Over the Pennines between Leeds and Manchester: summary
The M62 climbs higher than any other motorway in England and then the weather arrives. Forty miles, two economies, one hill. The M62 climbs to the highest point of any motorway in England and then the weather arrives. On a clear day the crossing is one of the more striking pieces of road in the country, with moorland on both sides and a farmhouse sitting between the carriageways. On a bad one it is fog, spray and a queue. It is also the connection between two large city economies that do a great deal of business with each other, which means the road carries a lot of people who would rather be somewhere else.
Filed under
Cities and routes
Published
29 May 2025
Sections
8
Reading time
5 minutes
01/Opening
Where this starts
The M62 climbs to the highest point of any motorway in England and then the weather arrives. On a clear day the crossing is one of the more striking pieces of road in the country, with moorland on both sides and a farmhouse sitting between the carriageways. On a bad one it is fog, spray and a queue.
It is also the connection between two large city economies that do a great deal of business with each other, which means the road carries a lot of people who would rather be somewhere else.
02/At a glance
What this piece is
Filed under
Cities and routes
Published
29 May 2025
Sections
8
Reading time
5 minutes
03/The piece
Over the Pennines between Leeds and Manchester
JN-01/The high section is the variable
The high section is the variable
The M62 crosses the Pennines at a higher point than any other motorway in England, and the road spends a good many miles up on open moorland with nothing on either side. It is a genuinely striking piece of engineering and it is also the only part of the journey that behaves unpredictably, which makes it the only part worth planning around.
The moorland stretch is exposed and it collects weather that the cities on either side do not get. Fog forms there when Leeds is clear, and winter conditions arrive earlier and leave later than they do in the valleys.
For planning purposes it means a trans-Pennine journey in winter deserves a wider window than the mileage suggests, and that a clear forecast in Manchester is not a forecast for the crossing.
JN-02/Both ends are city traffic
Both ends are city traffic
This is a short journey with a long middle and two difficult ends, which is the opposite shape from most intercity work. The motorway section is quick and predictable; what is not quick is getting off it and into either city, and the two cities have quite different ways of being awkward about it.
The motorway is quick and the last few miles at either end are not. Leeds has a ring road system that takes some knowing and Manchester has the M60 and a city centre that has been reorganised repeatedly for trams and pedestrianisation.
As with most short intercity runs, the driving in the middle is the easy part and the arrival is where the local knowledge earns its keep.
JN-03/The alternative routes are worse than they look
The alternative routes are worse than they look
There are older roads across the Pennines, following the valleys rather than climbing over the top, and they are among the more interesting drives in northern England. They are also considerably slower, they run through a string of mill towns, and they are the sort of route that looks appealing on a map and disappointing on a schedule.
The A62 and the roads through the Colne and Calder valleys are genuinely attractive and genuinely slow. They are the right choice for a leisure day and the wrong choice when somebody has a meeting.
The Woodhead route further south is a similar case: a fine road, not a fast one, and exposed in its own way.
JN-04/The airport pulls the traffic
The airport pulls the traffic
One of the biggest single flows across these hills has nothing to do with either city centre. Manchester Airport draws passengers from a very large part of Yorkshire, which puts a steady stream of cars over the tops at hours when nobody is commuting, and it is some of the more pleasant work in the north.
Manchester Airport serves a very large part of Yorkshire, which puts a steady stream of Leeds and Bradford traffic across the Pennines at unsociable hours. A five in the morning airport run over the tops is a common booking and a pleasant drive.
Leeds Bradford Airport handles a good deal of the same catchment from the other side, and for anyone in West Yorkshire it removes the crossing entirely.
04/Referenced here
Pages this piece touches
The services, terminals and vehicles named above, each with a page of its own.
Leeds and Manchester are close enough to be treated as a pair and they present quite different problems to anybody driving in them. Both have been reshaped in the last twenty years, one around a ring road and one around trams and pedestrianisation, and both punish anybody who last learned them a decade ago.
Leeds is a compact centre with a difficult ring road and a lot of one-way. Manchester is more spread out and has more motorway inside it. Neither is difficult once you know it and both punish improvisation.
The addresses that matter in both are increasingly outside the historic centres, in the business districts that have grown around them, which is where a car has the advantage over a train.
JN-06/The honest recommendation
The honest recommendation
For most British intercity pairs the honest answer to whether a car makes sense is a qualified no. This is one of the exceptions, and the reason is a matter of what the railway between them actually offers rather than anything about the road.
The rail service between the two cities is not the east coast main line, and for a good many journeys the car is genuinely competitive. That is unusual for a British intercity pair and it is the main reason so much of this work exists.
For anything beyond the two centres it is not close. The car wins on the first mile and the last.
JN-07/The freight that shares the road
The freight that shares the road
This is a major freight corridor as well as a commuter one, linking the ports and distribution centres on both sides of the country. That gives the motorway a steady base load of heavy vehicles at every hour, and on the long climbs in both directions they occupy the nearside lanes at a pace set by the gradient.
It is not a difficulty so much as a characteristic, and it is one of the reasons the crossing takes longer than the distance suggests even on a clear day.
JN-08/The towns in the valleys
The towns in the valleys
Between the two cities the road passes above a string of mill towns in the valleys on either side, and a good deal of the work in this part of the country ends in one of them rather than in Leeds or Manchester. The approach to each is a drop off the main road into a narrow valley with a single main street.
Those journeys are short, the addresses are frequently on hills, and the difference between a good arrival and a poor one is entirely a matter of local knowledge.
06/Related reading
Written alongside this one
Pieces that pick up the same thread from a different angle.
Asked often enough that the answers belong on the page rather than in a reply.
How long does the drive between Leeds and Manchester take?
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A short motorway run in good conditions, with the city approaches at either end accounting for much of the variation. Winter weather on the high section can add materially to it.
Is the M62 affected by weather?
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The moorland section is exposed and collects fog and winter conditions that the cities on either side do not see. A clear forecast in Manchester is not a forecast for the crossing.
Which airport is better for West Yorkshire?
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Leeds Bradford removes the Pennine crossing entirely, while Manchester offers a wider route network. The ground time saved by the former is often what decides it.
Every piece here ends at the same place: a car, a time and a name.
Send the date, the pick-up point and where you are going. A written quotation comes back with the vehicle, the chauffeur's arrival time and what the figure covers.
