Atomic Systems

Back in the old days, in other words, when I was younger, it was not uncommon for road surfaces to be laid with wooden blocks. Part of the reason was for quietness, when much of the traffic was iron tyred carts piulled by horses. It may be that horses with their iron shoes also got a better grip on wood than on a surface made up basically of hard stone. Outside hospitals was a common place for wood block, but in my home town of Burton upon Trent where the town centre saw a great deal of inter-brewery traffic of heavy wooden iron tyred carts there was a lot of wood block paving. Unfortunately the town centre was also liable to flooding from the river Trent. When wood gets wet it swells and so the wooden blocks expanded , bulged upwards and floated off. Heavy flooding always involved a lot of replacement of blocks. it is very possible that the breweries footed the bill for this paving.
Another area noted for wooden block paving was the roads around the Town Hall in Birmingham. Here there is a fairly steep slope on either side down to the front of the Hall. This was probably alright in the days of horse drawn vehicles but with the increase in motor traffic, the blocks tended to soak up oil which dripped from vehicles. After a shower of rain the roads became skating rinks and there were many minor collisions. I had many a near miss myself when I regularly drove around the Hall.
Are there any wood block paved roads left nowadays?

None around here that im aware of. The roads here are all surfaced with that cheap stone granule type of tarmac which they pour on top of the old surface when its hot and then roller it flat. It leaves tons of loose chippings and cracks windscreens and chips paintwork, it can also be dangerous for pedestrians too who sometime get hit by flying pieces. It should be banned in my view and proper ashphalt surfaces laid, but thats too expensive.

But i digress and have taken this thread right off topic - sorry

Lad491 wrote:None around here that im aware of. The roads here are all surfaced with that cheap stone granule type of tarmac which they pour on top of the old surface when its hot and then roller it flat. It leaves tons of loose chippings and cracks windscreens and chips paintwork, it can also be dangerous for pedestrians too who sometime get hit by flying pieces. It should be banned in my view and proper ashphalt surfaces laid, but thats too expensive.

But i digress and have taken this thread right off topic - sorry

I agree. Here, the council have taken the madness a step further. Every couple of years they resurface my potholed road. The potholes are just as deep but now they have a better surface!

The Setts used to build the roads in the grounds of Taymouth castle when it was an army hospital are supposedly wood, however they get a fair bit of water on them and haven't swelled, but they certainly don't look or sound like stone setts.
They are also insanely slippy in January, perfect for "Special Tests".

To be honest Tony you didn't really sell Wooden Roads to us considering they're pretty useless after rain and would now be found on the neighbour’s next bonfire (or floated there as they’d no doubt claim). I did try to google it but to no avail, a fantastic bit of history that I was never aware of!

I can remember as a youngster the thrill of our first proper "tarmac" road. Before then road repairs involved spraying hot tar on the road, followed by a vehicle tipping crushed stone or gravel onto the tar and then the steam roller, trundling up and down until the surface was nominally flat.
The new process had a machine which mixed stone and hot bitumen to produce the tarmac which was then carted by wheel barrow and dumped on the road where men on their knees with leather knee pads, aided by others with long handled rakes spread and compacted the mix, before the old faithful steam roller applied the finishing touches. Keeping a constant depth of tarmac and maintaining the levels was a highly skilled process - no mechanical devices like the modern black topping laying machines.
I cannot now remember how the tarmac was discharged into the wheel barrows, but the machine was driven by a "portable" steam engine - like a traction engine with no drive to the wheels. It looked quite a a lot like a very hot version of a threshing machine with a long flapping leather drive belt.

I can remember as a youngster the thrill of our first proper "tarmac" road

A year or two back the main through route here needed a complete repair. Not just a resurface but dug out right down to the bedrock and rebuilt. Massive machinery was brought in to scrape the old surface off, dig out the old road and relay the new, finally adding the tarmac top layer. One lane was blocked for months on end, traffic queued for miles each side and my journey to work took an extra 25 minutes each way each day. Commuters and householders were furious and I was amongst them.

That is until the day i was stuck in the queue of traffic whilst one of these huge machines was manouvred into position. On the wall to my left, still in his pyjamas and obviously out without his parents knowledge, a young boy about 4 years of age sat watching with a mixture of amazement, excitement and awe. His face was just a pure delight to see and it brought sunshine into my trip that day. I never saw him there again but I forgave all the delays, it was worth it to see that little boys face that day.

I hope he watched every day

You might find the following of great interest - it is a fairly long article, but pretty much all you need to know is in this article.

http://www.igg.org.uk/gansg/00-app1/roads.htm

Cor that was worth a read very comprehensive indeed.

My original posting was worth it just for that article, intended for railway modellers!

Whilst having my brief morning break before starting the next task, I was preparing to deliver a tirade about pot holes. However i was diverted by the article referred to earlier.

Ruf

PS that's what we want more useful snippets of information.

"I didn't get to where I am today, reading useful snipppets of information."

CaptainBazza wrote:"I didn't get to where I am today, reading useful snipppets of information."

Ah, but the point is once you have finished reading your useful snippet of information, you can screw it up and use it as "papier mache" to fill the pot hole!

Ruf