What I hated most was when guess loading HRA (Hot Rolled Asphalt) you guessed it wrong and overloaded, then you had to stand on the material (at around 180 degrees!) and shovel it into the next truck to load. You ended up with blistered feet, especially if the soles of your boots were getting thin, and had to find a convenient puddle to stand in to cool things down!! Then of course you were getting stuck to the pedals until the stuff hardened off.
Pete.
windrush:
What I hated most was when guess loading HRA (Hot Rolled Asphalt) you guessed it wrong and overloaded, then you had to stand on the material (at around 180 degrees!) and shovel it into the next truck to load. You ended up with blistered feet, especially if the soles of your boots were getting thin, and had to find a convenient puddle to stand in to cool things down!! Then of course you were getting stuck to the pedals until the stuff hardened off.Pete.
Been there a few times, Pete 
The upside was when it had hardened, you could get another 10,000 miles from a pair of boots because you had another inch of sole… 
How is blacktop batched, similar to concrete?
Aye speaking of Hot Rolled Ashpalt, I remember one of Smiles for Miles 6 wheeler Thames Traders being caught short with a load, it started to set after being held up at the delivery point owing the Barber Green being broken down, It caused all sorts of problems, they ended up with a windy pick & red deisel to remove it from the alloy body, happy days Eh, Regards Larry
Lawrence Dunbar:
Aye speaking of Hot Rolled Ashpalt, I remember one of Smiles for Miles 6 wheeler Thames Traders being caught short with a load, it started to set after being held up at the delivery point owing the Barber Green being broken down, It caused all sorts of problems, they ended up with a windy pick & red deisel to remove it from the alloy body, happy days Eh, Regards Larry
During the M4 construction through Berkshire we towed a Frome based BMC Mastiff into our garage in Reading with gearbox problems, that had tarmac on which had already gone off but the owner/driver later soaked it in diesel and set light to it! He reasoned that the fire would soften it enough to tip out before the body melted, good job that it wasn’t a wooden body ha ha! 
Pete.
windrush:
Lawrence Dunbar:
Aye speaking of Hot Rolled Ashpalt, I remember one of Smiles for Miles 6 wheeler Thames Traders being caught short with a load, it started to set after being held up at the delivery point owing the Barber Green being broken down, It caused all sorts of problems, they ended up with a windy pick & red deisel to remove it from the alloy body, happy days Eh, Regards LarryDuring the M4 construction through Berkshire we towed a Frome based BMC Mastiff into our garage in Reading with gearbox problems, that had tarmac on which had already gone off but the owner/driver later soaked it in diesel and set light to it! He reasoned that the fire would soften it enough to tip out before the body melted, good job that it wasn’t a wooden body ha ha!
Pete.
Seen them use a jackhammer this way to get a load out of a broken down wagon.
Cheers Dave.
Piston broke:
windrush:
What I hated most was when guess loading HRA (Hot Rolled Asphalt) you guessed it wrong and overloaded, then you had to stand on the material (at around 180 degrees!) and shovel it into the next truck to load. You ended up with blistered feet, especially if the soles of your boots were getting thin, and had to find a convenient puddle to stand in to cool things down!! Then of course you were getting stuck to the pedals until the stuff hardened off.Pete.
Been there a few times, Pete
The upside was when it had hardened, you could get another 10,000 miles from a pair of boots because you had another inch of sole…
I remember an owner driver at white mountain that was pleased as punch he had got a dirt cheap pair of workboots. All it took was was one sheet up and the soles melted! He had a good half inch lip all around the boots. He ended up getting a stanley knife and trimming the soles back!.
Regards Daz
Smiles for Miles 1930s Reo SpeedWagons Photographed on Claremont Rd Newcastle on Tyne, Photo with the courtesy of Diane Smiles, Daughter of the late Isaac Smiles founder of Smiles for Miles Haulage Co, Regards Larry.
Muckaway:
How is blacktop batched, similar to concrete?
Hi Nathan
It is similar to concrete but its done by weight not volume…
I can only tell you about the couple of different processes that I know, I’m sure someone will tell us about any other different ways
The most common now is the continuous mix or drum. Stone of different grades (Inc dust and sand…) is fed into the back of a long drum at a predetermined speed, usually by conveyor. The drum is rotating relatively slowly and has loads of steel pieces inside all the way along that lift the stone on the upside and drop it back into the centre of the drum as it travels from back to front… At the front is an enormous flame that heats the stone as it travels along - to preset temperatures, depending on end product. Hot stone then drops down a chute at the front of the drum and is lifted up to the main plant, screened and put into hot storage bins…
Still with me so far?
Customer arrives for a load. Computer says yeah… Pre determined recipes add so much hot stone into a big mixer, then bitumen and any other additives or colours. Its all stirred up together for a minute or so, dropped into a bin below and when the correct weight is in the bin its loaded onto the lorry and away… Simples
The older process used to be a Batch plant. Much the same as concrete in that, again with a predetermined recipe, all the different grades of sand and stone would be conveyed to plant together - pre weighed - and then heated in the same way. Because the stone was already mixed, the drum was much smaller but the flame was as big, if not bigger. We used to heat 5 tonnes of cold stone to 180 C in 90 seconds…
Out of the drum, dropped straight into the mixer, bitumen and any other additives added, again dropped into a bin below and when the correct weight was there, loaded into a lorry and away… Even more simples…
Stothert and Pitt from Bath made some of the best plants in the world - they’re a rare breed now unfortunately… 
Hope thats understandable - its difficult to put it into words and I know how it works!
Hansons at Sutton Courtenay load the asphalt with what appears to be a bucket on a skip. I guess it’s an old plant. 
In Cemex at Wickwar you can see the various ingredients in different bins which a shovel tops up when not loading drystone.
Here’s another question: Is type 1 just crushed as 40mm-dust or is it batched ie so much 40mm, so much 20mm and so much fines etc? In some places, type 1 and scalpings look the same, although I understand scalps are lower grade (crushed brash etc). We don’t stock scalps anymore, we produce type 1 graded crushed concrete and crushed ■■■■■■■■. If the concrete’s come from Raf Brize Norton, it’s harder than Mountsorells’ finest
Muckaway:
Hansons at Sutton Courtenay load the asphalt with what appears to be a bucket on a skip. I guess it’s an old plant.
Here’s another question: Is type 1 just crushed as 40mm-dust or is it batched ie so much 40mm, so much 20mm and so much fines etc? In some places, type 1 and scalpings look the same, although I understand scalps are lower grade (crushed brash etc). We don’t stock scalps anymore, we produce type 1 graded crushed concrete and crushed ■■■■■■■■. If the concrete’s come from Raf Brize Norton, it’s harder than Mountsorells’ finest
You don’t half ask a lot of questions…
At Sutton, the skip you can see travelling up the rails is the mixed tarmac going up to the bins to be loaded into the lorry… Yes, its an old plant!
I haven’t been to Wickwar for a good while but my best guess is that under the stone in the bins that you saw is a conveyor feeding directly to the plant… If you’re sat on Sutton’s weighbridge and look left, you will see exactly the same thing…
Type 1 can be either! If its batched, it does seem to be a better product whereas if its crushed directly, its cheaper to produce because it hasn’t got to go through the whole process…
Scalps is supposed to be lower grade but it does depend on the quality of rock that you start with… Good, clean rock equals good, clean scalps which is always better than dirty rock which equals dirty everything…
The guy I used to work for takes in waste rail ballast from network rail. It’s screened to remove -40mm ( scalpings) crushed and then run through 2 more screeners ending at dust.
The type 1 he sells is 40 mm scalps mixed with 40mm screened stone. If you lay it slightly wet and compact it well it goes off like concrete.
We had a couple of Vianova tarmac plants and they use the travelling skip system. There were three storage bins and if they had a largish order then they would fill a bin and you just kept helping yourself and going down to the weighbridge until you had your weight, hopefully without overloading it!! If you did then it was a case of shovelling it onto the next truck, we used to load pretty close to the gross weight otherwise the last truck would either be overloaded or the paving gang would be short of material. When I drove for Tilcon they wouldn’t let you off the weighbridge if you were more than 5 cwt light, we had to get as close to 30.50 as possible even with stone especially with the Sed Acks as they struggled to carry 19.50 tonnes! Split loads were awkward at times, you had to load the smaller amount on the rear otherwise it would get buried if you had to brake hard but that often overloaded the front axles as you needed to load the body right to the front and then had heavy steering as well, still we managed.
Pete.
Ah split loads…I’ve upset the office a few times by refusing to load 10 on the front, 1 on the back. Saves on deliveries, costs me in fines.
3 way splits used to be interesting…
…to load and deliver…
Piston broke:
3 way splits used to be interesting……to load and deliver…
Yes, base course, topping and sealing grit! 
Used to put the grit on top of the sheet and hope that it didn’t blow off too much when travelling. We used to take split loads of black down to a yard at St Clears and they had ten ton of 10mm and ten ton of 20mm, used to put a sheet between and the 10 mm on the rear then tip the body until things started moving rapidly and dash round the truck to drop it down again before the lot came out. Took a rake with me to pull the last part out to stop them mixing but at least I got a half hour break in while doing it! Kept me fit as well.
Pete.
windrush:
Yes, base course, topping and sealing grit!Pete.
It was always an interesting gallop from tailboard to tipping controls…
We used to load the grit on top of the undersheet, right at the back - drag that off first and then limber up for the 15 yard dash…
Did you ever do tennis court toppings Pete?
Helluva stench but kept the sinuses clear… Undersheet then a bloody huge quilted undersheet to keep the heat in, top sheet to finish. Always load 16 tonnes but only tip out 15 of them cos the rest was stuck to the bed… If you didn’t get in quick and shovel it out, the whole lot went soo hard it would take weeks of Crusher Run to get rid… We used to take it to some nice, out of the way places but it was a pain in the proverbials…
Tennis courts, URGH!!! The material was NEVER the correct temperature for the gang and you had to tip the stuff on metal sheets that they put together like a jigsaw puzzle. We did a large court at Warwick University in Coventry and of course it was a two hour run down there so the temp had gone down a little, I think that the first three loads were rejected for being ‘cold’ but after a two hour run back to the quarry it was still above the required temperature according to our lab. And it stuck like ■■■■ to a blanket, hated the blooming stuff. Mind you, red sand carpet for bridges wasn’t much better! 
Pete.
I only ever did a couple of sand carpet - bloody good job too! We used to do a lot of 3mm coated for Bristol city council for pavements… That used to be quite entertaining, especially in winter - ‘Tip it there, drive, that’ll do…’ - up two rams and nothing moved, another half a ram and the whole lot used to come at once and nearly take off the tailboard… Happy days
