Yes that most hallowed piece of tarmac is officially 25 years old!! Opened this week in 1986 by Maggie Thatcher
The 'not quite a complete ring' ring road that is the M25, much maligned, hated and despised busiest piece of Motorway in Britain.
Some facts for you:
Balfour Beatty started construction in 1975 on South Mimms - Potters Bar (23-24) and finished construction at Swanley - Dunton Green in 1986
There are over 260 bridges over or used by the M25
Most of the M25 is constructed of tarmac (54%) or concrete (46%)
Using a fleet of red AEC Major's
Yellow Foden
Both Dartford Tunnels predate the M25 by 6 years in the case of the second one (1980) and by 23 years in the case of the original (1963)
Some hotrods by the Tunnel tolls (stolen from on here!)
So there is just a little piece of history for you of the 'Road to Hell'.
Apologies for the slight lack of retro content but searching provided copious amounts of new photos but precious little retro (1976-1993ish) content. Real struggle to find decent pics
Maybe someone will have better luck than me
References:
autotraderblog.co.uk/2011/10/25/25-years-of-the-m25-fascinating-facts/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M25_motorway
www.ciht.org.uk/motorway/m25papers1.htm
www.sabre-roads.org.uk/wiki/index.php?title=M25#Opening_Dates
www.cbrd.co.uk/motorway/m25/images
www.bbc.co.uk/history/domesday/dblock/GB-556000-192000/picture/2
The 'not quite a complete ring' ring road that is the M25, much maligned, hated and despised busiest piece of Motorway in Britain.
Some facts for you:
- 117miles long (the second largest ring road in Europe after Berlin's A10)
- It has inspired music from Chris Rea's 'Road to Hell' to the band Orbital (the name )
- 33 junctions (inc 1a, 1b, and 21a)
- It is between 12 and 20 miles from the centre of London
- It forms the boundary of Greater London with the exception of North Ockendon
- A lap at 70mph would take 1hr 40mins although in the 80's yuppy boom before Gatso's races would start from the services and 'laps' under an hour were reported (117mph ave)
- It is not a continuous loop, if it was motorway restricted vehicles would have to go to Woolwich to cross the river!
- It cost £7.5million per mile to construct
- South Mimms and Clacket Lane are the largest motorway services in Europe
- It has 10,606 lights and 2,959 illuminated signs along its length
- It connects 9 other motorways, the M1, M3, M4, M11, M20, M23, M26, M40 and A1 (M)
- Its used on average by 250,000 vehicles per day
Balfour Beatty started construction in 1975 on South Mimms - Potters Bar (23-24) and finished construction at Swanley - Dunton Green in 1986
There are over 260 bridges over or used by the M25
Most of the M25 is constructed of tarmac (54%) or concrete (46%)
Using a fleet of red AEC Major's
Yellow Foden
Both Dartford Tunnels predate the M25 by 6 years in the case of the second one (1980) and by 23 years in the case of the original (1963)
Some hotrods by the Tunnel tolls (stolen from on here!)
So there is just a little piece of history for you of the 'Road to Hell'.
Apologies for the slight lack of retro content but searching provided copious amounts of new photos but precious little retro (1976-1993ish) content. Real struggle to find decent pics
Maybe someone will have better luck than me
References:
autotraderblog.co.uk/2011/10/25/25-years-of-the-m25-fascinating-facts/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M25_motorway
www.ciht.org.uk/motorway/m25papers1.htm
www.sabre-roads.org.uk/wiki/index.php?title=M25#Opening_Dates
www.cbrd.co.uk/motorway/m25/images
www.bbc.co.uk/history/domesday/dblock/GB-556000-192000/picture/2