Engineering Focus

The A494 at the point where is crosses the River Dee carries over 60,000 vehicles per day and is a vital link which connects North West England with North Wales. It also forms part of the TEN-T European transport network, linking ports to the East of England with the port of Holyhead. The road also provides employees who live in North Wales access to the Deeside Industrial Park, which is to the east of the River Dee. The video below gives an overview of the A494 from the junction with the A540, located to the west of the M56 (where the M56 becomes the A494), across the Dee bridge to Queensferry. The bridge over the River Dee was constructed in the 1960s and carries almost double the number of vehicles that it was designed for, this has lead, according to the Welsh Government to “ deterioration to some structural features ” [1] . Therefore in 2018 it was announced that the bridge was to be renewed, with a public consultation held during summer 2018 which outlined the proposals

Today marks the official launch of direct rail services between Wrexham General and Liverpool Lime St via Liverpool South Parkway, the first direct rail link between North Wales and Liverpool since the mid 1970s. From today there will be 1 outbound service from Wrexham General per day departing at 06:35 and 2 return services departing Liverpool Lime St at 17:37 and 20:14. The service is in addition to the new hourly service which will depart from Chester. The service departing from Chester will call at Helsby, Frodsham, Runcorn, Liverpool South Parkway ( for Liverpool Airport ) and Liverpool Lime St, with a journey time from Chester of around 55 minutes. Services between Chester and Liverpool Lime St actually began on Sunday ( 18th May 2019 ), which is when I took my first trip over Halton Curve. I picked up the service at Frodsham as I had some shots I wanted to capture in Runcorn upon my return. The trip out was on a humble class 150, but with new seating, disabled access toilet an