The Pennsylvania Turnpike
The Pennsylvania Turnpike

Author: Mitchell E. Dakelman

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2004-06-16

Total Pages: 132

ISBN-13: 1439631840

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See how the Pennsylvania Turnpike proved the doubters wrong and came to be known as the World's Greatest Highway. The Pennsylvania Turnpike is one of the best-known highways in the United States. Most Pennsylvania Turnpike travelers are unaware that its construction was inspired by the route of the never-completed South Pennsylvania Railroad. In the 1930s, men of great vision conceived, planned, and built the nation's first long-distance superhighway using the abandoned railroad's partially finished tunnels as its foundation. The Pennsylvania Turnpike draws from the extensive photograph collection in the Pennsylvania State Archives. Many were taken by photographers hired by both the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission and its contractors, and most have never been published previously. Originally predicted to be a financial failure, the project wound up being a tremendous success and, eventually was expanded and improved, laying the groundwork for the nation's Interstate Highway System.

Roadbuilding Construction Equipment at Work
Roadbuilding Construction Equipment at Work

Author: Edgar Browning

Publisher: Enthusiast Books

Published: 2011-04-01

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781583882771

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This photo essay details the construction of the original Interstate Highway System in Vermont’s picturesque and largely rural mountainous region through the late 1950s to late ‘70s. During this short time, contractor driven construction equipment innovation was remarkable: 2 1/2 cubic yard shovels were replaced with 4-8 yard shovels and then by massive wheel loaders up to 17 cubic yards; 15-22 ton rock trucks were upped to 50 tons; rudimentary spreading methods with dump trucks using tailgate chains were replaced with CMI Autogrades; and many contractors devised and built ingenious contraptions to increase production. The work attracted many large established road building firms from other States—Lane, Perini, Palazzi, L. G. Defelice, Green Construction from Des Moines, Iowa, as well as Cartier Construction, a division of McNamara from Montreal—seen here clearing and grubbing, pioneering, rock drilling, mucking peat bogs, and excavation sequences including trucks and shovels, loaders, pan scrapers, and a wheel excavator. The manufacturers of construction equipment constitute a virtual directory of the period; Caterpillar, Euclid, Allis-Chalmers, International, Dart, P&H, Bucyrus-Erie, Northwest, Lorain, Lima, Gradall, Barber-Greene, Blaw Knox, CMI, and more.