The Yorkshire Branch Road

[forddeliveryboy]

London-based media often refers to the Trans-Pennine motorway as something you may have to suffer if you're sent North (the M25, M23, southern end of the M1 and A13 are places of utter desperation, for me).

 

I reckon it's a proper grand road, a great bit of British engineering which was built through 6 foot deep peat, between the two humungous cuttings.

 

6MOREPHAZNATNPHACTS:

 

Early plans were known by Lancashire CC as 'The Yorkshire Branch Road'.

West Riding CC are responsible for its path, having complained about Lancashire's suggested route to the south missing Yorkshire mill towns.

County surveyors tossed a coin to decide whether it would be called the Lancashire-Yorkshire Motorway or the Yorkshire-Lancashire Motorway.

It crosses an active fault line, near Bolton.
Rishworth viaduct (the windy one on the West-bound descent) was constructed by sliding two continuous sheets of steel girder over the pillars as it was too windy to use conventional methods with scaffolding/falsework.

Sheep fencing height was determined in Summer 1964 by separating a sex-starved ram and horny ewes - the ram cleared a 5.5' one so 6' was deemed necessary as a minimum.

[Craig the Princess]

Sheep fencing height was dertermined in Summer 1964 by separating a sex-starved ram and horny ewes - the ram cleared a 5.5' one so 6' was deemed necessary as a minimum.

Fantastic, what a fact that is.

[John F]

Not forgetting Stott Hall Farm, an accident of nature that managed to survive only because the motorway builders found they couldn't build the eastbound carriageway at the same height as the westbound one:

 

[forddeliveryboy]

6MOREPHAZNATNPHACTS:

 

 

The motorway embankment over Scammonden Valley doubles as a dam for the reservoir which feeds Huddersfield.

The largely unnecessary Pennine Way footbridge on the Lancashire side of the border was desgined by West Riding CC and in place before the carriageways were finished, commissioned by the Mancunian Tory Minister for Transport Ernest Marples (the one who decimated the rail network and later fled the country for tax evasion) - he was a keen hiker.

The National Physics Laboratory designed the shape and dimensions of the huge cuttings to minimise the dangers of them filling with snow and to minimise the sudden gusting of sidewinds. Nottingham University designed some very effective terylene 'sails' which reduced sidewinds at the entry and exit points to these cuttings, but were not used.

Scammonden Bridge was also designed with the intention of causing as little wind disturbance in the cutting as possible. In Winter 1967, people came from miles around to hear strange noises - the bridge's supporting scaffolding, coated in 1100 tons of ice was acting like a massive Aeolian Harp.

Two boundary stones mark the border crossing, with a white rose for Yorkshire and red for Lancashire, a plaque notes the Queen opened the upper sections in October 1971. The roses are different, the white one has a sepal under it, the red rose has a petal at the base.

The sheep fencing was specially designed by the Darlington Fencing Company to be hugely reliable and not to create snow drifts, posts are set in concrete and have triangular, tapering sections.

 

 

[Mr A Lawrence]

Nice, interesting facts on possibly one of the grimmest motorways in England.

 

I always thought the little house on the prairie was left there because the greedy farmer wanted too much for it that it was cheaper to move the motorway.

 

Learn something new everyday.

[forddeliveryboy]

By contrast, the ancient Oxygrains Bridge is on the old Lancashire-Yorkshire packhorse route, under the A672 Rochdale-Halifax road. Well worth a stop, it's hidden from the road but easily found. The bridge above was part of the turnpike road - wonder how long it'll be before we're charged at the point of use to use the M62? Also an older boundary stone - I wonder how many years the brass plaque will stay on the new version?

 

 

 

 

Nice, interesting facts on possibly one of the grimmest motorways in England.

 

Mebbe grim weather at times and some harsh moorland but the road's engineering is superb, with ace views. Got to admit though, I prefer the views from the A66 over Bowes Moor - they're particularly awesome if it's clear weather.

[vulgalour]

Excellent thread content, five stars.

[Lacquer Peel]

Slightly on/off-topic, but this is an excellent film if you like the engineering behind roads built across bleak wastelands, and 1970s synths.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-a5YdVhqUVI

[Anglevan]

Very interesting, I travel on this road at least once a week, and it's horrible due to the traffic but agree the scenery is awesome. Great when you're stuck, not!

Great to see middle lane hogging at its finest in the advert (corsair?)

[forddeliveryboy]

 

This stone is a reminder that a motorway called M62 was opened in 1960 (officially in '61), as a Stretford-Eccles bypass. Part of this was renamed M63 when the proposed M52 to Liverpool was renamed M62, then renamed again when the Manchester Ring Road was completed as the M60. I've seen M63 signs lurking about in the last few years, still. Managed to get lost around there once, too - totally disoriented. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M63_motorway

 

The M60 Ring Road managed to hijack the M62 where it goes round Manchester, so it now appears to exist in two parts.

[taxi paul]

Pioneering stuff. Like the canals . Amazing feats of body and mind.

[New POD]

_{http://pathetic.org.uk/features/mighthavebeen/regions/lancashire/}

 

_{http://pathetic.org.uk/unbuilt/m650/}

 

_{http://pathetic.org.uk/unbuilt/flockton_link/}

[SamR380]

That pathetic link above has AS levels of pedantry and humour, well worth a look.

[hairnet]

the m6 above 35 rivals it for views on a nice day

 

if ya need to go leeds use a62

[John F]

That pathetic link above has AS levels of pedantry and humour, well worth a look.

 

Yep we've had that before, quite a while ago though: http://autoshite.com/topic/15244-pathetic-motorways/

[Dave_Q]

_{http://pathetic.org.uk/features/mighthavebeen/regions/lancashire/}

 

_{http://pathetic.org.uk/unbuilt/m650/}

 

_{http://pathetic.org.uk/unbuilt/flockton_link/}

 

Have just posted some of those on the other similar thread. 

 

The BBC did a good documentary on the building of the M62, I think this is it.

 

[Ghosty]

What a place it is. Great views from the bridge, not unreasonably far from my place on the way to 'allerfacks.

 

[martc]

Another fun fact - the east end of the M62, near Hull, had under road heating using electric heating elements to melt ice. Guess what? It was hideously expensive to run and quietly forgotten about. The Ouse bridge near Howden is fairly spectacular. And it's interesting in the wind.

 

[Ghosty]

Another fun fact - the east end of the M62, near Hull, had under road heating using electric heating elements to melt ice.

 

No bloody street lights though.

[forddeliveryboy]

Another fun fact - the east end of the M62, near Hull, had under road heating using electric heating elements to melt ice. Guess what? It was hideously expensive to run and quietly forgotten about. The Ouse bridge near Howden is fairly spectacular. And it's interesting in the wind.

 

 

I think that's the one which partially collapsed during building. Bloody windy all along that stretch, flat as pancake territory.

[martc]

No bloody street lights though.

 

Perhaps the glowing electrical heating elements would have lit the way?

[sierraman]

Is traffic ever actually running at this place I keep hearing on Capital called Chain Bar on the M62. It's constantly on the traffic reports, I mean every day it's congested.

[Eddie Nuff]

J25 - J29 eastbound, J31 - J29 westbound plus M1 J39 - 43 both ways are always a nightmare. You could widen every stretch out to 12 lanes and it would still be a pain.

[Dave_Q]

Is traffic ever actually running at this place I keep hearing on Capital called Chain Bar on the M62. It's constantly on the traffic reports, I mean every day it's congested.

 

Chain bar is Junction 26, a properly WANK design of junction:

 

 

The junction is for the M606 into Bradford. If you're coming from the West, which is comparatively little traffic, you get a nice slip road type junction without stopping.

 

If you are coming from the East which is the majority of traffic, you have to come off onto a traffic light controlled roundabout.

 

Apparently when the M606 was built the designers thought Eastbound traffic would use junction 27 but it just doesn't.

 

They are currently widening the roundabout or some shiz, which means the traffic for junction 26 queues back past 27 quite a lot of the time. That's why it's always on the news.

[Squire_Dawson]

I always thought it a bit pointless to have a commemorative plaque at the Lancs-Yorks border, when it cannot be read unless you stop the car on the hard shoulder and get out, which nobody would ever do. Maybe when the motorway was built and these things were novelties people actually did stop to have a look, a bit like when people would go for a day out to a motorway service station.

 

I liked the tv programme when Fred Dibnah went across the very high bridge near the dam on a traction engine.

[dugong]

I used to read traffic news for the BBC.

[Pillock]

Sally Traffic? Is that you?

 

I can never understand traffic news on national radio - how on earth do you choose which roads to cover for a 45 second slot? Monday morning surely every motorway is fucked anyway. And then everyone has a smartphone and satnav anyway which much more up to date and even reroutes you.

[3VOM]

I used to read traffic news for the BBC.

Alan Partridge?

[Lacquer Peel]

Valerie Sinatra.

[scaryoldcortina]

Sally Traffic? Is that you?

 

I can never understand traffic news on national radio - how on earth do you choose which roads to cover for a 45 second slot? Monday morning surely every motorway is fucked anyway. And then everyone has a smartphone and satnav anyway which much more up to date and even reroutes you.

 

I agree, but local radio traffic news is worth using if just for the lols.

 

"Barry from Springwell has just rung in to tell us that a wagon full of whippets and prize leeks has spilled its load on the old Durham road near the Three Tuns, so if you weren't already avoiding Deckham it's probably a good idea right now."