Beyond the Scrapyard... (extended)

[Dave-the-Train]

I get lots of time to think... was changing wheel bearings both sides of my van yesterday... BORING!  So I was thinking'bout trains...

Not just scrapyards are rough and yeuky surfaced.  Other places also have odd and/or temporary offices...

[RATS!  I hate this new system that loses my stuff and I can't copy to save as I go!!!

Back with more for this one in a bit...  Sorry for the delay... breakfast called.

Beyond the scrap yard…

 

The obvious one I can think of is any sort of construction site.

 

In earlier times duck boards were often used to save losing too many employees/customers in the mud.  More recently aggregate of various kinds gets dumped and spread… and sometimes removed later… or it becomes the base for the parking lot.  In modern practice pedestrian safe walkways get marked out with paint or cordoned with tape or crowd control barriers.  (The cost of compensation has gotten to be higher than thhe cost of preventative measures).

 

These days cables strung across sites are more usually marked with coloured tape and they even put up tell tales each side like the old RR bridge warning tell tales.  PLUS big signs.

 

Lots of 40 gallon drums get painted red/white or yellow/black or the company colours to mark out route ways or “no go” areas.

 

I keep seeing wire mesh cages of rocks being placed to hold new-built-up ground or as stage works where there is an excavation.  I reckon these could be made by lining a small box with tulle, filling it with rocks and spraying it all with glue… clever bit will be how to stop it all gluing solid in the box.  Most of these cages that I see are about 3’cubes or 4’cubes.  Some are about 6’ long x 3’high and 2’ deep.  These get used as cribbing.  All of them are fork lifted or craned into place.  They have no bonding concrete in them so they drain freely.  I guess that with time they will collect dirt and sprout plants which will help bond them into the ground they are holding up… or not…

 

Then there’s military style Pressed Steel Planking (PSP) and steel strip roads that can be rolled out.  Don’t know about you but we often use these where we need to get plant into rail sites for a short period but leave a clean site after.  These days these sometimes get lined both sides with plastic barriers like half a pipe with a flat bottom to stop local wildlife getting squished on the road… they then also put pipe underpasses for the critters.  This may sound daft but one place I work I cross a toads’ breeding ground for access… would be very squishy if I didn’t walk carefully. 

 

Okay… so where I was going to start this one…

 

When a scrap yard gets busy enough / gets an order to stop spilling gundge into the ground / the boss’s car gets bogged in too often they will usually at least start with pouring, spreading and rolling cheap aggregate.  Building rubble and spent RR ballast fit the bill.  Colour may include brick red… this survives quite a lot of oil spillage… and shows fresh when a crawler crushes up the base…

 

Next step is to progressively lay concrete panels…

• Clear area + access about 2’ -3’ all round and access for Ready-mix truck… (or location for on-site mixer, ballast bin and pile of cement bags under a tarp at least if not in a shed of some sort).
• Lay and roll hard core/rubble/ballast if none there or top up if needed.
• Line up plenty of wheel barrows and shovels.
• If you’re really rich you can cheat and pump the concrete.
• Set out shuttering boards all round the panel sides.  These are usually pegged in with 1.5x1.5 wood pegs driven down at least flush with the top of the shuttering boards.  A few pegs or lengths of rebar are usually driven in on the inside to prevent the shuttering from toppling in… but these aren’t driven in so far and, as the concrete is poured they are taken out so as not to leave holes.
• Start pouring the concrete usually at the end furthest from the truck.
• (Of course, having a crane , you might weld up some sort of delivery hopper to make life easier)
• Most times a long board is used to tamp and level the concrete.  This is usually at least a foot longer than the short dimension of the panel being laid.  Posh ones have handles at the ends.  Big ones may be like an I in shape so that the long thin bit does the work while the two ends let four men work them.
• Of course these days you can get compactor machines in small sizes or you can get slip paver machine but we’re talking low-cost and DIY… ‘cos the Boss has you standing around the yard watching the scrap all day enough of the time so you can do some work for a change…
• The tamping board is used to shuffle the concrete level and , with a chopping action, to tamp it down more firmly.  This leaves a ribbed effect… which is deep enough to show and shallow enough not to model… as I’ve said before I reckon that the trick is to lay a smooth surface and then, just before (or after) it hardens work across it with a stiff bristle flat brush or comb with a slightly darker grey paint leaving lines of dark and light to represent the ripples/ribs.
• I for one almost always get a few shallow depressions left in my concrete.  Where there are voids left because the compacting isn’t hard enough these may well become crushed holes quite quickly.  Both mean puddles.
• A scrap yard wouldn’t usually bother to screed a panel with a fine/hard top coat.  This can be floated (spread) with hand tools (big or small) or these days by machine.
• Where an area is bunded (has spill walls) it would usually be screeded though.
• A bund is made in one pouring so as to prevent leaks wherever possible.  The contiguous surrounding walls are poured by adding a second deck of shuttering of two board set at wall width on top of the panel shuttering and first layer of concrete.  These are then poured and tamped in the same way.  The process has to be timed to enable the floor and the walls to set as one thing.
• Both hard surfaces/panels and bund walls may have rebar or rebar mesh in them but they don’t always.  I don’t have a clue what decides when they do.  Obviously it is more work and cost.  It is also a swine to walk about/ move barrows (on scaffold planks – you’ll want some of those around) when there is bar or mes

[NS2591]

You really do need a Wikipeida page! I thought I knew a far amount about scrap yards. I think I need to go back school to catch up with you!