The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 16

16 THE MANCHESTER GUARDIAN FRIDAY DECEMBER 5 1958 MOVING EARTH WITH THE' 1 "f- Building the motorway By our Industrial Staff Approximately 1,400 tons of CRIGGION GREEN CHIPPINGS were used on the running surface of 1 the Preston By-Pass, giving a pleasing green colour and ensuring THE HIGHEST RESISTANCE TO SKIDDING mm Other Authorities also recognise the quality of CRIGGION GREEN GRANITE To mention a few LONDON BOROUGHS EXETER WORCESTER STAFFORD CHESHIRE COUNTY MACCLESFIELD NANTWICH BARROW-1 N-FU RNESS FLINT COUNTY MONTGOMERY COUNTY DELIVERIES BY ROAD. OR RAIL IN ANY AREA rpwo elements have dominated the making of the eight and a quarter miles of the Preston By-pass motorway earth and water. Since work started in July, 1956, the contractors have moved more than two million cubic yards of earth. In the original it was expected that all the earth from the cuttings could be used in the making of embankments, but this was over-optimistic. Almost one-third of the material had such a poor bearing capacity that it was no use for embankments part of the trouble was the- unexpected discovery ol a peat bog in the Kibble Valley.

The state of the ground forced the engineers to reorganise the work of their heavy excavators and other equipment, to" import from all over Lancashire some hundreds of thousands of tons of hard filling, and to increase in many places the thickness of the actual road construction. To add to their difficulties they learned, from a survey of the local weather trends going back 80 years, that they could hope to work at full efficiency on earthmoving only during March, April, May, and From July to the end of October it was expected (the expectation was correct) that the earth would be too sodden for efficient working. For the remaining months of the year economic earth-moving was not possible at alL mm SOLE SUPPLIERS BRITISH QUARRYING CO. LTD. CLAREMONT CHAMBERS SHREWSBURY Shrewsbury 2041-2-3 All trees, roots, scrub, hedges and (Gill' undergrowth on the NEW PRESTON BY-PASS cleared by THOMAS GRAVESON LTD.

WARTON CARNFORTH LANCS. Wettest year Working conditions were so bad during the first nine months that Tarmac, the main contractor, was granted a five-month extension of the contract which brought the completion date to November 30, 1958. Since this year was one of the wettest on record in the area much credit is due to the firms concerned for producing more than eight miles of highway 112 feet wide on time. There are two dual carriageways, each with an effective width of 26 feet, a central dividing strip 32 feet wide, and outer verges on each side of 14 feet. The outer edge of each carriageway leads on to an eight-foot hard shoulder where any driver in trouble can safely pull off the road.

As there is no kerb (except where the highway crosses a bridge) a car can move freely on to the shoulder a recent demonstration showed that a car can be driven at 70 m.p.h. with two wheels on the shoulder and two on the carriageway without loss of effective control. Each carriageway is marked down the centre with eatseyes and a broken line In wVilto nlnH. nnint nA tu. centre of the dividing strip Lancashire County Council is planting a quick-growing hedge to cut out dazzle from approaching headlights.

This layout of the road allows for the provision of two further lanes of traffic one in each direction if they are needed. The ground could be taken from the centre strip and still leave an eight-foot dividing line between north-bound and south-bound vehicles. Some critics believe that traffic will be so heavy from the beginning that these extra lanes might well have been built in with the original road. Road foundation The foundation thicknesses of the road vary between two feet and six feet. There is a sub-base of burnt colliery shale covered with nine inches or premixed waterbound macadam, then a two-and-a-half-inch tar- macadam base course, and finally a three-quarter-inch layer of fine cold asphalt with precoated chippings.

If necessary a rolled asohalt wearine coat will be laid later. A feature of the construction is the use on a major-road project of scientifically graded. premixed, and mechanically laid waterbound macadam. In essence it is the mechanising of what used to be a labouring job. During the building of the road Tarmac has had a labora tory at first mobile and later settled in an office on site to check the specifications of all the materials used.

in the early, months work was limited to some extent as some of the 194-acre site was not yet available. There were 75 agreements with landowners, and some had special clauses which allowed the farmer to complete his year's harvest without interruption before the road gangs moved in. The first job was to clear the site of trees and scrub and to install the necessary pre-earthworks drainage (on the whole project 62i miles of earthenware pipes and six and a quarter miles of concrete pipes were laid). A rainfall of nearly thirteen inches in August. iaab, brought most work to a standstill, but during the following winter plans were drawn up for a full programme to begin in March, 1957.

At the same time work went on in awful conditions on the pre-earthworks drainage, and. on the removal of the newly discovered bog in the Ribble Valley. Finished on time The earthmoving programme was started, in March, 1957, but the unexpectedly poor quality of much of the cuttings slowed down work. Where baa ground was found in cuttings, lump stone was punched into the silt to make a stable base. The delays meant that by the end of June the projected end of the full working season only 53 per cent of the programme was completed.

Plant was held available, but in July, August, September, and October work was possible on only 51 days, and then the sodden ground gave reduced efficiency. But enough was done to allow two and a half miles of motorway construction to be carried out over the winter of 1957-8. Again preparations were made for the spring "season" and it was expected that all earthmoving would be completed by June 30 this year. Again bad weather hampered work May and June had almost double the normal rainfall, "and the programme, instead of being finished at the end of June, dragged, on till September 4. A little bitterly the engineers muttered that If Lancashire had the right weather for cotton weaving it certainly had the wrong weather for road construction.

Yet although the earthmoving was delayed the contract was wound up on time. During the peak periods ol work 750 men and. about 24 engineers were working on the site. There were 50 crawler tractors, 24 various types of excavators, twelve dump trucks, and a hundred lorries. CAMPIONS SON LIMITED 3, CRABBERY STREET, STAFFORD Tel.

1807 Have supplied and erected all fencing on the Preston By-pass for the Lancashire County Council as Sub-Contractors to Tarmac Civil Engineering the Main Contractors. PLANT LTD FROM THEIR DEPOT AT DUNDEE LANE RAMSBOTTOM NEAR MANCHESTER. the country RAM5BOI tun.oaio r-. Depots all over Pictures by Robert Smithies.