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Road Rammer (1881)


RichardB

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Frank Winters, Road Rammer, 28, unmarried, born in Ireland.

Can't make out the bit after Road Rammer, is this likely to be a bloke hitting asphalt (or whatever) to make it level on new road builds ?

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Frank Winters, Road Rammer, 28, unmarried, born in Ireland.

Can't make out the bit after Road Rammer, is this likely to be a bloke hitting asphalt (or whatever) to make it level on new road builds ?

Or, in the absence of a road roller (steam roller), or for doing small patches with limited access, is it one of those blokes who uses a thing to hammer down and compact the newly laid road surface?

I thought the bloke who did this was called a "tamper" as the process of pressing the surface down is called "tamping"?

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Discription and use of a rammer in 1852.

See also, page 231

Google books

Thanks Steve, that's what I thought a rammer was (see my previous post)

Although my grandad who worked for Sheffield Corporation Works Dept. from the 1920's to the 1950's and made many of Sheffields 1930's estate roads always refered to this device as a "tamper" and the process as "tamping".

He also worked with a road rolling team (but not on the engines) and when I was first interested steam road engines, including steam rollers he did comment that he was amazed that you could roll a road with an engine weighing around 10 tons (which many steam rollers did), and then allow "big lorries" much heavier than that (up to 30 tons laden) and with much narrower wheels and therefore exrting much more pressure on the road surface without further compressing and damaging the road surface.

I suppose the same thing applied to ramming (tamping) which put a limited amount of compression on the road which would probably be less Compacted if done by hand, and then allowing much heavier vehicles to drive on it, - without apparently causing further compaction and damage to the road.

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