Road Design: Roadside Trees
John Evelyn, in Sylva (1667), was the first writer to use the word "avenue" to refer to "the chief approach to a country-house, usually bordered by trees." (OED) It came to refer to any broad, tree-lined thoroughfare.
Besides beautifying the landscape, "trees furnish shade, temper the atmosphere, absorb water from the roadbed, and act as a shield against snow and wind." (Morrison, 174) Morrison qualifies this praise by pointing out that by blocking out the wind and sun, it reduces their ability to contribute to the drying out of the road after a rain.
Cost of Construction and Maintenance
Some cost data is presently available in the Transportation Cost FAQ posted to www.1632.org .
Financing
While usually less expensive than railroads and canals, good roads aren't cheap to build or maintain. Insofar as construction is concerned, the basic choice is between private and public financing. The English turnpikes of the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were built by revenues raised by private subscription, that is, stock purchases in a "turnpike trust." Most major highways nowadays are built with public funds, either out of tax dollars, or, more often, with the proceeds from selling highway bonds.
Building the road is only the first battle; it still needs to be kept in good condition. Several systems have evolved over the centuries to pay for road care.
One is to have each local community maintain the section of road which passes through its area. This could be by direct taxation, or through their own (unpaid) labor (the "statute labor" or "corvee" system).
This involuntary labor was usually not very effectual. In 1844, Samuel Cassidy wrote that the only reason the laborers brought shovels with them was to "support them when they got too lazy to stand alone." (Majewski 6) If the government cracked down, it led to unrest.
The larger problem with local support of regional and national roads was pointed out by Macaulay: "that a road connecting two great towns which have a large and thriving trade with each other should be maintained at the cost of the rural population scattered between them is obviously unjust. . . ." (Gregory 172)
The second strategy was to charge user fees. Numerous turnpike (toll) roads were built in England and, later, in America. In theory, it sounded like a good idea for those who used the road to pay for its upkeep. In practice, there were two problems. First, travelers would evade the tollbooths, especially those at fixed locations, taking byways which came to be nicknamed, "shunpikes." (Luedtke; Majewski 5) Secondly, the turnpike trusts do their job. If the revenue from the road was lighter than expected, it was tempting to skimp on repairs. Which, in turn, led to further reduction in traffic and more evasion.
Finally, roads can be financed regionally, or even nationally, not just by the local communities or road users.
Road Construction: Acquiring the Right of Way
Ideally, the right of way is donated by local landowners who perceive the economic benefit of the new road. If they are not so farsighted, then either they must be persuaded to sell an easement, or the government must have the will and the right to condemn the property under the principal of eminent domain. In the United States, the landowner is still entitled to compensation for the lost property.
Roadbuilding Materials
As a starting point, we can gravel roads using waste from certain industrial processes; for example, mining tailings and blast furnace slag. And Germany itself has plenty of gravel of Ice Age origin.
We can lay asphalt roads using waste material (thick tar) from oil refining. We can also use liquid grades of oil to bind dirt roads, reducing dust clouds.
To make concrete roads, we need construction aggregate (e.g., crushed stone, gravel, slag, ash or sand), cement (to hold the aggregate together), and water. Portland cement can be made from limestone, clay and gypsum.
Road Construction Equipment
Pretty much all aspects of road construction can be done manually, with pickaxe and shovel, given enough laborers and time. However, mechanization became significant by the nineteenth century.
Manual clearing of a roadway involved use of saws to cut trees, chains and draft animals to pull out stumps, and picks and shovels to break and remove boulders. Nowadays, these tasks are performed mostly by bulldozers. If a road must be cut through hard rock, this can be done with explosives, or with massive mobile drills and shovels. (The special needs of tunneling and bridging operations are best left to another essay.)
Grading the roadbed can be done with bulldozers, scrapers, graders, and dump trucks. Drainage ditches are dug by backhoes and trenchers. Stone may be broken on site by rock crushers, or rock fragments may be hauled from a quarry by dump trucks. The road base may be compacted by various kinds of rollers. Specialized pavers lay asphalt or concrete pavements over the base.
Thanks to that WVDOT garage, Grantville has an assortment of modern heavy equipment. In the post-RoF world, this equipment has two functions. First, it can be studied by up-timer and down-timer machinists with a view toward either duplicating it outright or, if need be, constructing a "geared-down" version. Secondly, it can be used for actual road maintenance and construction. My guess is that the latter use will be restricted to roads close to Grantville.
According to canon, in spring 1632, Boris Ivanovich Petrov observed a "horse-drawn device" in use outside the Ring for road improvement. (Huff and Goodlett, "Butterflies in the Kremlin: Part 1, A Russian Noble," Grantville Gazette, Volume 8). That description was a little vague, but the authors tell me that Boris had observed a "Fresno scraper" in action.
This was an 1883 device for smoothing out a road. It had a blade which could be tilted down to scrape up soil, pushing it into a bowl. The blade could then be raised so that the load could be slid without excessive force. Finally, the bowl could be rotated to discharge the soil. The rotation was limited by an adjustable crossbar, thus controlling the thickness deposited.
Except where the "legacy" equipment is in use, we can expect to see a gradual progression from manual to mechanized roadbuilding, and from use of a few general purpose machines (like tractors with various attachments) to the proliferation of specialized equipment. Equipment like scrapers will at first be hauled by draft animals. However, they will ultimately evolve into self-propelled vehicles.
Conclusion
There is no doubt that the USE needs to expand its road network. The first roads will necessarily rely heavily on local materials; and therefore may be macadam if they are traversing rocky country, and plank roads if they are piercing forest.
The Catch-22 of building asphalt highways is that we need the asphalt to make the highways, and we need the highways to transport the asphalt to the construction site. So we will probably start with graveled, stabilized soil, macadam, wood plank and concrete roads. Once we have road, rail or water links to an asphalt source, we can "tar" the macadam roads so that they last longer, and ultimately upgrade the primary routes to asphalt.
While concrete roads don't require exotic materials, it may be desirable to defer building them until we have significant motor traffic. Rigid pavements are better suited to autos and trucks than to horses.
Roadbuilding isn't "high tech," but it is nonetheless of tremendous military and economic significance. Of course, road improvement is not going to be limited to the immediate vicinity of Grantville. Magdeburg is the chosen capital of the USE because of its superior location. Once it is serviced by modern roads, it will be the economic and political center of the USE. I would not be surprised if, a century after the Ring of Fire, people were wont to say, "All roads lead to Magdeburg."
References
Encyclopedias
"Roads and Highways," "Macadam," "McAdam, John Loudon," "Telford, Thomas," "Asphalt," Encyclopedia Americana
"Public Works," subhead "Roads and Highways," Encyclopedia Britannica (modern).
"Highway Engineering," Collier's Encyclopedia
"Asphalt," "Roads an
d Streets," 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
Roads, Generally
Gregory, The Story of the Road (1938).
Hindley, A History of Roads (1971).
Belloc, Hillaire, The Road (1923).
Forbes, "Roads to c 1900," in Singer, et al., ed., A History of Technology, Vol. IV, The Industrial Revolution, c. 1750–c. 1850 (Oxford U.P.: 1958).
Agg, "Tractive Resistance and Related Characteristics of Roadway Surfaces," Iowa State College of Agriculture Publ. # 36 (Feb. 6, 1924)(TL 295 A45).
Borth, Mankind on the Move (1969).
Military Roadwork
[FM 5-430] Field Manual 5-430-00-1, "PLANNING AND DESIGN OF ROADS, AIRFIELDS, AND HELIPORTS IN THE THEATER OF OPERATIONS—ROAD DESIGN," online at http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/5-430-00-1/index.html
[FM 5-436] Field Manual 5-436, "PAVING AND SURFACING OPERATIONS," online at http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/5-436/index.html
[CMH] Center for Military History, CMH Pub 104-1, Military Improvisations During the Russian Campaign, Chap. 5,"Indispensable Expedients," (orig. 1951), online a t
Cook, The Siege of Richmond (1862).
Roman Roads
Ramsay, "Viae," in Smith, A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (John Murray, London, 1875), online at
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/SMIGRA*/Viae.html
Margary, Roman Roads in Britain (1973)
Chevallier, Roman Roads (1976)
Von Hagen, Roads that Led to Rome (1967).
Pawluk, "The Construction & Makeup of Ancient Roman Roads"
http://www.unc.edu/courses/rometech/public/content/transport/Adam_Pawluk/Contruction_and_Makeup_of_.htm
Incan Roads
Von Hagen, The Royal Road
of the Inca (1976).
Hyslop, The Inca Road
System (1984).
English Turnpike Roads
Albert, The Turnpike Road
System in England: 1663–1840 (1972).
Bogart, "Turnpike Trusts and the Transportation Revolution in Eighteenth Century England,"
Crofts, Packhorse, Waggon and Post: Land Carriage and Communications Under the Tudors and Stuarts (1967).
Nusbacher, Aryeh J.S., "Civil Supply in the Civil War: Supply of Victuals to the New Model Army on the Naseby Campaign," 1–14 June 1645, Eng. Historical Review 115: 460 (Feb. 2000).
Walker, Haste, Post-Haste (1938).
Webb, The Story of the King's Highway (1963).
Early American Roads
Holbrook, The Old Post Road
(1962).
Rae, The Road and the Car in American Life (1971).
Shumway, Conestoga Wagon 1750–1850 (1968).
Settle, War Drums and Wagon Wheels (1966).
Tarr, The History of the Carriage (1969).
Huston, The Sinews of War: Army Logistics 1775–1953 (1966).
Wixom, ARBA Pictorial History of Roadbuilding (1975).
Meyer, History of Transportation in the United States Before 1860 (1948).
Klein, "Private Highways in America, 1792–1916," The Freeman, 44(2): ?? (Feb. 1994), online at
http://www.libertyhaven.com/theoreticalorphilosophicalissues/privatization/privatehighways.html
Hulbert, Pioneer Roads and Experience of Travelers, Vols. 1 and 2 (1971).
Plank Roads
Majewski, et al., "Market and Community in Antebellum America: The Plank Roads of New York, Working Paper No. 47, Univ. California Transportation Center (August 1991).
Clarke, Charles E., "The Construction of Plank Roads: Plan, Materials, Cost, Durability, originally published in the Prairie State newspaper (Jersey County, IL)(Sept. 14, 1850), online at www.rootsweb.com/~iljersey/JCHistory/JC-Plank.htm
Stoddard, "Riding on the Plank," online at
http://www.michigan.gov/hal/0,1607,7-160-15481_19268_20778-51814—,00.html
Luedtke, "Ten Mile Trip," Colburn Chronicle Special 125th Anniversary Edition (June 27. 1984), www.cramahetownship.ca/community/history/tmile.htm
[WHS] Watertown Historical Society, "The Story of the Watertown Plank Road
," www.watertownhisoty.org/Articles/WatertownPlankRoad.html
{ISM] Illinois State Museum, "The Canton to Liverpool Plank Road Toll Road and Toll House," http://www.museum.state.il.us/RiverWeb/harvesting/transportation/plankroad/canton_liverpool.html
[WiscHS] Wisconsin Historical Society, "Plank Roads," http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/archstories/early_roads/plank_roads.asp
[Cook County] Forest Preserve District of Cook County (Illinois), Nature Bulletin No. 739, "Early Cook County Roads – Part Two – The Plank Road Era" (January 18, 1964), http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/natbltn/700–799/nb739.htm
Baxter, History of the City of Grand Rapids, Michigan, Chap. XLVI, "Early Highways, Stages and Plank Roads," pp. 523–529 (1891), online at
Mason, "The Plank Road Craze: A Chapter in the History of Michigan's Highways," http://www.michigan.gov/hal/0,1607,7-160-17451_18670_18793-52863—,00.html
Halstead, "The Northern European Timber Trade in the Later Middle Ages & Renaissance"
McAdam and Telford
Tames, Transport Revolution in the 19th Century, a Documentary Approach (1970).
Smiles, Lives of the engineers, with an account of their principal works: comprising also a history of inland communication in Britain (J. Murray, London: 1861–62)(Telford in vol. 2).
Telford, Life of Thomas Telford, civil engineer, written by himself; containing a descriptive narrative of his professional labours: with a folio atlas of copper plates (Payne and Foss, London: 1838).
Reader, MACADAM: The McAdam Family and Turnpike Roads, 1798–1861 (1980).
Modern Roads
WAPA Asphalt Pavement Guide, "Asphalt Pavement History,"
Earle, Black Top: A History of the British Flexible Roads Industry (1974).
[U. Texas] "Roads and Pavements," Univ. Texas Bull., #1922 (April 155, 1919)(TE7 R6 1919).
Oglesby, Highway Engineering (1982).
Wignall, Roadwork: Theory and Practice (1999).
Gillette, Handbook of Construction Cost (1922).
Morrison, Highway Engineering (1908)
[NAPA] National Asphalt Pavement Association, "History of Asphalt,"
West Virginia Highways
2002 General Highway Map, Marion County, West Virginia, http://www.wvdot.com/3_roadways/rp/2004%20traffic%20maps/marion1.pdf
"Welcome to Mannington Online,"
West Virginia Construction Manual (2002)
Miscellaneous
Kezdi, Handbook of Soil Mechanics (1990).
ASTM, "The Fresno Scraper" (1991) http://files.asme.org/ASMEORG/Communities/History/Landmarks/5550.pdf
THE FEAST
by Anette Pedersen
Guildmaster B in a fair-sized northern European town is giving a party to celebrate his second son's engagement to the daughter of another guildmaster. Come and let me show you what's going on.
The Street
The street leading past the house is not one of the main streets through the town, so it's paved with un-cut cobbles. On each side of the street the pavement slopes from the foundations of the houses toward the gutters to catch the runoff from the roofs, as well as any
refuse thrown out the windows. The traffic—walking, riding or driving—follows the single row of big, flat stones down the middle.
For the past few days—and all morning today—the local people going about their daily errands have often been forced to step aside for wagons and riders bringing food and other goods to Master B's house. At the moment, chopped tree bark is being spread across the street to dampen the noise from passing wagons during the feast, while another wagon with milk, cream and other last minute deliveries is trying to get past.
The House
The house itself is one of the bigger and newer houses in town. It has two floors plus an attic and cellar, is half-timbered, and is build of mortared red-painted bricks in a frame work of tarred timber—also painted red. There's no roof gutter or drain pipes, but each floor of the house slightly overhangs the floor below, keeping the rain away from the walls.
The Kitchen Yard
At the right end of the house a gate leads to the backyard and kitchen entrance. Master B has no need for a horse, thus there is no stable by the house, and the guests arriving by horse or in wagons must stable these with Master B's neighbors.
The backyard is usually a fairly spacious place with a few outbuildings and storage sheds around the edge, but still enough free space in the middle to turn a wagon. Today, however, it's packed with bundles, baskets, tubs, crates and barrels, and servants are jostling each other as they carry items in and out of the house.
To the left of the gateway along the backside of the house are the big, lidded water barrels. They are filled from the fountain at the nearby street junction every morning. Next to them is the handcart used to transport the water and other heavy objects needed in the household. Then comes the door leading to the kitchen via the scullery, and—below the kitchen windows—sturdy benches and bins used to temporarily store vegetables and other items that don't mind the damp. Then there is the slanted door down to the cellar, and at the end of the yard, a small chicken run and the washhouse.