Manual of Contract Documents for Highway Works
On a more cheerful note, the Highways Agency have given us a Christmas present in the form of access to Volumes 1 and 2 of the Manual of Contract Documents for Highway Works.
These are the volumes that those of us in highways maintenance and construction most often use as a source of reference.
But do remember they are written specifically for the 3%, 4% or 5% (take your pick) that is motorway or trunk road, you do not have to comply with the requirements of these documents for the other 95% of the network. 
However they are excellent reference sources.
Volume 1 - Specification for Highway Works
Volume 2 - Notes for Guidance on the Specification for Highway Works
These are the the recent amended November 2004 editions and will need study, but I have to admit I have not had the time to read them yet, and we were all led to believe there would be some significant changes.
The volumes are being made available in .pdf format, on a trial basis, on the Highways Agency "documents" website, so it might be advisable to download those parts you feel relevant as soon as you can, just in case they disappear.
You may not regard this as a Christmas present, but it was not necessary for the HA to do this, and it does put information out to a much wider engineering audience, as often, not everybody has access to these volumes and the information they contain.
This "plug" does not mean I agree with all that they contain, I do not, but I believe the industry is the better for these volumes being a part of it.
One item you may like to take a look at in the 900 Series of Volume 1 of the  SHW is the increased clarity that is brought to the use of "recipe" binder course and base. It was quite easy with the former edition of the SHW to find yourself receiving "design" binder course or base when you had intended the use of "recipe" mixtures with their associated higher binder contents and increased durability. 
Stiffness is not the sole parameter for bituminous mixture selection, especially when you are maintaining a local highway network.

Not Enough Pictures
This newsletter was looking a bit bare so I thought I would include a couple of photographs I took recently that turned out rather well, and show excellent examples of these types of surfacing.

10mm. High Stone Content Asphalt -  Specified to BS 594:Part 1: 3/4	10mm. Surface dressing

The above are established surfaces, meaning this is what they will look like for the bulk of their life. 
They have achieved a stable, satisfactory, surface texture that will be adequate for most road situations, but their actual skid resistance will ultimately depend upon the quality of the actual aggregate present in the surface.
I refer to the Polished Stone Value (PSV) of the aggregate, even with the satisfactory surface I show, if the PSV of the aggregate is low, the skidding resistance of these surfaces could be suspect in wet weather
I make these observations to point out that it is unlikely that a particular road surface will be "slippery" just because it is referred to by a particular description, i.e. hot rolled asphalt, high stone content asphalt, close graded macadam, open graded macadam, pervious macadam (porous asphalt), surface dressing and even stone mastic asphalt.
Although these material descriptions offer an indication of particular type of bituminous mixture, it is their actual design, i.e. aggregate grading (proportions), bitumen grade and aggregate qualities (both coarse and fine), and any "additives", that will determine the physical properties of the mixture when it is laid.
And if you want to call everything asphalt, and you have SMA's that are porous, material description becomes almost pointless.
To make broad statements, such as hot rolled asphalt generates large amounts of road noise compared to other road surfaces,  or stone mastic asphalt is slippery compared to other road surfaces, shows a lack of understanding of what is involved in road surfacing materials, and the possible diversity of each particular category of road surfacing material.
I think you know what I am going to say next, you do need access to experienced Materials Engineers, you really do, they are an important part of any organisation involved in highways maintenance and construction. 
If you have direct access to a soils and materials laboratory that is a significant bonus.
There has been some significant amounts of money wasted in the last few years because of the lack of this type of support, not to mention the "egg" on the faces of some important people.

TRL Information
Not wishing to make this newsletter too long there are several items relating to the Transport Research Laboratory that I would like to include before time moves on and I forget about them.
The first is the publication of,
TRL Report TRL611-A guide to the use and specification of cold recycled materials for the maintenance of road pavements
This is a comprehensive report offering guidance on cold recycled materials that are "bound" using hydraulic (cement, slag, pulverised fuel ash) binder or foamed bitumen, or combinations of these binders. Although the report places emphasis on performance testing of road pavement materials produced by cold recycling, it also stresses the importance of the initial design, and its documentation. An outline specification for a number of possible cold recycled materials is included in the Appendix to the report.

The second item is to draw your attention to an article in the December edition of the magazine "Highways" by a Principal Consultant at TRL relating to the importance of "personnel on the ground" who are the "eyes and ears" of a highway authority.
But only if anybody listens to what they have to say, the last words are mine. 
In my opinion this is an excellent article and one which I urge you to read. It is good to know that there are other people out there who believe that well trained experienced people, "on the ground", are an integral part of any overseeing organisation. 
It has always been my feeling that you cannot support the good contractors and suppliers without an element of supervision over all of them, and please do not tell me they are all wonderful because they possess the same "bits of paper", it is a real world out there with all kinds of pressures and shortcomings.   

The last item takes up the theme of "the real world", because I noticed in a recent edition of "Transportation Professional", I think it was November, a reference to the "new material", Enrobé  a Module Elevé being laid at TRL's test facility. This test facility is undercover. so when you draw your "new" conclusions on this material you might just like to remember it might just be laid in a mid-winter gale on the top of an embankment with delivery temperatures just in specification.
You cannot blame poor workmanship for resulting failure if you do not give the paving gangs half a chance when laying difficult materials.
I also note from the picture in the magazine that a "not heavy" steel drum vibrating roller is still being used to compact this material, when the French use 35 tonne pneumatic rollers.
I only know all this because trials were done on this material by TRL in, I believe, the same test facility in 1994, and were published in,
TRL Project Report 66 : Evaluation of Enrobé a Module Elevé (EME): A French high modulus roadbase material 
It is an excellent report and it is a shame people did not take more notice of what it contained.
Further information, and sources of information, relating to stiff road pavement materials and their engineering properties, both theoretical and practical, can be found on this website, on the page, NOTES ON HIGH MODULUS ( STIFF ) DENSE BITUMEN MACADAM ROADBASE.

One of the advantages of being a little older is that you have a lot of information stored away, and the long term memory seems to endure, even if I cannot remember where I left my car keys. 

Motto of the Month
"Once the toothpaste is out of the tube, it is awfully hard to get it back in."