The Talyllyn Railway

`Operation motorway': landscapes of construction on England's M1 motorway

“…72 Rolt saw the successful and timely completion of the motorway as an inevitable outcome reflecting the careful planning of engineers who, like the 'High Command planning a major military campaign', 'determined its grand strategy', decided 'what forces to mobilise, how to deploy them in the field, and by what hierarchy of command various activities should be directed'. 73 This 'High Command' set up its headquarters at Newport Pagnell, project offices in the four contract-sections, and smaller offices for subsections of each project, creating an organisational structure that Rolt compared with a 'nervous system'-Newport Pagnell being 'the brain' and the project and sub-project offices 'the nerve centres'-which 'took visible form' in 'the maps and charts which lined the walls on the Planning Room at Newport Pagnell'. 74 The London-Birmingham Motorway contained a number of photographs of company directors, project managers, and senior engineers studying maps, plans, and devising strategies in this Planning Room, while Rolt himself was seemingly overwhelmed by the range of technical drawings, charts, graphs and coloured maps on the walls, especially 'the huge map' with different coloured bands which 'made progress visible at a glance'.…”