A fantastic documentary. I worked on the M77 extension, (Glasgow) in 1996. The site was 7 miles,(approx) in length with, if I remember correctly, 26 structures (it may have been more). It’s an experience I’ll never forget, I enjoyed it immensely, we started at 7-30 am & the Work Day finished around 7. That was 6 days a week, I had to travel 50 miles to work, so your Life became the Project, I’m sure that all or almost all the people that have worked on these Civil Engineering Projects have poignant & great memories of them, they are unique, it’s difficult to put into words but the combination of the sheer scale of the challenges & the tremendous energy & commitment of all that are involved, and the large numbers of earth moving plant, they have a tremendous & infectious energy. They are a reflection of what people can achieve. I’m sure that down the ages many would share the same feeling about the great civil engineering builds. Brilliant. But as some have pointed out, people by and large don’t really appreciate the level of commitment needed to realise these great projects.
Heath and safety, planning, environmental impact, employment laws, civil contracts, funding, subcontracting and partnering etc. Much stricter today, whether you like it or not.
I worked on the M5 in the late 60s. I can confirm that the Euclid drivers were, to a man, bonkers. One day, I was at the top of a bridge column in the middle of the road, when a Euc driver came so close, he knocked down the ladder I'd used to climb up. As he drove past, he was laughing like a drain. Totally mad.
It is so nice that they have credited the Preston bypass as being the first motorway in Britain. So many people who produce documentaries and people who are London based, think that the M1 was the first motorway. They work this out on the basis of the M1 being the first motorway, the M2 being the second, the M3 being the third, etc., etc. The M6 was built to relieve the A6 trunk road of traffic and the M1 to relieve the A1. The M6 is the longest motorway in the country.
Well said that man. Close to Preston , a way the " experts " patronise the big cities on a much older form of transport. Manchester to Liverpool the first passenger traffic railway in Lancashire, 1830? No chance. Bolton to Leigh in 1827. Shouldnt matter, and probably in the scheme of things isnt that important, however still gets my goat because, simply, its wrong! Lovely film this though.
Honestly, years now to do a pot hole, a junction, a new stretch of motorway, decades for HS2 and most of the times stuff never gets done. Also my grandfather worked on the M54. Even at the time he thought it was a bit daft it only went to join the M6 south, not the North. Possibly objected to too much and would have gone through too many homes or areas of interest.
I remember the highways back in the early 80's. At night there were very little traffic. I emigrated to the U.S in 1990 and every time I returned to the U.K it got busier and busier to the point of unbearable. I feel bad for you guys
When I was a nipper -In school holidays I used to go with my dad in his Albion tipper to the quarries in mendips -Pick up the load and drop it off at split level on the M5 just past Bristol -Oh happy days
Hard to believe now but : No speed limit and no central barriers. No seat belts. Couple all that with rear view mirrors that were nowhere near up to the job and it’s a wonder there wasn’t carnage from day one.
If you want to experience or even miss the 1960s traffic stricken small town centre experience just visit Lyndhurst on the eastbound A35 from Bournemouth or The West during the summer school holidays . Situated on the now back road towards non M27 southampton the village stinks of traffic fumes on a still day & whilst sitting there in a mile tailback you can enjoy the unspectacular, un scenic suburban housing surrounding the decaying facades of the grimy high street which must reflect exactly how life in little places on main roads used to be - hideous ! 😁👍
but of course! the fella walking the painting trolley for highway lines: I'd forgot about this labour ---- moving back to my homeland here, the post-winter repaintings used to occur early-spring, but now the cleptoparasitic barons hereabouts wait until sometime w a y after Midsummer's Day
Let us not forget the chap who invented the motorways and the VW beetles to use them. From 1936, how it all went wrong, could have been european comission then, but less democratic than now of course.
Although there was no speed limit at the beginning, the average car of that day typically was barely able to keep up 100km/h. They'd be screaming along. Some exceptions were there of course, but if your car was able to get to 130km/h you had a fast one.
To get a good idea of what the UK's transport infrastructure looked like in the early 1970's, check out the 'video' for Black Sabbath's 'Sabbath Bloody Sabbath'! Very atmospheric. Great shots of queues of buses on Birmingham's Bull Ring, and what I think is Drax power station (unbeatable name!) in Yorkshire. (I know a power station isn't 'transport infrastructure', but there's a great view of it from the motorway!) [EDIT: Someone appears to have re~edited it - not to great effect, imo - and unfortunately much of the footage taken, literally, 'on the road' has been lost; still well worth a watch, though!]
16 and a half million for a motorway! Wonder how much that would be today and also if it compares to the relative amount. Of course you would have to factor in the cost of corruption these days eh? Yeah, don’t we know it. Got to grease those politician’s palms. I love this film, not a lazy, self serving, work-shy arsehole in sight.
If only the roads were as empty now !!These days doesn't matter what time of day or night you travel, it's like a bloody car park for lorries !! Especially when the sods insist on overtaking the one in front at about 3mph more and sits in the fast lane for ages holding everyone else up. Pain in the arse :O)
+SONGSTICKS Try driving one, or being in one. For timed jobs, the 20min difference that can be made by doing that can mean the difference between making your delivery and getting paid, or not.
+Sam Gamble Fair comment :O) But then equally I spose, the hold ups they cause van drivers could mean the same difference to them.I guess the biggest problem is that the world and it's consumerism moves way too fast these days !
Cars weren’t built to endure high mileage at high speeds for long periods of time when the first motorways were constructed. It wasn’t until the 70’s that the car manufacturers started catching up.
Does anyone know what the documentary was called (also from the BBC) which went into detail about UK Motorway and general highway signage? It featured Ms Calvert (one of the original designers) and talked about the science and psychology about the design and typeface for road transport in this country.
@@Vespastendert That was a James May interview on Top Gear. No, the programme I'm thinking of (also BBC4) also covered their work on airport signage as well as other works, after their motorway commission. They went into the psychology of moving people around a building through signage design. etc. It was really quite fascinating...
I know it is a long time after I just found your comment. I know the programme you mean and think it may of been in a series on BBC 2 called Design Classics. For sure one was about the London Underground map
We need to get back to this out roads have been clogged with anti car councils cycle ways etc. It's time for the nation to wakeup and put cars and roads at the heart of out transport system. Time to open up the dual carriage ways again remove the buses and cycle lines .
telling introduction by its first motorist .. autoroutes're SO fuckingly boring, I more often miss my exit .. although Montana's freeways across prairie were thrilling for their absence of daytime speed limit --- the expressways criss-crossing our urban strip of valleys were impressive to come back to during the early-Eighties, yet the ROW broadenings now seen along the BI's trunk routes there are jaw-dropping..!
Got to love interviewing a bunch of people not even close to being alive at the time second guessing as if they were there what it was like. Typical BBC.
A fantastic documentary.
I worked on the M77 extension, (Glasgow) in 1996. The site was 7 miles,(approx) in length with, if I remember correctly, 26 structures (it may have been more).
It’s an experience I’ll never forget, I enjoyed it immensely, we started at 7-30 am & the Work Day finished around 7. That was 6 days a week, I had to travel 50 miles to work, so your Life became the Project, I’m sure that all or almost all the people that have worked on these Civil Engineering Projects have poignant & great memories of them, they are unique, it’s difficult to put into words but the combination of the sheer scale of the challenges & the tremendous energy & commitment of all that are involved, and the large numbers of earth moving plant, they have a tremendous & infectious energy. They are a reflection of what people can achieve. I’m sure that down the ages many would share the same feeling about the great civil engineering builds. Brilliant.
But as some have pointed out, people by and large don’t really appreciate the level of commitment needed to realise these great projects.
"Driving in Britain is never going to be the same again" aye your right their mate !
'On time and on budget', words you never hear these days.
110 miles of carriageway, 200 bridges and culverts, all completed in just 19 months, we can't even build 1 mile in that time today.
The M6 is now slightly more than double that mileage now.
183 bridges; 1 every 3 days and a mile every 8 days. Takes longer than that to fill in a pot hole now😂
Heath and safety, planning, environmental impact, employment laws, civil contracts, funding, subcontracting and partnering etc. Much stricter today, whether you like it or not.
@@Paul-ue8tnand they cannot even fill the pot hole correctly. 🇬🇧
I worked on the M5 in the late 60s. I can confirm that the Euclid drivers were, to a man, bonkers. One day, I was at the top of a bridge column in the middle of the road, when a Euc driver came so close, he knocked down the ladder I'd used to climb up. As he drove past, he was laughing like a drain. Totally mad.
It is so nice that they have credited the Preston bypass as being the first motorway in Britain. So many people who produce documentaries and people who are London based, think that the M1 was the first motorway. They work this out on the basis of the M1 being the first motorway, the M2 being the second, the M3 being the third, etc., etc.
The M6 was built to relieve the A6 trunk road of traffic and the M1 to relieve the A1. The M6 is the longest motorway in the country.
Hell yes
Well said that man.
Close to Preston , a way the " experts " patronise the big cities on a much older form of transport.
Manchester to Liverpool the first passenger traffic railway in Lancashire, 1830?
No chance. Bolton to Leigh in 1827.
Shouldnt matter, and probably in the scheme of things isnt that important, however still gets my goat because, simply, its wrong!
Lovely film this though.
very true, i think it became a p)art of the M6
This was an excellent series! My favourite motorway is the M45 - still rarely a car in sight most of the time!
My late father had the distinction of being the first soldier to be stopped by the military police for speeding on the M1😀
What a fantastic history documentary many thanks for uploading
Honestly, years now to do a pot hole, a junction, a new stretch of motorway, decades for HS2 and most of the times stuff never gets done.
Also my grandfather worked on the M54. Even at the time he thought it was a bit daft it only went to join the M6 south, not the North. Possibly objected to too much and would have gone through too many homes or areas of interest.
I remember the highways back in the early 80's. At night there were very little traffic. I emigrated to the U.S in 1990 and every time I returned to the U.K it got busier and busier to the point of unbearable. I feel bad for you guys
You'll remember that they aren't highways in the UK then, 1990 wasn't that long ago!
@@keithpringle3940Yes,but the amount of cars using the motorway has significantly increased,since:1990 & so has the population too.
Me too
I also visit the UK theres more cars like here in the US ,in the UK seems no one parks their car in the garage anymore ! .
When I was a nipper -In school holidays I used to go with my dad in his Albion tipper to the quarries in mendips -Pick up the load and drop it off at split level on the M5 just past Bristol -Oh happy days
No modern British government (blue or red) could ever build anything for Britain again, let alone legacies like the motorways or the NHS.
Nicely presented very enjoyable thank you
Great documentary thank you for uploading. It still amazes me what human beings are capable of.
And Jonathon Glancey, so eloquent. Totally enjoyable to listen to, in this great documentary.
amazing that the signs were that good they have never strayed from it since…
Hard to believe now but : No speed limit and no central barriers. No seat belts. Couple all that with rear view mirrors that were nowhere near up to the job and it’s a wonder there wasn’t carnage from day one.
People had a 'brain' back in them days.
i thoroughly enjoyed this documentary about British civil engineering.
Such a shame this documentary isn't available on DVD
You will not get any roads constructed in Wales now because of Labour run policies. And now we have 20mph on our roads
The aspect ratio is wrong - it's a 16:9 programme, but someone has managed to upload it as 4:3...
My grandfather Fred built the M1 on his own , he had some stuff left over from a job down the road !
Loads still have no idea how to join a motorway they think doing 40 is acceptable It is NOT
The corrupt Ernst Marples. Let’s never forget that.
That sounds very much like Jack Walker, aka Dixon of Dock Green doing the 50's commentary.
Just look at the Bus them Men Travel in to go Work
If you want to experience or even miss the 1960s traffic stricken small town centre experience just visit Lyndhurst on the eastbound A35 from Bournemouth or The West during the summer school holidays . Situated on the now back road towards non M27 southampton the village stinks of traffic fumes on a still day & whilst sitting there in a mile tailback you can enjoy the unspectacular, un scenic suburban housing surrounding the decaying facades of the grimy high street which must reflect exactly how life in little places on main roads used to be - hideous ! 😁👍
I love stuff like this 💙
8:27 When drunk driving was all the rage
but of course! the fella walking the painting trolley for highway lines: I'd forgot about this labour ---- moving back to my homeland here, the post-winter repaintings used to occur early-spring, but now the cleptoparasitic barons hereabouts wait until sometime w a y after Midsummer's Day
Great :)
Let us not forget the chap who invented the motorways and the VW beetles to use them. From 1936, how it all went wrong, could have been european comission then, but less democratic than now of course.
Although there was no speed limit at the beginning, the average car of that day typically was barely able to keep up 100km/h. They'd be screaming along. Some exceptions were there of course, but if your car was able to get to 130km/h you had a fast one.
To get a good idea of what the UK's transport infrastructure looked like in the early 1970's, check out the 'video' for Black Sabbath's 'Sabbath Bloody Sabbath'! Very atmospheric. Great shots of queues of buses on Birmingham's Bull Ring, and what I think is Drax power station (unbeatable name!) in Yorkshire. (I know a power station isn't 'transport infrastructure', but there's a great view of it from the motorway!)
[EDIT: Someone appears to have re~edited it - not to great effect, imo - and unfortunately much of the footage taken, literally, 'on the road' has been lost; still well worth a watch, though!]
16 and a half million for a motorway! Wonder how much that would be today and also if it compares to the relative amount. Of course you would have to factor in the cost of corruption these days eh? Yeah, don’t we know it. Got to grease those politician’s palms. I love this film, not a lazy, self serving, work-shy arsehole in sight.
I’m Fairly Sure My Great, Great Grandad Built The Original M1!
If only the roads were as empty now !!These days doesn't matter what time of day or night you travel, it's like a bloody car park for lorries !! Especially when the sods insist on overtaking the one in front at about 3mph more and sits in the fast lane for ages holding everyone else up. Pain in the arse :O)
+SONGSTICKS Try driving one, or being in one. For timed jobs, the 20min difference that can be made by doing that can mean the difference between making your delivery and getting paid, or not.
+Sam Gamble Fair comment :O) But then equally I spose, the hold ups they cause van drivers could mean the same difference to them.I guess the biggest problem is that the world and it's consumerism moves way too fast these days !
SONGSTICKS I suppose your right. Roads that were build too big back then are too small now, a problem that is only going to get worse im afraid
+Sam Gamble Very True. It comes down to the same problem for most issues. Too many People !!
SONGSTICKS 67!7
Tip top editing at the end, the RA....
nice
Marples....transport minister and also on the board of construction firm Laing....hang on a minute....nothing changes then
WIMPEY = We Import More Paddy's Each Year
A bridge completed every 8 days?? it would take a year now!!!
Just spotted Jacob Rees Mogg at 10.15
why are at least half the people in this not directly involved in the building ie people geografy and such urban planners etc
The cars were not as slow as claimed in this video. Most 4 cylinder cars could do 70 mph back then and many could do 90 plus.
Even back then Dude Driving cabriolet with family is lane hogging
My uncle told me of all the broken down cars after enthusiastic drives down the new road.
Cars weren’t built to endure high mileage at high speeds for long periods of time when the first motorways were constructed. It wasn’t until the 70’s that the car manufacturers started catching up.
Does anyone know what the documentary was called (also from the BBC) which went into detail about UK Motorway and general highway signage? It featured Ms Calvert (one of the original designers) and talked about the science and psychology about the design and typeface for road transport in this country.
TheSaintST1 wasnt that in a episode of Top Gear?
@@Vespastendert That was a James May interview on Top Gear.
No, the programme I'm thinking of (also BBC4) also covered their work on airport signage as well as other works, after their motorway commission.
They went into the psychology of moving people around a building through signage design. etc. It was really quite fascinating...
I know it is a long time after I just found your comment. I know the programme you mean and think it may of been in a series on BBC 2 called Design Classics. For sure one was about the London Underground map
www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15990443
2022 and it took them 6 yrs to make j18 - j16 hard shoulder into a live lane...pathetic
Spinning the job out
7:29 first ever dash cam
Squeezed picture, ya need switch setting to letterbox
We need to get back to this out roads have been clogged with anti car councils cycle ways etc. It's time for the nation to wakeup and put cars and roads at the heart of out transport system. Time to open up the dual carriage ways again remove the buses and cycle lines .
telling introduction by its first motorist .. autoroutes're SO fuckingly boring, I more often miss my exit .. although Montana's freeways across prairie were thrilling for their absence of daytime speed limit --- the expressways criss-crossing our urban strip of valleys were impressive to come back to during the early-Eighties, yet the ROW broadenings now seen along the BI's trunk routes there are jaw-dropping..!
Even when it first opened there was mastoids hogging the outside lane lol .
24:50
Folk had better driving skills in the 50’s and they only had 8 flamin miles of motorway !!!
Got to love interviewing a bunch of people not even close to being alive at the time second guessing as if they were there what it was like. Typical BBC.
27:29 : B.S!
28:40 : B.S! Stop changing history!! Max speed 50 mph!!! Utter BS!!
I blame the Muslims
Distorted images make it unwatchable.
Wrong aspect ratio. What a waste. Same as the other upload.
Play with VLC, press the letter A and done
A very interesting video of the building of britains 1st motorway of the Preston by pass in 1956! 😎