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Location mapThe coast-to-coast motorway across the north of England, this is the road that dares to cross the Pennines and link Lancashire to Yorkshire. In the depths of winter it's often the only road that can be kept open on the bleak moors.

The M62 contains the highest point on the motorway network where it crosses Saddleworth Moor. The actual highest point is the middle of the bridge across the A672 at junction 22, which rises to 1442ft above sea level.

It is also perhaps the most renumbered motorway in Britain. The M62 Stretford-Eccles bypass opened around the west of Manchester in the early 1960s, and was gradually extended around the north of the city and then out across the Pennines, leaving a motorway shaped like a walking stick. When the section west to Liverpool was opened, most of the original M62 became M63. The whole lot was then thrown into confusion in 2000, when the whole Manchester ring road was renumbered M60, biting a chunk out of the M62 which is now missing junctions 12 to 18.

In there somewhere is a numbering anomaly. Originally it was fine as the M62, since it started east of the M6. Since the mid-1970s, though, it has started west of the M6 and by motorway numbering rules its number should therefore be in the fifties, not the sixties. In fact, the original plan was for a Liverpool to Manchester motorway numbered M52, but it was changed to a part of the M62 before opening to provide a coast-to-coast route. The trailing end of the Liverpool to Manchester motorway is now known as M602.

Factfile

Start Liverpool (A5080)
Finish North Cave (A63)
Passes Huyton, St Helens, Warrington, Rochdale, Halifax, Huddersfield, Bradford, Dewsbury, Leeds, Wakefield, Pontefract, Goole
Length 107 miles
Terminates M18, M57
Spurs M602, M606, M621, A627(M)
Meets M1, M6, M60, M66, A1(M)

With thanks to Toby Speight, Graham Marshall and Weqas for information in this section.