General   (General discussion, talk about anything.)

Another Road-making/Bryn oddity.

Also during this period, we hauled many loads of red shale from Pearson's shale tip (Ince Moss Colliery) to be used as foundation filling for the, then under construction, Preston Bypass hard shoulders. As you know our first motorway construction: now part of M6.

We all knew that it was unsuitable for this. Even I as a kid knew it to be unsuitable. It can hold within it large amounts of water, and shock/vibration can then create liquefaction and sudden catastrophic structural failure.

Still, the 'men from the ministry' know best: red shale it was that built those foundations.

Within weeks of opening, the problem became manifest.

Trucks on the hard shoulder sunk up to their axles, and when removed left such deep scars that hard shoulders had to be coned off.

Within months the whole shoulder construction had to be re-done!