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WHBM wrote: ↑Mon Jul 02, 2018 21:08
I think the M1 got you to Kilsby, or maybe to the east side of Leicester, by 1965, pointing more north-west than north from London. However most of the A1 dualling, apart from short sections like Hatfield, would have been complete, so that would be a more likely route throughout.
I don't think M1 has ever gone to the east of Leicester. However, if you took M1 to Lutterworth, as it is suggested is as far as it went in Jan 1965, you could then take A426 to Leicester, then A46 to Newark to pick up the A1 to continue north.
That was pretty much my idea, M1 to Leicester, then A46 to Newark and continue up the A1/A1(M)
Would have loved to drive a route like that back then!
Simon_GNR wrote: ↑Mon Jul 02, 2018 22:15
Going all the way up the A1 from London would probably have been the best bet but at that time I think there was still the bottleneck at Ferrybridge with the old bridge (S2) to contend with. The Newark bypass was, I believe, open by January 1965, but it might have been later that year when it opened.
As I see it, you would have had to drive through Hatfield, and maybe Newark, but Stevenage, Stamford, Grantham and Doncaster had all been bypassed by now. I believe that the S2 through Ferrybridge was the last section of A1 in Yorkshire to be replaced by dual carriageway in 1967.
The A1 would also have been the preferred route at that time for drivers travelling from London to Carlisle and Scotland, with traffic for Glasgow and West Scotland leaving the A1 at Scotch Corner.
The A1 remained a very important route from London to Carlisle and west of Scotland until the M6 in Cumbria was completed in 1971, eliminating Shap Summit and a tedious slog through Kendal on the A6. It's likely that this was one of the considerations in upgrading most of the A1 from London to Scotch Corner to D2 and D2M from 1958 to 1965, and why improvements in the North East were left to the late sixties and early seventies.
