Lanarkshire chips go on top
Reporter
The first sod was cut, without ceremony, on June 5, 1964, by Dan Mclear, an excavator driver of Church Street, Hamilton.
Construction involved 25 miles of fencing, 19 traffic signs and 16 lighting masts of 100 feet.
All power cables and services on the Hamilton-motherwell road had to be lifted and re-sited off the main road. Electricity supplies were initially pylon-born and‘earthed’later.
The carriageways were surfaced in black chips. The hard shoulders, for emergencies, were in the traditional Lanarkshire red chips.
Only one house had to be demolished, apart from some condemned property, on the entire nine-mile length – something of a record in road construction.
The man who fought for the motorway, Tom Fraser, the MP for Hamilton, was at the opening ceremony. But the man who did the route investigation, Col TU Wilson, the county roads surveyor, died while the project was still under way.
The road was heated in two places: on a sliproad at Canderside interchange; and also on the Avon Bridge, which was susceptible to ice because of cold air from the river below.
In 1966 it was estimated that 35,000 vehicles would use the road, rising to 80,000 by 1980.
Roadside emergency phones were not initially installed when the road opened.
A total of 23 miles of the 25-mile surface was laid in the last seven months of construction.
A peat bog was dug out at Candermoss, the old Dalserf station used as a cement depot, and the railway tracks lifted to make a road.
The bridge at Burnhead, Larkhall, was built with jacks to stop that sinking feeling, since the land was prone to subsidence. Bridge supports were fluted to improve lighting.