grazebrook beam engine
The 2-mile long Aston Expressway (A38M) runs from Dartmouth Circus to Spaghetti Junction. Boulton & Watt’s Grazebrook Beam Engine (see left), built in 1817 for the Netherton-based ironworks of M W Grazebrook, was re-erected on the island in the middle of Dartmouth Circus.
Opened on 24 May 1972, Aston Expressway has several trivial claims to fame — as well as one disgraceful one. Birmingham City Council gave its permission for this ugly swathe of concrete and tarmac to cut through the grounds of Aston Hall.
It was the first road in the UK to have a tidal flow system for traffic to minimise congestion; it consists of seven lanes but, unlike most motorways, it doesn’t have a central reservation. As part of this attempt to keep vehicles moving, it also has a speed limit of 50 mph.
Motorcycles are banned from the red-surfaced central lane which contains a drainage channel. This was because a fatal accident which occurred when one of the drainage covers dislodged.
And as the final example of a trivial factoid (or possibly fictoid): The Expressway curves through Aston skirting Ansells brewery (since demolished). One of the deservedly lesser known factoids about the city is that it has a vinegar viaduct over a motorway. Like the tidal flow system, this was also designed as an integral part of the Expressway to carry acid from the brewery (where it was a by-product of making beer) to its use in the HP sauce factory on the other side of the motorway.
(Heinz, the last owner of the HP factory, stopped production in 2006, and the factory was demolished in 2008. In early 2009, Don and Tony Deep Wouhra, who run East End Foods in West Bromwich, bought the site and have announced plans to build a food wholesaler and conference centre as well as a 15-storey building to replace the factory's iconic tower.)