Before the M1 was opened - 1958

[hq1hitchin]

Rare pic from my friend Geoff Cox.

'The shored-up cutting beneath this Luton-Dunstable train in 1958 would eventually become large enough to carry the M1.
The train is travelling across a temporary bridge erected during a project lasting 31 hours to do the preparatory work on the London to Yorkshire motorway - as it was then known - near Bradley Road, Luton.
Workmen were given a strict deadline to remove the old track, create the cutting, erect a temporary bridge and re-lay the line - all so that train services would not be disrupted.
They started work at 11.30pm on Saturday, May 10 and had finished the job in time for the 7.05 train carrying Vauxhall workers to pass over the bridge on the following Monday morning.
The cutting would eventually be much widened and a 540 ton permanent bridge with a 170ft span would then carry the trains across the motorway'

Hatfield N7s were regulars on passenger trains, N2s being prohibited, and those artic twins were common, too

[manna]

G'day Gents

Great photograph, what happened to the new bridge after the railway was closed !! is it still there !!

My father took us kids for a ride along the new motorway about a week after it had opened, in our 'Beige' Morris Cowley, we only travelled about 10miles along it, but what stuck me was the width of the road, and so Little traffic along it, hardly a vehicle, I hear today it's been turned into a Car Park

manna

[R. pike]

I've spent around an hour looking for a photo of a telephone circuit card on my computer to no avail. An addition to the omnibus circuit for the Luton - Dunstable line was a phone for the M1 bridge worksite. I'll keep looking.

[Mickey]

An addition to the omnibus circuit for the Luton - Dunstable line was a phone for the M1 bridge worksite.

I don't know if it was mandatory according to the Rule Book or just a prudent idea to have a railwayman stationed at a 'site of works' hence the temporary telephone line to the 'site of works' being installed?. I would presume the work would be carried out daily between 8:00am-5:00pm Mon-Fri so it made sense for someone with railway experience to be stationed at a site of work if for any reason the railway needed to be 'blocked to traffic' anytime during the hours of work taking place?. I would presume a relief-signalman in that area would usually get the job to be stationed at the worksite while the work was carried out.

Back in the early 1970s we had a Hitchin relief-signalman stationed at a temporary worksite beside the Up slow line on the approach to Hatfield for a couple of years (1971-73) while work was carried out next to the Up slow line, if the Up slow line needed to be 'fouled by plant equipment' anytime during working hours he'd ring up the Hatfield no.2 signalman who would then block the Up slow line, i suppose it made a change from doing shift work in the box and pulling levers for a couple of years plus it was regular hours.

Mickey a onetime telegraph lad at Welwyn Garden City box 1972-74.

[Hatfield Shed]

... what happened to the new bridge after the railway was closed !! is it still there ?...

I believe it is the same bridge that now carries the guided busway route between Luton and Dunstable.

[manna]

G'day Gents

So, that bridge must have sat there for 50 years, doing nothing after they shut the railway, forward planning Eh !!.

manna