VIDEO: Concrete paving - you’ve come a long way, baby!

It’s 1948. The grand scheme of creating an Interstate Highway system in the US is still barely a twinkle in President Dwight Eisenhower’s military eye. Highway construction improved greatly in the late 1950s and early 1960s as the American contractors became more mechanized and therefore efficient at laying roads faster and of better quality. But how did they build a road back then in 1948? Thanks to Encyclopaedia Britannica Films, we have a movie of just how a concrete highway was created. The constr
July 14, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
It’s 1948. The grand scheme of creating an Interstate Highway system in the US is still barely a twinkle in President Dwight Eisenhower’s military eye. Highway construction improved greatly in the late 1950s and early 1960s as the American contractors became more mechanized and therefore efficient at laying roads faster and of better quality.

But how did they build a road back then in 1948?

Thanks to Encyclopaedia Britannica Films, we have a movie of just how a concrete highway was created. The construction site looked more like a chain gang from a nearby prison that a professionally done infrastructure project.

Viewers just might be able to feel the sun’s heat as workers toil into the long day.

If this video piqued your curiosity about road building projects back then, %$Linker: 2 External <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary /> 0 0 0 oLinkExternal click here Visit youtube Page false https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neaoGclvips false false%> to see a 1951 film from the Bethlehem Steel Company. Things have apparently moved on since 1948 and steel is making inroads. At least this film is in colour.

Related Content

  • Lighter ESCO lip system offer 19% more useable wear metal
    January 6, 2017
    Wear parts specialist ESCO is using Bauma to show its new Nemisys lip system which has been engineered to deliver a lighter weight lip better sized and suited to modern buckets. The lip’s streamlined profile optimises production, says ESCO, and machine working cycles. A clever new hammerless tooth and shroud system helps reduce maintenance costs through improved reliability, faster and safer replacement, and improved lip coverage. The slim lip design and matching tooth system require 10% less force to penet
    Read More
  • Lighter ESCO lip system offer 19% more useable wear metal
    February 15, 2013
    Wear parts specialist ESCO is using Bauma to show its new Nemisys lip system which has been engineered to deliver a lighter weight lip better sized and suited to modern buckets. The lip’s streamlined profile optimises production, says ESCO, and machine working cycles. A clever new hammerless tooth and shroud system helps reduce maintenance costs through improved reliability, faster and safer replacement, and improved lip coverage. The slim lip design and matching tooth system require 10% less force to penet
    Read More
  • Wood you ride these? The Igorot tribe in the Philippines do
    June 22, 2015
    Wood you ride these? The Igorot tribe in the Philippines do Possibly the most eco-friendly bicycle is to be found in the Philippines, and they race them once a year, reaching speeds of nearly 40kph downhill – with no brakes. The bicycles are made entirely of wood, but the beauty is in the carving. Each cycle is a unique ornate cycle – hand-carved by its owner, a member of the Igorot tribe. The cycle race gathering is held in the town of Batad in the mountains of Luzon, the Philippines largest and m
    Read More
  • Winnipeg man celebrates years of road works outside his shop
    July 1, 2016
    After more than a decade of road works and repairs outside his business, one Winnipeg, Canada, resident told World Highways that enough is enough. “I’ve got no malice towards the contractors,” Gordon Partridge told World Highways. “Contractors are simply where they are told to be. It’s the city officials. The left hand doesn‘t always know what the right hand is doing.” What he has is “ambivalence and frustration at the situation”. As the health centre owner and chiropractor explains, “there’s two seas
    Read More

Highlighted Content