Mexborough & Swinton Times – Friday 08 November 1929

Trinidad Firm Operating from Wombwell.

Process Explained.

Wombwell has recently become the centre of a new industrial process. At Wombwell Main a plant has been put down for the manufacture of road material.

To a representative of the “Mexborough and Swinton Times” the opportunity was given the other day of inspecting the “works.” The plant has been erected in the goods yard of the London. Midland and Scottish Railway Company by the Limmer and Trinidad Lake Asphalte Company, and at this depot the firm employ about sixteen men.

The Limmer and Trinidad Lake Asphalte Company are contractors for the making of roads by a new process. At present the firm are engaged on schemes at Dodworth, Barnsley and Mexboro’. Wombwell has been chosen as the most convenient centre for the distribution of material.

In the making of the special road material for which this firm is known five ingredients are necessary, two grades of sand, Portland cement, granite chips, and Trinidad bitumen, the last being the most important and probably the most expensive constituent. These ingredients are brought Ito Wombwell by rail, and converted into Trinidad asphalte with which hundreds of miles of main roods have been surfaced.

The process of making Trinidad asphalte is highly technical. The machinery embodies elevators, crushers, boilers, and loaders, the plant being steam-driven. The film are the owners of an aaphalte lake in the island of Trinidad, where the largest known asphaltic deposit in the world is found. An employee of the firm explained that the asphalt is “worked” by rotation covering a period of say twelve mouths, so that by the time it has worked out at one end of the lake it has filled in again at the other. As shipped and received at Wombwell, the asphalts is in tubs and resembles pitch. The asphalte is mixed with the other ingredients, and the finished product is an earthy, elastic black product of great toughness and durability. The product as used for road-making is despatched from Wombwell by lorries, being weighed automatically as it is ejected from the machinery. It is loaded at great heat, which is retained on the journey by the material being covered by sacking. On reaching its destination it is still too hot to handle.

Associated with the pleat is a small laboratory, in which delicate instruments are used for testing the quality, the density and elasticity of the material. To test the degree of penetration needles are applied under regulated pressure to small canisters containing the finished product in its cooled form.

An inspection of the plant gives an interesting insight into the technical and scientific intricacies of modern highway engineering.