Great Western Coffee Shop

The heaviest load ever to travel through the West will bring traffic chaos to two motorways this weekend.  The monster load, weighing 474 tonnes, will take three days to travel the 100 miles between Avonmouth and Didcot in Oxfordshire.  It is so heavy, highway chiefs have banned it from travelling along one section of the M4 because it could bring down a couple of bridges over other roads and a railway.  So the huge load will travel around the Bristol ring road and across country before rejoining the motorway at Bath.

The load is a key part needed for the upgrade of a power station at Didcot, and will trundle along at less than 5mph.  The slow-moving convoy consists of a specialised load transporter of a tractor unit pulling at the front and another pushing at the back.  Police vehicles will surround the load, and the entire convoy is 18ft wide, enough to take up two lanes of the motorway, 17ft high and almost 300ft long.