To mark the Huddersfield Examiner reaching the 50,000 edition milestone on Wednesday 9 August we are running a series of nostalgia features - starting with the construction of the M62
These days we find the traffic-choked M62 infuriating, but when a new section of the motorway opened in December 1970 it was a different story.
The Examiner gave the story front page billing and referred to the new, seven-mile stretch over the Pennines as “the newest, and probably most exciting, section of motorway construction yet undertaken in Britain”.
On December 2, days before it opened, we reported official fears that drivers wouldn’t know what to do in bad weather.
The general advice was to “go steady” because warning signs had yet to be installed on “probably the toughest and bleakest stretch of motorway terrain in the country”.
It added: “There is apprehension in some quarters, but confidence in others - notably the Automobile Association - that the West Riding County Council and West Yorkshire police will keep a strict lookout on the stretch from Outlane Rocking Stones and promptly close it to traffic should the weather aggravate the danger of accidents.
“The Ministry of Transport are going to elaborate lengths to make the M62 as safe as is technically possible in all weathers.
“In the pipeline for manufacture and installation is apparatus that will record wind velocity over the embankment of Scammonden Water and, if need be, warn motorway users to cut down speed.”
There were also plans to “install apparatus that will record and feed direct into a control computer at West Yorkshire Constabulary HQ in Wakefield information about temperature and road surface conditions...”.
On December 9 the Examiner reported that the new section would begin taking traffic at 11am the following day. The December 10 headline was: “Fog lights on during M62 ‘maiden run’”.
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It added: “In weather conditions that can be regarded as typical of what traffic users can expect this winter, £11.5m worth of new motorway across the Pennines was opened today.
“It was certainly no morning for admiring the view - fog and a wet road surface saw to that.”
The report said “dense hill mist shrouded the Scammonden moors for a good two-thirds of the way of this eight-mile motorway section, and on certain stretches visibility was down to little more than 100 yards”
On December 14 we reported that the new stretch between Outlane and Windy Hill was “just like a London rush-hour” due to “sightseers”.
“There was a substantial build-up of traffic at either end of the moorland stretch and nine police cars were on hand to sort out the queues,” we noted.
Driver Philip Walker, of Celandine Avenue, Salendine Nook, complained his car had been showered with stones which he thought had been blown from the central reservation.
“After being showered by one overtaking car I had to start touching up the paintwork,” he said.
