Aaltensche Courant, 23 September 1949
A Display of Rugged Power
On Wednesday we watched with admiration as the Ned. Heide Mij. demonstrated a new American road grader in Aalten. ‘What is a road grader?’, you may well ask first of all — naturally, that was our question too.
Everyone is assumed to know the bulldozer: the tractor with a large blade at the front that was used by the Allied armies to push obstacles efficiently out of the way. This road grader is based on the same principle, although it is a machine in its own right and is pulled by a powerful diesel tractor. It is an ingenious piece of equipment, with what one might almost call a thousand and one possibilities. It is used mainly to turn uneven terrain — bumpy sand roads, for example — into properly passable, level roads. Its most important feature is the large blade mounted in the middle, which can be controlled from the operator’s position at the rear by means of large wheels: up or down, left or right, and at an angle.
The road grader was one example of Marshall Aid to Europe and had been handed over to the government for reconstruction work. The machine still bore the words: ‘For recovery, supplied by the United States of America’.
The demonstration took place on the old road to Zelhem (Hessenweg), a few hundred metres beyond the Sunday school building. At the invitation of Aalten’s municipal authorities, various people — mainly technical staff from neighbouring municipalities — had come to watch the demonstration.
Mayor E.S. van Veen addressed those present at the demonstration site and expressed his pleasure that the Heide Mij. had come to Aalten to demonstrate this new American machine. He pointed to the condition of the sand roads, which had always been a source of concern for the municipality and required a great deal of maintenance. A few years earlier, during the period of high unemployment, this problem could be dealt with effectively, with the result that the sand roads were then kept in reasonably good condition. The question now arose once again of how to keep them in good order.
The Heide Mij., he continued, had found a very effective solution to this problem by using this machine, as the demonstration would show.
Mayor Van Veen then gave the floor to one of the Heide Mij.’s technicians, who clearly explained how the road grader worked, after which the demonstration began.
The Road Grader at Work
As we said at the beginning of this article, we watched the proceedings with admiration. With considerable power, the tractor pulled the road grader over the uneven surface, shaving off large slices of earth, while even stones proved no obstacle. It is obvious that this work demands considerable skill from the operator. He has to judge almost by feel how much soil must be shaved away, because over hollows and potholes the blade must not touch the ground — otherwise, of course, no progress would be made in levelling the road.
Within a short time, several hundred metres of sand road had been levelled and the hollows filled. Compared with doing the work by hand with a spade, this machine is a major advance when speed matters. The stretch of road completed that afternoon would certainly have taken days if it had been done with shovels.
At first, the road grader is pulled over the road twice to remove the hollows from its longitudinal profile. The blade is then set at an angle to the left or right to create the required road camber. Finally, a so-called disc harrow is drawn over the levelled road surface to break up and spread clods and turf. Besides the blade, the wheels of the grader can also be tilted, preventing the machine from sliding sideways when it meets heavy resistance. The rear axle assembly can likewise be shifted to the left or right, depending on the work to be carried out.
The road grader is a machine with many possibilities, something that became very clear during this afternoon’s demonstration. Those present will certainly have gained a great deal of useful knowledge from it.