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The Development of the Arransian Expressway Network1. Up to 1949 Arransia is often regarded as somewhat backward in terms of road-building, especially when compared with Brunswick. However, in the period before the Great War she was ahead of many other countries in terms of evaluating new and innovative road-building concepts, and the Stainton Bypass of 1938 was very much a state-of-the-art new-build arterial road of its era. Arransia was also ahead of most other countries in giving all its major roads sealed surfaces. It is only after the Great War and the following period of austerity and rebuilding that Arransian road-building began to slip behind her neighbours. During the second half of the nineteenth century, Arransia, like all other developed countries, depended on water and rail transport for long-distance movement of goods and passengers, with road used primarily for local distribution. Most road transport was horse-drawn, although Arransia had never passed laws to curb the use of steam wagons and coaches, and these continued to be fairly common in the industrial districts, mainly used for goods. The motor age was fairly slow to come to Arransia, but by 1920 petrol lorries were being widely used for local distribution and significant numbers of private cars were beginning to appear. The boom years of the 1920s led to a strong growth in traffic and many cities started to experience routine congestion. Cross-border road traffic, especially on the Stainton-Ynysforgan corrider, was growing strongly. By this time, most main roads in Arransia had been given sealed tarmac surfaces, but it was becoming clear that more was needed to develop the road system. The number of cars on Arransia’s roads overtook the number of lorries in 1924, and by about 1927 had passed the 100,000 mark. The first “motor age” road scheme in Arransia is generally reckoned to be the A6 Kilburn bypass, opened in 1925. This was a simple two-mile stretch of 24-foot blacktop with a crossroads and several side turnings, which took traffic between Stainton and Regina out of the town centre. It cannot really be regarded as a predecessor of the Expressway system and indeed is now a built-up, 40 mph road. The current A6 Expressway takes a totally different route. However, it was the first of a handful of similar schemes that appeared up to 1931. The defining features of an Expressway (or motorway, or trunkway, or autobahn) are access restrictions and grade separation, and the first Arransian road to have these elements was the Stainton Surface Tunnel or “throughpass”, opened in 1929 - see detailed description below. This was very effective in providing relief for the city’s congested centre, but in the long term proved to be something of a dead end in road design. The city authorities produced a design for a complementary north-south Surface Tunnel for the A1, linked with the original by a primitive cloverleaf junction (just four two-way links with right-turn bans), but this was shelved once the depression of the early 1930s began to bite. The depression may have put paid to various roadbuilding schemes, but for the road user it brought a benefit as, from 1933 onwards, the government undertook an extensive programme of giving all the principal roads sealed surfaces, as an unemployment relief project. By 1940, pretty much every mile of A and B classified road had been tarmaced, at a time when unsealed main roads still lingered in some of the remoter rural parts of Brunswick. It was normally done to a fairly basic standard – 18 feet in width for classified roads, and 12 feet for unclassified ones where they were surfaced – but it was vastly better than what went before. In some locations these 1930s surfaces can still be seen today. Unemployment relief also prompted the government to look again at major road schemes. It was clear that Stainton would benefit from a north-south bypass, but the Surface Tunnel proposal was felt to be too limited, and too much in a built-up area, so it was decided to build a full-scale bypass running about six miles east of the city centre. The result was the A1 Stainton Bypass, opened in 1938, which was the first section of current Arransian Expressway alignment to open. 17 miles long, it was initially a three-lane single carriageway, but it had bridges over or under most intersecting roads, with a limited number of junctions with major routes. These were at-grade, and had a rather odd arrangement of central refuges which suggested the designers were inching towards designing a roundabout, but had not quite worked it out. It had parallel cycle tracks and cycles were not permitted on the main carriageway. At the intersection with the A6, there was a designated rest area with a car park, picnic area, toilets, café and pub. All of this has of course been swept away by later rebuilding. While many of the details were still at a formative stage, it is clear this road was an early expression of the Expressway concept. It quickly became well-used, and was regarded as something of a racetrack, but in the four years up to the start of the war had a good safety record with only three fatal crashes, all at junctions. The success of the Stainton bypass prompted the government to look at doing the same for Petersburgh, thus removing another bottleneck on the key Danby-Hebburn A1 route. The Petersburgh bypass had many of the same features but was planned from the start as a dual carriageway, the first in Arransia. Construction started in early 1941, but only a short section at the south end was completed before the outbreak of war led to the project being suspended. It was revived in 1943 for military purposes and completed within a year as a 20-foot single carriageway that was only open to military vehicles and lorries. As an aside, Arransia never banned private motor transport or introduced petrol rationing during the Great War, but as the government controlled the fuel supply, very little was released for private purposes, leading to the price going sky-high. From mid-1948 onwards the supply effectively dried up, and by early 1949 the government were confiscating the stocks of “hoarders”, as it had been found that some wealthy car commuters had amassed a year or more’s stock earlier in the war. The Petersburgh bypass was opened to general traffic in September 1949, but did not take the A1 designation until 1952, when rebuilding as a dual carriageway had been completed. The rebuilding was to a lower standard than the original design – it was simply two 20’ tarmac strips – and it was overall a much inferior road to the Stainton bypass. It did not have cycle tracks and cyclists and agricultural vehicles were not banned. The 1930s also saw the opening of another distinctive road feature in Arransia, although not then or now an Expressway. The city of Hebburn, for many years Arransia's biggest port, stands on a promontory of land separating the estuaries of the Tean and Irk rivers, which at its highest point rises to over 400 feet above sea level. The castle and many of the main civic buildings are over 200 feet above the rivers. During the 19th century, virtually all traffic travelled to or from Hebburn, and its layout was not a problem. But the A5 road was designated in 1919, and the 1920s saw an increasing amount of traffic trying to traverse the city and negotiate the steep climb and descent on the official A5 route. The success of the Stainton Surface Tunnel encouraged the Hebburn City Council to drive a 1240-yard tunnel through the central ridge for the A5, which was opened in 1937. This had four lanes, but because of height restrictions, lorries were made to use the two centre lanes. It had (and still has) a speed limit of 30 mph, and a minimum speed limit of 15 mph. It is free to use. It immediately made a huge difference to traffic flow in the city, but it must be said it is woefully inadequate to cope with the demands now placed on it, and Hebburn continues to represent a major bottleneck on the A5 route. In the 1970s, a quasi-bypass was created using a mix of roads to the south of the city centre, mostly with a 40 mph limit, which now carries the official line of the A5, but this route is still subject to chronic congestion, and many regular drivers prefer to take the tunnel. There is now a scheme for a full-blown three-lane expressway bypass to the north of the city, with a gigantic suspension bridge across the Tean estuary, but it is currently well down the funding pipeline. The deeply indented and heavily built-up terrain to the south makes a southern bypass more difficult than a casual glance at the map might suggest, and this would involve large bridges across both the Tean and the Irk. A far larger tunnel project was the Esk Tunnel at Danby, opened in 1940. It is officially called the Queen Alice tunnel, but is always simply referred to as the Esk Tunnel. As the major part of the city is on the east bank of the river, but much of its hinterland is to the west, Danby had for many years suffered from serious congestion as vehicles tried to cross the city. The river is navigable by sea-going ships right into the city centre, and so any bridge further downstream than the City Bridge would need to have a high clearance. There was an existing transporter bridge between Partney and Barfleet, 13 miles to the south, opened in 1898, and a similar crossing was considered for Danby, but rejected on the grounds that it would offer little advantage in capacity over the existing ferries. A tunnel under the Esk was planned in the 1920s, but deferred due to the depression. The project was revived in 1936, and constructed with impressive speed for the era, to open four years later. It is a double-deck, single-bore tunnel 1,940 yards long, carrying four 11’ lanes of traffic on the upper deck and two tram lines on the lower deck. The river is about 250 yards wide at this point, and 35-40 feet deep at low tide. There is sufficient headroom for lorries to use the outer lanes, and indeed they are banned from the inner lanes. The portals have a very stylish Art Deco design. The approach roads are 2½ miles long in total, and are fairly similar to the cutting sections of the Stainton Surface Tunnel, although with lanes one foot wider. On each side of the river is a diamond-pattern grade separated junction – the first in Arransia – with alarmingly short slip-roads. The tunnel itself carried a toll – initially 5 pence for cars – and there was a toll plaza at the western portal. The maximum gradient was 1 in 18. The tunnel itself has always had a 30 mph speed limit, but the approach roads were initially derestricted, being given a 50 mph limit, like the Stainton Surface Tunnel, in the late 1950s. Pedestrians, cyclists and horse-drawn vehicles are prohibited. The Esk Tunnel has never been officially designated as an Expressway, even though it effectively has all the defining features apart from not being a dual carriageway. From the opening day, the official route of the A2 was diverted along the tunnel, where it still remains today. The tunnel was an immediate success, although some problems were experienced with pollution from lorries struggling up the gradients, which required the installation of more powerful extractor fans. Although well-lit, it remains a rather damp, unpleasant and sulphurous place. The tunnel played an important role in the Great War and was never put out of action, even though the docks were heavily bombed. In the 1970s and 80s, as seagoing trade tended to move downriver to Headlam, usage reduced somewhat, but in recent years has picked up again following the development of new office complexes in the former docklands, and it is now busier than ever, and heavily congested at rush hour. A new dual-carriageway link road to the Coronation Parkway was opened in 1994, forming a kind of half ring road for the city. The current toll is 50p for cars, rising to $2 for heavy lorries. Most cars now use a tag system allowing them to bypass the toll booths. The major problem with the tunnel remains that – like the Coronation Parkway – it does not link in properly with the wider Expressway network. It is still impossible to drive through Danby in any direction without using a 30 mph surface street, and, between 7 am and 7 pm on a weekday, virtually impossible to avoid a traffic jam. At various times in the post-war era, an additional tunnel further to the south has been planned, but this has never come to fruition. The A25 Danby Orbital Expressway would have a large bridge crossing the Esk about five miles further south, but apart from the link between the A1 and A2 north-west of the city, this remains unbuilt and well down the funding queue. There is still a chain ferry across the Esk about a mile south of the tunnel. Danby remains a major commercial port, but with few exceptions seagoing ships now do not come within a mile of the City Bridge, and ironically a lifting foot and cycle bridge was opened in 2004 very close to the line of the tunnel. Ships of up to about 40,000 tons can use the Esk up to Danby – and on two occasions, in 1965 and 1990, the aircraft carrier Queen Margaret has visited the city – but oil tankers and other large bulk carriers berth at Headlam and Carseby. While general-purpose roadbuilding effectively ceased during the Great War, a number of roads were constructed for military purposes. The most notable was the Kirkby Thore bypass on the A2 between Danby and Beadnell, completed in 1946, which was only a 20’ single-carriageway, but took the route of the current road. Advantage was also taken of bomb damage to build a “throughpass” at Holborough, although this was just bulldozed through rather than making any attempt to minimise its impact on the cityscape, and was largely removed during post-war reconstruction. The city of Stainton has a remarkably intact piece of roadbuilding history in the form of the "Stainton Throughpass". Stainton is a large industrial city, which in the boom years of the 1920s was suffering from increasing road congestion in its central area, particularly from through traffic heading up from Brunswick. A tunnel was considered, but the city planners eventually came up with the "Stainton Surface Tunnel", which opened in 1929. This is a 2¼-mile long stretch of single-carriageway four-lane road, driven through a densely-packed slum area to the south of the city centre, partly in cutting, partly on a viaduct to cross the canal. There are no intermediate junctions, and the viaduct section is bounded by six-foot brick walls so you can see nothing from a car. It has four ten-foot lanes and a narrow two-foot pavement at either side between the walls, with pedestrian refuges every 400 yards. From the outset it had a prohibition on pedestrians, cyclists and horse-drawn vehicles, and heavy lorries have always been confined to the nearside lanes. It gives the impression of being an early attempt to design an urban motorway where they hadn't quite sorted out all the details yet. The approaches to the Esk Tunnel at Danby, opened in 1940, bear some similarities. Once the A1 Stainton Bypass, running east of the city, was opened in 1938, the road became popularly known as the Throughpass, although its official title is still the Surface Tunnel. With the exception of changes in signing and resurfacing it remains in virtually original condition. Initially, it had a 20 mph speed limit, in line with other urban roads. In 1936, when the 30 mph urban limit was introduced, the new legislation stipulated that this could only apply to built-up roads, and so the Surface Tunnel, with no adjoining properties, was derestricted. It gained its current 50 mph limit in 1957 when the Traffic Regulation (40 and 50 mph Speed Limits) Order was introduced. Until the southern expressway bypass was opened in 1996, this road formed part of the main A6, and it remains an extremely busy road which is slow in the rush hour but can be distinctly hairy at other times, although in its history it has only ever seen two fatal head-on collisions. Not surprisingly, it represents an irresistible challenge to motorcyclists, and its length is reputed to have been covered more than once in less than 50 seconds. Return to Main Expressway Page
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