CONCRETE ON THE ROADS.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 21 September 1916, Page 2

CONCRETE ON THE ROADS.

CONCRETE FOR BRIDGES. >|H Full Particulars of a Most "' Welcome Innovation, as sup- , >'^^| plied in a Pamphlet issued by '' Wilson's Portland Cement Co. '>^^l Auckland. t. (Continued from last week and to - be continued weekly). • AMERICAN EXAMPLES. iH Address by Edward N. Hints, Chairman Board of. County Road Commissioners, Wayne County, <4^l Michigan, before the Natioaal Con« 4^| feren^e ou Concrete Road Building, -'t^H Chicago, 1914 :— ' i|H In the old days the roads were ~^^| almost impassable. During* foui oi <'>*^| five months of the year certaiiaJaiadlM^ »<'^l living along bad roads irade a, living ff^| by pullling heavy loads across the /^| bad spots, and there are still a few "i^| bad spots in the cauatry on roads which have not been improved. It /:^| is often necessary for milk dealers or trucK farmers to use four horses to ' get thpir loads upon che concrete. Once they are -on the concrete tbw :^| can trot the rest of the way to mark^ ?^| with a single team. Ira Wilson, who Jr^M is one of the leaders in the Milk 'i^| Producers' Union in the couiity, told s^| me the other day that before the road V^| was completed to his fare it was^ |^| necessary for him to use four horseA|'>l^B to get his milk to Detroit. One team* v^| made the .16-mile trip one day, and , |^| anocher the next day. Since the )-)^| road has been built Mr "Wilson has '^'^| purchased a.motor truck and goes to ''''^^ town twice a day, carrying as much -• \i^| milk on his truck.on each trip as he i'^| formerly handled with the horses. * One of-the reasons why we gave up buildiug macadam roads in Wayne .^H •County was because of the inability >Jfl of macadam to stand up under auto- *■ 'f^| mobile traffic. At slow speed the ,''^M macadam road is not greatly injured if^| by automobiles, but at high speed the ,i!?iH macadam is stripped oi the binding i^M material holding the larger stone, i^fl particles/ of the macadam road to* V';sM gether. ' One advantage of the IjM concrete road over the macadam is iH thaa concrete is not duty's. The dust *|9 which an automobile raises on a '|H macadam road, besides being a menace , jH to health, /is good stone that is badly '* |jfl needed on the road and is not needed x -»■ at all in the fields svhere it usually 'jfl settles. No oil or special preparation "fl is necessary to keep the dust down on "!9 the concrete road. The/drier the 'lU weather the cleaner the road. Tne ''jH only dust that is to be found on a |fl concrete road comes from mud that r^H has been tracked on the concrete, r^9 1 As soon as we were convinced tbat 'f^B our concrete roads were the proper ''9 type of road construction we' began i 'jfl to devise ways and means of building 'I them economically. One thing that I >fl we did was to establish storage yards * jfl at convenient points in the couny. ,9 Another thing we did was to erect ' buildings in which to hous6 our '-;■ machinery during the winter months. . 9 Cn these same buildings we have |fl provided shops for the repair of the 9 machinery we use. While our road- »' 9 building equipment. qost us a cou~ --"9 siderable sum of money; nevertheless *9 it has been the means of saving the 9 county far more than it has cost. We 9 use waggons of thp type best fitted I for our needs. We use concrete 9 mixers which we have fouud to be the 9 the most advantageous— the type, of '9 mixer that travels uuder its own \[ power and has a projecting beam -[ which can be swung in the arc of a ) half circle. We use steam shovels to '" unload our material from the cars, and have unloaded os high as 27 cars with one shovel in 10 hours. When the material is unloaded from the cars into one of our storage yards we often -J find it advantageous to haul four-or ~4 five waggon loads of it to the jos £ behind steam rollers or tracl;*n ■<§ engine?. The stock piles enabk^l */ to continue our wonc withodri^P* -J ruption in spite of the intirStent ' | delivery of materials. We lay water ■ pipes along the sides of our road ; aj& pump the water with gasoline engines from the nearest available supply, In order to avoid delay in the worK, we establish, road camps at the various jobs, . , Daring the busy we employ from 800 to 1,200 men, and the cose of feeding each of them amounts to 1.50 dollars a week, and J we believe that the moue^ we spend , in feeding our aen and making them \ (somfortable is more than offset by • i their increased emciency. j [No. 6, ""

. ■ ~ - V, 1 CTx?u not sing the old sweet songs • '-■ Which I should sing to-night, I ye lost my, voice, and have no choice :> Because of bronchial blight; But very soon I'll be in tune, * v; _ And sing them all, be sure ~..? I'll exchange my moans to dulcet tones Jogs With Woods' Great Peppermint Cure. ?4P*j If you have a grievance send it to the ' X 4 Echo* - *»*