A Secret Under Oak Street

[Ocklawaha]

Just got a note from Dog Walker asking that I post these shots of Aberdeen St.





For those who have not seen this, check it out before the city comes in and wipes away the last vestige of memory of our once extensive Traction Company. Aberdeen, was a double track route, which most of our lines seem to have been. It ran from Brooklyn on Oak Street to King, to St. Johns Avenue, then to Aberdeen (just south of St. Vincents) to Herschel, where it headed south for NAS JAX, then called Camp Johnston. The stretch on Aberdeen is the last classic streetcar patch we have. As the old wooden ties are rotting under the pavement, the road has become a corduroy drive, and is quite rough. To a lesser extent all of the old car lines where the track or ties are under the pavement suffer the same fate. Oak Street near the Publix in 5-Points is another streetcar joy ride.

This trackage was built by the Ortega Traction Company, part of the Ortega Company, on the north it connected with Jacksonville Traction in 5-Points and on the South, it connected with Duval Traction Company in Ortega Village for Camp Johnston. After construction and a short operation period, both of the smaller companies were absorbed by the Jacksonville Traction Company.

After the take over the Ortega Company sued the Jacksonville Traction Company over a breech of contract, based on the exorbitant fares which were one or two cents more then the Ortega Company had originally charged. They felt the extra penny's were holding back home sales and doing irreparable damage to the new development. The fare from downtown to Camp Johnston, was .25 cents and the cars made no stops between the base and the downtown grid. (MIKE MILLER: "They called this SRT, streetcar rapid transit!") smile!

OCKLAWAHA

[thelakelander]

where are the shots?

[Ocklawaha]

Aberdeen Street west of St. Johns Avenue in Riverside. Warning: You might need 4-wheel drive, it's rough as driving down the CSX.

OCKLAWAHA

[thelakelander]

Here is a shot of Aberdeen from a few months ago.

[Overstreet]

Flexible brick pavement - and it might not have ANY concrete under it.


Mortarless Brick Pavement - The style that could be used in modern streetcar construction with rails bolted to the Concrete roadbed and supported by bucket piers (bucket track). Smooth road with just enough roar to cause you to move into the other lane if available.



Modern Interlocking-Brick Pavers


No bricks here, just asphalt or concrete - colored and impressed (pretty slick eh?)

OCKLAWAHA

First thing to remember is that “brick” is clay formed into a rectangle and baked with low strength and wear qualities. It is good enough for some pedestrian applications. Install it on vehicle areas and you’ll replace it a lot. 

All the “brick” in Ocklawaha’s post here are interlocking concrete pavers. This is a different animal entirely. The material is concrete with higher strength and wear characteristics.  The shape causes it to lock giving a much stronger surface. Pavers come in many colors and shapes. They also come in thickness appropriate to the use. For example pedestrian will be thin and truck traffic will be thick.

Note that most systems installed over concrete get a 1" sand bed for leveling on top of the concrete. The sand is also special sand with rougher edges to the grains to lock better. The sub-base is compacted and tested to a load bearing ratio.

As with any paving system integrity of the underground utilities is paramount to maintain the sub-base structure.

[Overstreet]

Those systems also require a curb or other limiting device for the pavers to be "wedged" against.

[Dog Walker]

Slight correction, Overstreet.  The street bricks here in Jacksonville and other places are still fired clay not concrete.  But they are "vitrified" brick i.e. fired at a much higher temperature until the silica liquefies and fuses.  They are MUCH harder and more durable than regular brick or concrete pavers.  It's like the difference between terra cotta earthenware and porcelain.

You can still clearly read the makers marks on the bricks even after one hundred years of traffic running over them.

[Ocklawaha]

Slight correction, Overstreet.  The street bricks here in Jacksonville and other places are still fired clay not concrete.  But they are "vitrified" brick i.e. fired at a much higher temperature until the silica liquefies and fuses.  They are MUCH harder and more durable than regular brick or concrete pavers.  It's like the difference between terra cotta earthenware and porcelain.

You can still clearly read the makers marks on the bricks even after one hundred years of traffic running over them.

Great remarks from both of you. I was going to comment that paving brick from the old days was a completely different animal then other bricks. The biggest drawback of the old streets is that they were laid on a bed of compacted limestone or sand. Once a few big washing rain storms took out some of the fill, the streets went to hell. There was a great side effect to that though, most wagons and buggy's had no shock absorbers, so the streetcar business stayed king of the hill. I'd love to take a certain friends 1920(?) something Stanley, over that street just to see how it rode... but I bet he'd kill me!

Now that I've got you guys on the brick road, anyone know how they stack up to our firebrick in the steam locomotives? The firebox can easily get around the same temperatures as the surface of the Sun. The buggers do crack on occasion and have to be replaced, which if we EVER get to work on 1504, I'll gladly volunteer some of YOU GUYS to do that job! (Y'all have the smokebox all to yourselves too!)

Lake, what do you think the odds would be of pushing a R.A.P. petition around so when Aberdeen comes up for re-pavement, we either:

reinstall a section of track and brick with a proper marker...
or
put down a smooth base and replace the brick just like it is, with a proper marker...

OCKLAWAHA

[heights unknown]

Ah Oak Street.  Used to live on Margaret and had a friend who lived on Oak Street, very familiar with Oak Street but didn't know there was a "hidden secret" under Oak Street.  Wonders never cease.

Five decades or more ago, I'd say half of Jax's streets had brick pavement.  When we lived in LaVilla Duval Street, and the others in that area had brick pavement.

Heights Unknown

[Dark Knight]

I will support original brick and track replacement,as it is my chidhood home .Go Riverside!!!

[Overstreet]

Slight correction, Overstreet.  The street bricks here in Jacksonville and other places are still fired clay not concrete.  But they are "vitrified" brick i.e. fired at a much higher temperature until the silica liquefies and fuses.  They are MUCH harder and more durable than regular brick or concrete pavers.  It's like the difference between terra cotta earthenware and porcelain.

You can still clearly read the makers marks on the bricks even after one hundred years of traffic running over them.

That is the old bricks they used to install. The new stuff that maintains a better sub base and flatter surface is the concrete pavers. For example, the Jacksonville Landing has three different grades of concrete pavers.

[Overstreet]

French Lick, Indiana

For example, the street is interlocking concrete pavers. The side walk is probably concrete pavers since they make them to look like clay pavers.

[Dog Walker]

Here, Ock.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_brick  Looks like they are a different mix of materials than street bricks.

Relining a firebox has to be one of the dirtiest jobs ever.

The new concrete pavers are really great.  They must be made of a different kind of concrete or compressed somehow because they are so dense and hard.

One real downside of the old brick streets (and I rode on St. Augustine and San Jose when they were brick) is that when it rained, they got very slippery.  Concrete pavers do not.

A few years ago, the city came out to asphalt over another of the brick streets in Riverside without any prior notice.  I think it was Elizabeth Place.  The homeowners literally stood in front of the paving machines and refused to move and defied the city to asphalt their brick street.  It is still brick. 

Most of the streets in Riverside are still brick under a layer of asphalt.  You can see it peeking through at some of the intersections.  Evidently the asphalt kept the water from eroding the crushed limestone beds and they have lasted a really long time.

[Ocklawaha]

Just got back from a visit to Springfield. Anyone who missed seeing the old Jacksonville, below the new one, park and check out the cave-in in the middle of Pearl just south of 8Th. A new spot for a flashlight, brick layer intact, railroad ties, and suprise of suprise, ballast under the track. That ballast could put our streetcar company in a whole different league historically then previous thought. Very cool to look under the city's skirt!

OCKLAWAHA

[Sportmotor]

bricks = pretty to look at
bricks = A BITCH TO DRIVE ON
bricks = harder on your tires and suspension and upkeep

concrete/ashphalt = not as pretty
concrete/ashphalt = Nicer to drive on
concrete/ashphalt = easyer to maintain then brick


I'll take concrete ashphalt to drive on
but I will take brick to look at where I will never ever ever ever drive