VIC Green has recently retired after virtually a lifetime in the asphalt paving industry. His first job was with a paving crew working out of the Burnley depot of Albion Quarries in Melbourne. Vic recalls his first paver, a steel-tracked Barber Greene that used a hand pump to raise the screed, as quite a crude machine by today’s standards, and feels sure he must have upset his supervisor as he was regularly given the “bits and pieces” sections of roadway near the median strip to pave.
Over the next ten years he saw a transformation of the asphalt industry, with old names such as Albion Quarries and Reid & Carr (which became Albion Reid), Bayview and Dammann Asphalt all eventually falling under the Boral Asphalt name. A ‘B’ series Blaw Knox paver replaced the Barber Greene, and life became a little easier for Vic.
A turning point in his working life came when he travelled to Tasmania for the Hobart Airport paving job in 1966, taking a brand new Blaw Knox ‘C’ series paver for the ride. On that job he met Ian Harrington, Emoleum state manager for Victoria and Tasmania, who supplied Emtar for the fuelling and parking areas. They struck up a friendship, and at a chance encounter later on at the Shakespeare Hotel in North Melbourne Ian mentioned that he was considering setting up on his own in Tasmania, and asked Vic if he was interested in joining him. Vic agreed, but when he heard nothing for some months, he dismissed the conversation from his mind.
However the call eventually came, and Ian and Vic set sail to conquer the Apple Isle. The beginning of the company, which Ian called Roadways, was quite modest, with Vic and another person providing the sole workforce. An old ‘B’ series Blaw Knox paver covered the asphalt side. A new Dickinson sprayer mounted on a Bedford truck covered spray seal, and trucks were hired in as required, and fitted with the company Cockerell spreader. Two tandem MacDonald rollers and a Malcolm Moore multi-tyre roller covered the compaction side of things, and casual operators were hired as required.
Whereas Boral had separate asphalt and spray seal divisions, Vic became a jack-of-all-trades, moving from one machine to another as the work demanded. He has memories of making a pass with the sprayer, then jumping out and running the metal with the Cockerell spreader.
The timing of the venture was good. Emoleum had the north of the state around Launceston tied up, but there were opportunities around Hobart, as the Education Department made a decision to upgrade school yards with asphalt, and the Housing Department opened new developments at Bridgewater and Gagebrook. The Hobart and Launceston City Councils had their own asphalt plants, and there was another private contractor, Max Gehrke, but the opportunities for Roadways were quite bright as asphalt usage took off.
The first asphalt plant was a 0.8 tonne TM10C mobile batch plant. Roadways now has an Armstrong Holland 2 tonne batch plant at its Hobart depot, along with 200 tonnes of storage capacity, and a 1.5 tonne batch plant at its Burnie depot, supported by 150 tonnes of storage capacity. Aggregate is drawn from the Brambles quarry in Burnie, and a Boral quarry in Hobart.
The volume of spray seal work available also increased as the Tasmanian Works Department gradually withdrew from tendering for this type of work.
The first vibratory roller arrived when resurfacing work at Hobart Airport around 25 years ago required vibratory compaction in the tender. Two Dynapac CC120s were purchased for this work, and these are still held in reserve although a more recent Bomag roller now takes the brunt of the workload.
The fleet has grown in all respects, and there are now five pavers and two emulsion spraying rigs. Roadways has continued to favour Blaw Knox pavers, generally looking to see what machines are proving popular with larger companies before making its own commitment. There is a PF22, a PF150 and two PF180s, as well as a MultiPaver variable width paver built up by Sharpes Asphalt in Gosford.
Roadways bought this to allow it to get into patching and widening work, but a move away from asphalt to spray seal to stretch the diminishing maintenance budgets further has not allowed Roadways to take full advantage of its purchase.
There are now two Dickinson spray rigs and each is fitted with a data logger. Roller spreaders have replaced the Cockerells because of their greater accuracy, but the Cockerell is still used in areas where there are overhead wires, as the tipper body does not need to be fully raised for the Cockerell to work effectively.
Vic tells an amusing anecdote of commissioning the first asphalt plant, when Jack Dickinson flew over, and insisted that the Roadways crew joined him at Wrest Point casino. However Vic was not admitted, as he was not wearing a coat. Undaunted, Jack – who was a giant of a man – went up to his room and retrieved a coat for Vic to wear. On Vic it was the length of an overcoat, and Vic’s hands were marooned somewhere in the sleeves, but despite the absurd appearance Vic was passed for entry to the august casino!
Vic’s favourite jobs have been the airports, which are demanding in their standards of finish – work that does not meet density spec is ripped out – but allow large quantities of asphalt to be laid relatively quickly. However the windows of opportunity between flights are narrow, and the equipment is constantly being moved on and off the runway. Vic recalls a job at Launceston where planes circled overhead for 15 minutes as work was completed, with the airport manager growing more agitated by the minute.
Perhaps the most innovative job was paving the Bowen Bridge, where the wire for level control was run along the top of the jersey barrier and special brackets were made up for the paver to accommodate this.
Vic’s work was demanding, and there were many times when he would leave home at 3am and arrive back home at 8pm. Despite this, he enjoyed the work and in 34 years of work at Roadways took only 10 sick days – and that was forced on him by hospitalisation!
FOOTNOTE: Roadways founder Ian Harrington died suddenly in 1997, at which time Vic Green took over as general manager until his retirement, and a board structure and trust was put in place to operate the company. After Vic’s retirement Phil Sidney was appointed as ceo, and Roadways has bought long-established Tasmanian company Zaganite Specialised Coatings Pty Ltd, bringing with it expertise in thermoplastic linemarking and other state-of-the-art technologies. Brighton Painting has also been acquired to further strengthen this area. The acquisitions are part of Roadways’ aim to employ current best practice all areas of its business, as Tasmania’s leading road surfacing company.