Surface
The original surface of Carrigrohane Straight was limestone. In 1927, the County Council and Corporation, who both controlled sections of the Straight, laid reinforced concrete. The Straight was one of the first concrete road surfaces in Ireland, or even Great Britain. In the early days, concrete surfaces were laid in slabs, with expansion joints of bitumen to take up expansion and contractions as the temperature affected them. The reinforced concrete consisted of a layer of mesh steel covered with concrete in sections approximately 20 to 30 feet (6.1 to 9.1 m) long, and several inches thick. Concrete was used because it was thought to be suitable for boggy ground. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, a number of concrete roads were constructed over bog in Northern Ireland, for example the Ballymena to Ballymoney road
The South of Ireland Asphalt Company (S.I.A.C.) was engaged in the surfacing of the Straight, and the concrete was hand laid. After the closure of the Muskerry Tram, the tracks were removed in 1935, and the area they occupied was then concreted, adding about 10 feet (3.0 m) to the width of the road. In recent years, Cork Corporation has covered this section with tar macadam, but the section outside the city still has the original concrete, and the extra width of concrete laid after the tram tracks were removed. This can be seen on the south side of the road.
Read more about this topic: Carrigrohane Straight
Famous quotes containing the word surface:
“These wonderful things
Were planted on the surface of a round mind that was to become our present time.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“But the surface of the Earth was meant for man. He wasn’t meant to live in a hole in the ground.”
—Edward L. Bernds (b. 1911)
“We tend to be so bombarded with information, and we move so quickly, that there’s a tendency to treat everything on the surface level and process things quickly. This is antithetical to the kind of openness and perception you have to have to be receptive to poetry. ... poetry seems to exist in a parallel universe outside daily life in America.”
—Rita Dove (b. 1952)