The Renfrew Bypass (M8) A Personal Look Back To 50 Years + Ago When I reported to the Peter Lind site office on Renfrew Road Paisley (The Old Fire Station) on the 15 th November 1965 aged 20 years, as a Junior Site Engineer, I never thought that 52 years later I would be seeing my account of the construction of the Renfrew Bypass Stage 1 (M8), as it was called then, in print on the internet. I guess to the majority of you, reading the history of the motorways in and around Glasgow on this website, were not born in the late 1960 s to 1970 s era and possibly some of your parents were not neither. By the time I started on this scheme, I had already had 4 years under my belt, learning my profession on the construction of the M6 Motorway running through Lancashire with Sir Alfred McAlpine & Son Ltd. Incidentally, I retired from the construction industry in 2010 ending up as a Chartered Health & Safety Adviser in Construction. Back to 1965-Peter Lind & Company Ltd won the contract (its first in Scotland) with a start date of 15th October and, to my recollection, a 2 year construction period. They had just completed the Post Office Tower in London and had handed it over to the client in October 1965. Staff was recruited from around the UK along with some senior staff and works foreman from other Lind s UK contracts. I was one of the new junior engineers, others were either senior, bridge or land surveyors who did the initial setting out of the motorway line etc with the consulting engineers. Looking back at that period, it was an interesting and dauntless experience as everyone at the start were new to each other including the Consulting Engineers Crouch & Hogg who were, for a while, sharing the same office complex. This was my first away job (from the parents home-base) so had to find digs. This I did within a couple of days in Paisley ( 4-10-00 ( 4.50) per week including evening meal) and stayed there for 5 months until I bought a small caravan and put it on the site by the Moss Side Inn (due for demolition within our contract) and other staff members who had caravans and families eventually moved from the old fire station site to join me. A point of interest now is that it would not be allowed under present regulations. During the period of November/December it was mainly site clearance, setting out & checking main or relevant points for the bridges & centre line of the road. The weather didn t help with a combination of hard frosts, snow or rain combined with sunny days and mild periods nothing has changed much over 50 odd years! Since the early 1980 s my wife & I have taken short breaks in and around the Glasgow region (visiting family north of the river as well). I guess I started to notice the change to the Renfrew Bypass around the late1982 when I briefly spent 2 months on a contract within Glasgow airport at that time the travel time from central Glasgow was quicker than in 1967/68 with the opening up of the other parts of the M8 from the Kingston Bridge. Between 1971-75 I & my wife were living around the Irvine area whilst working on contracts on the new town so hardly used the M8.We left the area in 1975 for Liverpool to work on Lind contracts there until the demise of the whole company in 1980. (Not as large as Carillion in 2018!)
I think my biggest surprise was seeing the change to St. James interchange during the 1990 s with the complete revamp of the area linking into the Linclive Road (A737) which was started in 1967 by Peter Lind & Co. One of my early tasks was to look after the laying of the main 36 dia storm-water outfall drainage system into the White Cart River passing under the Paisley-Renfrew branch railway line. This section was pipe jacked from a thrust pit on the river bank (specialist subcontractor). From memory it took about just over 2 months to do. (See below) This main outfall pipeline ran as far as Renfrew Road Bridge (rock encountered and blasted out later in the year) then the pipeline decreased in diameter size as it went onto the old Renfrew Airport section. The west side of the White Cart had a similar outfall back to the end of Stage 1 (Greenock Road).Lind s directors from the Cannock and London office used to visit the site periodically and what struck me as a new staff member was they took time out to say hello to you and remember your name this included the working gangers and foremen who had transferred from other contracts to work on the project. (They said it was part of a big family)
With the opening of the new Glasgow Airport on May 2 nd 1966, the old airport at Renfrew was closed down. During that 1 st week of closure we could only access the airfield for survey work and with permission from the authorities. Being close to an new airport, got me interested in aircraft spotting which lasts to this day and also helped when I moved, in late 1968, onto the Glasgow Airport contract that Lind s had won. (That is another story.) As 1966 went on, the works progressed and more staff was joining the company. We took on some student engineers from the University during the holiday periods and I was asked to take them under my wing to give them experience in setting out some of the works including helping out with the bridge engineers. They must have enjoyed their time with us for they returned in 1967 & 68 to complete their onsite experience. I wonder if they stayed in construction. During the summer of 66, I took and passed my driving test (1 st try) in Paisley. This allowed me to use the mini moke assigned to the engineers as site transport (and off as well). By then my patch had extended from the Glasgow Boundary (A8) up to Greenock Road (end of the contract) was involved with the setting out of roads and drainage plus collating weekly quantities for bonuses to the men. One area I do remember and that is around Bridge 6 (then the Glasgow airport turning) with its trumpet slip road off/on to the then new airport
access road.(see photograph on webpage 23-08-1966 forming the slip road). It was a difficult section of road for setting out (basic instruments then) with a common centre line for both carriageways. The local children from the nearby estate backing onto the scheme took great delight in removing pegs and profiles within hours of them being set out and of course during the working day it was the machines that caught the pegs etc. It was a busy year but we also had a social life. Staff and RE s often meeting once a week or so in the evening at the local hostelry (in those days, pubs closed at 10.00pm!!) During the winter months, on a Friday afternoon, there was a handful of staff from both sides who would head up to Glen Coe or Aviemore for their weekend skiing and return Monday morning ready for a weeks work. The staff in the main site office even started a social club and organised events such as car treasure hunts around Renfrewshire or a BBQ on Loch Lomondside On this plan of the original route of the Renfrew Bypass (M8), I have marked up the bridge numbers that we were using at the time along with the junction names. These correspond to the photographs also displayed on the website. Working on the Traffic management in those days was quite an art, especially around Hillington Road area when the various industries finished for the day.(see photographs dated
06-09-1967 in the history of the Renfrew Bypass section) When I visited the area in 2016 the whole area seemed to be jammed up at any time of the day. That is progress! Renfrew Road and on the A8 tie in at Bridge 7 (Renfrew Road) were long time traffic diversions due to the complexity of services to be diverted and also maintaining traffic flow at all times, even in early 67 when the high pressure water main ruptured on the existing A8 causing part of the old road to collapse, flooding part of our site had to be managed. Photographs are on the webpage. (I did not recognise that area in 2016 with all the changes to it over the years). The only area I can remember where rock was encountered was in the vicinity of Bridge 5 (Renfrew Road). It was a thick bed and we employed Rockfall Ltd to drill and blast out for the bridge foundations and drainage trenches. (Photographs on the webpage dated September 1966 show the extent of it) Traffic on Renfrew Road had to be stopped during blasting operations plus our offices above shook!!) Other sub-contractors I can remember we had was: - Earthworks-Richards & Wallington; Piling (Bridges) - GKN Piling & West Piling; Road surfacing (above sub-base level)-kings Surfacing. By 1967, the motorway was beginning to show a lot of progress, Bridges being decked out, blacktop being laid to base course level in sections that had been completed of drainage etc. During February some of the resources were diverted to start the Linclive bridge over the Glasgow-Gourock railway. At times I had to put some input into the setting out /supervision of stressing etc. This lasted till April /May when the Bridge was completed. Early to mid 67 some of our staff started to leave the contract and I was promoted to a more senior engineers position (bit more salary as well) This meant more responsibility but still out in the field as they say and more attendance in progress meetings usually held late afternoon. Late July, I had the misfortune to be admitted to the Southern General Hospital with a serious injury that kept me out of work for nearly 5 weeks. Once back on site in late August, there was sufficient field staff to take over my role and due to the tendering work load increasing for the company I was assigned to assist on the Glasgow Airport runway extension tender. My involvement in the Renfrew Bypass came to an end in September 1967 although I still lived on the site at Greenock Road end whilst working on the airport project and others during 1968. Unfortunately, being away from the Bypass project as the opening day approached, I actually missed the grand opening on the 18 th March 1968 and it was a further 3 days before driving the full length eastwards to Glasgow. One thing that puzzles me to this day was when did the original pedestrian bridge over the motorway linking Arkleston Road to the old airport site be installed. On the original bypass plan no bridge is shown and I cannot remember seeing one there during 1968.Is there anyone old enough to pass comment on that? Finally, the only serious incident I can recall during the period 1965-1968 was this excluding the hurricane of January 15 th 1968 that hit the west of Scotland including us. Personnel views of Barrie Old one of Peter Lind site engineers Renfrew Bypass (M8) (February 2018).