The cast in place concrete coaling tower in the 6.20.09 image above hasn’t been used for more than half century – and probably hasn’t received any significant surface maintenance since it was constructed about a century ago. Yet the tower is still structurally sound, and shows no cracking, spalling, or rusting rebar.
This is the type of “form following function” historic structure that should be protected and preserved. In this case total lack of attention has done that job.
Today, with all our "improved" construction testing and building technology, much of the civil concrete work is of very poor quality. Today, the concrete suppler often starts the degraded construction process by cheating on cement, and the form crews finish off the degraded construction by placing the reinforcement too close to the surface of the forms.
Maybe you will get 10 years out of sloppy concrete work.
Compare today's 10 year life to the 100 year life - with no maintenance - for this Akron, Ohio coaling tower.
We’ve come a long way (backward) don’t you think?
Ohio Trespassers .com [1] has more images of the tower, On Google Maps the location is [2] Eastwood Ave at East North Street, Akron. Here is a 1978 view from the upper track [3] (from the web site Railpix [4]). Using the upper track, single coal supply cars were gravity dumped to feed the conveyor which fed the coaling tower. Here is a 1954 photo of the tower from Akron Railroads / Google books [5]. Coal fired steam locomotives were just about out of commission in 1954.
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