside the road - and continue towards the A883. As the A8004 turns to the right, the old A876 used to end on the A883, with that road then running due east, intially on the current A8004 line, before crossing the new A883 line to meet the B905 at the southern end of Dunipace Bridge.