a trunk road when the act was first published in 1936. A contemporary report also suggested renumbering the entire A74, along with the A82 as an extension of the A6 to Inverness, matching the London — Carlisle — Glasgow — Inverness trunk road as used in internal Ministry of Transport documentation, but this was rejected as the cost of replacing signs would be prohibitively expensive. Due to its continued status as one of the most important connections between England and Scotland, talks began in the 1950s to improve its quality to cater for modern motor traffic. While a section of dual carriageway had already been completed before World War II, Tom Steele, then MP for Lanark, was particularly keen on the entire route from Carlisle to Uddingston being dualled before the mid-1960s. On 2 August 1956, he received a memo from the Secretary of State for Transport about the matter, which stated "the plan is to complete the conversion in about 10 years. When this work is completed there will be a dual carriageway leading from the Border to Uddingston with no built-up areas along its length." By the early 1960s, these plans had changed to consider building a motorway in preference for the more straightforward online upgrades. The original section of the M74 in the mid-1960s ran from just north of Kirkmuirhill in South Lanarkshire, connecting to an earlier dual carriageway bypass, to Hamilton. It was completed northwards in two stages, initially to Bothwell Bridge, and then Uddingston. In 1987, the then Secretary of State for Scotland, Malcolm Rifkind, announced the intention of completing the M74 from Glasgow to Carlisle. This commenced with a series of "fast track" road improvements, the initial two being between Abington and Millbank, then from Kirkpatrick Fleming to Gretna. By 2008, the A74(M) motorway extended southwards to the northern terminus of the M6, at the Scottish border, and was extended northwards in the mid-1990s as far as the Glasgow suburbs of Carmyle and Tollcross. In 2011 it was further extended to meet the M8. The parallel road which was the A74 has been mostly downgraded in two sections as the B7076 and B7078. Cumberland Gap The Cumberland Gap (named after the historic county of Cumberland, now part of Cumbria, as a pun on the American folk song) was the of A74 between the northern terminus of the M6 at Carlisle, and the south end