Forget the dreary M74: Why I'll stick with Scotland's greatest B road to travel the highway of my youth

The long link south is one of the country’s best kept motoring secrets.

Despite the A74/M74 route south having motorway status these days, the road can still present challenges.

For me the A74 is, or rather was, the greatest road in the world. Not just a highway connecting Scotland to England but a twisting, rolling, seemingly never ending ribbon of dual carriageway that will forever conjure up memories of family holiday drives south - Little Chefs, Andy Williams cassettes, endless I spying, countless pleas of “are we there yet?”.

Alas, the meandering west coast link that is burnt into the memory of so many Scots kids of the 60s, 70s and 80s is no more. The route is full-on motorway these days, with three lanes each way for much of its length, its kinks and often torturous curves straightened out and abrupt junctions eliminated. No bad thing, perhaps, given its unenviable reputation for accidents back in the day and the long, hard climb up over Beattock summit as queues of cars fought to pass the tightly packed convoys of artics.

But, wait, there is a way to relive those childhood memories while keeping as close to the new A74(M)/M74/M6 as possible (post-upgrading the route now boasts three road designations). From a junction southeast of Hamilton to just south of the Anglo-Scottish border it’s possible to undertake that (broadly similar) journey of yesteryear. And it involves utilising one of the country’s best kept motoring secrets. Or rather two of them - the B7078 and the B7076. Together, these two now relegated, and in places sadly neglected, strips of tarmac constitute the vast bulk of what remains of the old A74 route - the B7076 following on south from the B7078 around Elvanfoot.

We can gloss over some of the gaps involving brief diversions onto connecting roads and a couple of head-scratching junctions and roundabouts that have been added to facilitate local access. This is to all intents and purposes the highway of youth, even offering up the occasional eerily abandoned filling station and fading services road sign.

I use this alternative route south – and back again north – whenever the opportunity arises. Few others do, judging by the almost total lack of traffic - the odd local pick-up truck aside. It might take a little longer and require a little more skill than zooming down the M-way, but this B-road throwback feels like a proper adventure.

Scott Reid is a business journalist at The Scotsman