Comment posted Transport Scotland announce 2013 start to major A82 upgrade and Crianlarich bypass by Robert Wakeham.
Before the A82 was rebuilt between Luss and Tarbet alternative route proposals were presented to the public, and one was on a higher contour to avoid some of the more difficult topography at water level. However, at the end of the day, the increased risk of ice and snow affecting the higher route militated against it.
I doubt that any route north of Tarbet involving costly deviation of the railway would be entertained, and the more ‘straightening out’ involved, the higher the cost and potential for landscape damage, so maybe the Pulpit Rock scheme, involving a decent width of road but tight bends resulting in lower speeds than south of Tarbet, represents the order of the day for all the route – water level, minimal scarring of the hillside, but very twisty in places.
As far as I could see at the public exhibition at Ardlui of the Pulpit Rock project, it’s been designed to be much less obtrusive than the Rhubha Mhor ‘quarry’ between Inverbeg and Tarbet.
Robert Wakeham also commented
- It would be interesting to know whether there’s already a notional plan for a future ‘other half’ of the Crianlarich bypass, and also whether the best alignment for at least some of the route between Tarbet and Inverarnan might turn out to be above the railway, and whether the current ‘water level’ scheme at Pulpit Rock designed to tie in with the existing substandard alignment might conflict with this.
- Good news – but it’s surely rather surprising that ‘a preferred alignment for an upgrade of the 16km section between Tarbet and Inverarnan’ has yet to be identified.. Given that this has been on the government trunk roads engineers ‘wish list’ since time immemorial.
Recent comments by Robert Wakeham
- Minutes of today’s meeting of ‘Concerned Councillors’ Group
Perhaps Argyll should be reclassified from a local authority area to a semi-wilderness zone not suited to self-government, of a similar standing to the Northwest Territories in Canada; if that doesn’t work, then how about the Tribal Areas of Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier? – anarchic groups that continually disintegrate and morph into new allegiances, beyond rational control and inviting attack by pilotless rocket-firing drones controlled from outside the country’s borders. Attacks noisily condemned by a dis-functional central government, but secretly welcomed. - CalMac geared up to start Campbeltown-Ardrossan ferry service on Thursday night
If indeed Calmac were ‘thrown a curve ball’ by the Scottish government then it doesn’t bode well for the future, if indeed the government is into cynical manipulation of public finances to enhance their popularity.
The trouble is, this would fit with the apparent cynical manipulation, by this government, of Argyll & Bute Council politics – and if this really is all in character then it reinforces my cynicism about politicians in general.
You can find some decent ones, in most parties, if you try – but anyone listening to Alex Salmond jousting with James Naughtie on BBC R4 ‘Today’, this morning, will have heard him claim that Denis Healey (whom I respected for his ability in government) has said that the Treasury deliberately underplayed the value of Scottish oil in years gone by to make independence seem less attractive.
A plague on the lot of them. - Walsh to lead all but Lib Dems, Conservatives and George Freeman
I’m just wondering if this is a wild goose chase – barking up the wrong tree, so to speak – and it might be a creature of a different political colour altogether? - Walsh to lead all but Lib Dems, Conservatives and George Freeman
Talking of Conservatives, and bearing in mind the ornithological wonders of this part of the world, has anyone yet spotted a swivel-eyed loon? – or is it an imaginary creature? - First Minister’s choice not to condemn mob behaviour proves Farage point
Farage was in Edinburgh to raise the profile of UKIP – don’t underestimate wee Nige.
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Good news – but it’s surely rather surprising that ‘a preferred alignment for an upgrade of the 16km section between Tarbet and Inverarnan’ has yet to be identified.. Given that this has been on the government trunk roads engineers ‘wish list’ since time immemorial.
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I agree with Robert – no point in building Pulpit Rock until the complete route between Tarbet and Inverarnan has been defined. Pulpit Rock isn’t even the biggest problem – that’s the section about half a mile North of Sloy, where there is 500m sandwiched between the lochside wall and railway. It is that narrow twisty section which is a problem whenever two coaches or LGVs meet – regular users will notice how few LGVs use the route. Of course most of them go to Stirling because that’s where they want to go – Grangemouth, Bathgate or the South – and they will still have to navigate the lower bridge at Crianlarich because we’re only getting half a bypass. Do the penpushers in Edinburgh not realise that the A85/4 is the more important road commercially?
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It would be interesting to know whether there’s already a notional plan for a future ‘other half’ of the Crianlarich bypass, and also whether the best alignment for at least some of the route between Tarbet and Inverarnan might turn out to be above the railway, and whether the current ‘water level’ scheme at Pulpit Rock designed to tie in with the existing substandard alignment might conflict with this.
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Though it is, I suppose, well past time for the Tarbet-Inverarnan stretch to be updated (though I take Duncan Martin’s point entirely) I would hope this could be done with greater sensitivity to preserving the lochside road’s extraordinary beauty than was done with the sector further south. There, though it may have been inevitable that a ‘smoothed’ modern road would obliterate the old road with its charming scenes of established woodland and shore, roadside scrub has been allowed to grow to the extent that views of the loch are now few and far between. Far better perhaps to build a modern road further up the hillside – the Tyndrum-Bridge of Orchy sector shows this need not be an eyesore – for the traffic in a hurry, and retain the lochside road for the tourists. Loch Lomond, after all, is a world-famous attraction, easily reachable from the Central Belt, and this is not perhaps the unaffordable frivolity it might seem.
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There was nothing inevitable about the design of the new Loch Lomond A82, but I suppose it was fairly typical for the time. I rue in particular the damage caused to Rhubha Mhor, plainly visible from many points around the loch.
I’m concerned that the Pulpit Rock sidey-bridge will end up being as inelegant in retrospect as that.
A high level road (and dare I say a straightened out railway alongside?) would be an elegant solution. One imagines a succession of viaducts and tunnels. The only problem is… you’d have to demolish Tarbet to get up onto the hill.
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Before the A82 was rebuilt between Luss and Tarbet alternative route proposals were presented to the public, and one was on a higher contour to avoid some of the more difficult topography at water level. However, at the end of the day, the increased risk of ice and snow affecting the higher route militated against it.
I doubt that any route north of Tarbet involving costly deviation of the railway would be entertained, and the more ‘straightening out’ involved, the higher the cost and potential for landscape damage, so maybe the Pulpit Rock scheme, involving a decent width of road but tight bends resulting in lower speeds than south of Tarbet, represents the order of the day for all the route – water level, minimal scarring of the hillside, but very twisty in places.
As far as I could see at the public exhibition at Ardlui of the Pulpit Rock project, it’s been designed to be much less obtrusive than the Rhubha Mhor ‘quarry’ between Inverbeg and Tarbet.
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