Quote:
Originally Posted by the_asylum_wanderer
I have been looking for pictures of Marshall water bowser , ( not even sure that they made them ) the type that has a spray bar at the back and would have been used by the road tarmac gangs ,
Can anyone help please or point me in the right direction
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Not for TARmaccing tho' . Pre tar and bitumin days roads were made of waterbound roadstone . Suitable stone was supplied broken to size at the quarry , or was broken on site by a man with a hammer . The old surface was broken up by hand or with a scarifier , and the stone removed . The fresh stone was spread on the exposed foundations watered by the water cart , and rolled in by the roller . A competant roller driver could help form the camber of the road the way in which he worked over the job . Cambers were much more pronounced than we are used to , hence the conical rear wheel treads on some Burrell engines ( and others ?? )
This watering and rolling continued until the stone was levelled and firmly compacted in its own dust . The slurry formed by the rolling was swept back onto the road by the gang with brooms as the roller worked , and it was forced into the formation by the roller . Thus a good surface was obtained , but it was muddy in winter , and chokingly dusty in summer once pneumatic tyred motor vehicles appeared . The frost would freeze and heave the formation , causing it to break up in winter . So long as the traffic was iron tyred and horse drawn it was surprisingly durable . This was the system of roadmaking introduced by MacAdam .
Efforts were made later to solve the dust and frost problems by sealing the surface with gasworks tar .