The Golden Road

Some 40,000 roadbuilders gathered in Chicago last week for a look at the spectacular new machines they will need for the 13-year, $100 billion federal-state highway program. They will need plenty--an estimated $1,350,000,000 worth of new equipment by 1960, 45% more than they have now.

Among the new machines:

P: Mixermobile Manufacturers' huge-mawed "Scoopmobile," one of the largest tractor scoops in production, which takes six to eight cu. yds. of earth and rock per load. Price: $50,000.

P: Buffalo-Springfield Roller Co.'s 16-ton ''Kompactor," which packs roads by exerting 480 lbs. of pressure per sq. in. with its four giant roller wheels. Each wheel is faced with staggered rows of steel pads that form the compacting surfaces.

P: Iowa Manufacturing Co.'s bituminous paver, which in tests on the Kansas Turnpike laid asphaltic concrete at 84 ft. per minute, twice the normal speed of other pavers. Equipped with electric controls, it can be operated by one man.

P: Allis Chalmers' 25-ton, 280-h.p. motor scraper, with top capacity of 20 cu. yds. Its business end is shaped like a garden shovel.

P: R. G. Le Tourneau's experimental 35-ton "electric-wheel" truck which can operate in roadless open country. Its 335-h.p. diesel engine feeds power to each of the truck's six wheels, powering each wheel individually without any shifting of gears.

P: Caterpillar Tractor's side-dumping bucket for crawler tractors. Unlike other buckets, it rests on the end of the rig, can tilt to 60DEG right or left, deliver load to truck without having tractor turn to dump.

P: General Motors' rubber-tired, 518-h.p. Goliath scraper, which takes 24 cu. yds. of aggregate with one bite of its 14-ft. bulldozer blade. Each of its two diesels connects with a single track, so that one track can continue forward while the other reverses, spinning the giant around.

New Plants. In addition to such new machines, builders estimated that by 1960 contractors will also require 146,000 trucks (96,000 now on hand), 58,000 tractors (42,000 on hand), and 23,100 power cranes and shovels (16,000 now).

To meet the demand, equipment-makers estimate, they will spend 26% more this year on new plants than they invested in 1956. Caterpillar Tractor Co. alone is budgeting $80 million for expansion this year to bring its postwar total to $500 million through 1960. Bucyrus-Erie Co. will boost production of excavating gear at South Milwaukee, Wis. and Evansville, Ind. General Motors will break ground this summer for an earth-moving-equipment plant southeast of Cleveland.

With new methods and machines, builders hope that such feats as paving a 236-mile, four-lane highway in six months, as was done last year on the Kansas Turnpike, will be routine. Although contractors can build a road with half the workers needed a decade ago, the big federal program will more than double the highway labor force to an estimated 590,000 within five years.

New Problems. So far, the tight supply of money, structural steel and engineers has slowed up the new program; only $325 million in contracts have been let so far. Another bottleneck: state highway departments are sometimes hesitant to give contracts to out-of-state companies.

Stiff federal regulations also will slow building; e.g., because the new highways must have milder curves, contractors will cut through hills, not go around them. The demand for better roads will give an edge to the big contractors, since state highway officials are expected to parcel out longer pieces of road in a single contract, rather than chop them up in six-or seven-mile bits for smaller local operators. This should not pinch the small man, because the pie is big enough for all. But it will make for efficiency. As U.S. Public Roads Commissioner C. D. Curtiss said last week: on a $300,000 job, contractors can build only $1.56 worth of highway for every $1 worth of equipment. On a $5,000,000 contract, the figure is $4.50 per $1.

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