Gov’t purchases heavy-duty machine for road works
Residents may have seen this massive contraption sluggishly traversing Tortola — travelling from the main island’s eastern end and heading west.
It’s called a road/asphalt milling machine and it is one of the government’s latest purchases.
Effectively, the function of this machine is to remove the top layer of asphalt from a street, parking lot or driveway without disturbing the sub-base. Once the asphalt is milled up, it is taken to an asphalt plant where it’s screened and sized again and then used to make new pavement.
Sources inside the Works Ministry told our news centre that the machine is new and will soon undergo testing. The cost of the machine has not yet been disclosed.
In the meantime, the purchase of this machine follows Premier Dr Natalio Wheatley and Works Minister Kye Rymer’s announcement that roads on the eastern end of Tortola will be in pristine condition in time for the inaugural American Airlines flight that is expected to happen in June 2023.
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Made by (HON) Skelton from China..not mentioned in any COI!
Wonderful, how does it know it is only taking off one layer of asphalt particularly considering these roads are layer after layer of repair after repair over a old concrete roads that are now the base? The Royal Navy built the original roads with their bare hands, the roads that lasted for decades. The roads that still survive underneath all those layers of melted and broken up asphalt!
Where do we get the spare parts and does anybody on island know how to fix it when it breaks? Or is it going to end up on the side of the road in a few years time, abandoned?
“Without disturbing the sub base”. The sub base is where the problem IS !!
Might as well lay asphalt on wet cardboard.
Get some real engineers who have actually built a road to come and design a proper drainage and roadbed.
Pissing up a rope in a hurricane.
Whose asphalt plant will it go to to be processed. The racket continues. This equipment must have been too expensive for the private to buy so the bill went to the people.
Chinese junk I assume
The whole government and civil service are incompetent and/or corrupt. Get rid of all of the politicians and implement a full and detailed investigative accounting audit. Then we’ll see where our money has disappeared down the drain. This machine is just the latest example
Park it at the bottom of any asphalted hill on the island first rainy day after resurfacing and the road surface will return for reprocessing automatically double bubble .
A bunch of negative comments and lies. Royal Navy were too busy terrorizing the population to do any such thing. They would get drunk and act like a set of demons trying to invade people’s homes. One of the first Arabs to come here almost died from a kick to his private parts. A four year old girl was raped and nothing was done about it. Navy ships were used to blast some of the cliffs on the West End road but they built nothing with their bare hands. The locals were always the ones with sledge hammer and hoe pick and shovel. The Paulin Company of Guyana did the West End Road and around the Fort Hill to Baughers Bay. Our own Public Works Department was responsible for the vast majority of the road construction throughout the Virgin Islands. In those days we had men of renown not like these carbon copy and plastic men of today who only waiting for the 15th and 30th.
This is a quality piece of equipment used by real road builders all over the world. It is essential to quality and efficient road building and when used correctly will pay for itself in a short amount of time. However, it is meant to be used with other essential pieces of equipment used in road building. Graders, heavy rollers, hot asphalt application machines and the working knowledge of how to build a road are basic. It’s unfortunate that the BVI doesn’t have these. My bet is that this machine will not last through its first job as the roads here are a mix of concrete and asphalt and without proper use or maintenance it has a doomed life. Do right for once BVI, hire professionals with professional equipment to come and train you how to stop wasting money, then actually do what you’ve been trained to do!
WERE YOU THERE ? ? ? , U NEED TO STAY ON YOUR YELLOW SITE , WHERE U ARE KING
Thank you Damn If You Do… Truth. They. always want to take credit for good things they had nothing to do with.
Yes where is the last one that was purchased with our money.
Was it ever used?
Wheree is it now?
Probably rusting away somewhere.
You are correct. We did purchase one before and if my memory serves me right, it had cost us a million dollars.
The last time I saw it – just before Irma, it was beside the Queen Elizabeth Park.
This cost a fortune just like that new elevator that goes up to one floor
This dude only paving perfectly good roads in his district?
Because if it was cheap he woulda brag on it like how he bragged on the direct flight not costing us a dime
Take up asphalt and recycle it and then the same end results?
Look at my big one
@ dam if you do. …You are talking real talk and facts.
We shouldn’t have to wait until June 23.
Glad to have it. Maybe it will be used. But then again, like most tools here, they sit idle like our workers
But wait, Dont we have one of these at PWD already?
Don’t blame the road design it’s the freeze -thaw cycle that breaks the road up.
Yes we do but a manhole cover is said to be its undoing. Lets see what happens with this one.
Come to VG you’ll see a plant sitting next to old yard village hidden since Ralph days call him back ask him the history about such.