ROADS AND AIRPORTS
Trapp has constructed a ribbon of several thousand kilometres of roads
under the hardest climatic and technical conditions in the Arabian Peninsula,
Iraq and Africa. Of these road construction projects in the past, the building
in 1958 of the Kuwait- Basrah Road was particularly outstanding. This
96 km long road through the desert was built in the then record time of
22 months. Daily performances of 1,600 tons of asphaltic concrete mix had
to be achieved.
Trapp planned and constructed municipal highways under the golden domes of renowned mosques in Kerbala and Najaf. Further modern traffic routes - roads and railways - were built in Ethiopia, Cameroun, Liberia, Madagascar, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Togo and Yemen. One of the largest road construction contracts was awarded to Trapp by Emperor Haile Selassie in 1969 - the Awash-Tendaho Road in Ethiopia. With a total length of 300 kilometres this project was completed within a four year construction period. In the face of fierce international competition a German-English joint venture with Trapp in charge was awarded the contract to build the 256-kilometre-long road from Sana'a to Taiz in Yemen including the extension to the international airport at Sana'a in the autumn of 1971.
A 56 Km section of the Bisha-Al Alayah Road in Saudi Arabia was constructed between 1976 and 79 as well the 43 Km Musna’ah – Rustaq Road Highway in Oman between 1974 and 76
The International Kaduna Airport in Nigeria was constructed by Trapp from 1977 to 1979 as well as the military air base in Cameroun in 1982 in outstanding quality with very close deadlines being stipulated and maintained. Worthy of mention are the road construction projects in Cameroun. By way of example, the stretch of road some 60 kilometres long between Bambui and Fundong could only be built in the four to five-month dry period every year. Water sensitive soils due to high silt contents called for special exertions in soil compaction which necessitated extraordinary efforts and high outlays in equipment to meet the planned objectives for this project which was financed by the Federal Republic of Germany's foreign aid. Conditions like those in virgin forest had to be overcome in the course of building the 22-kilometre-long Mouanko-Ocean Road through the estuary region of the Sanaga river in 1989 and 1990
Given the size of these projects and the short actual construction periods allowed, naturally, the most modem road construction methods have to be utilised. With the very best machinery and equipment being used, all methods of road construction were executed: mechanically stabilised earth roads, asphaltic and cement-stabilised substructures, crushed rock, wet mix aggregate and asphaltic bitumen-coated gravel base courses, double surface treatment; bitumen concrete for binders and surfacing.
A great number of culverts, concrete structures and elevated crossings were necessary in all these road construction projects. Wide-span bridges, exhibiting all degrees of difficulties encountered in modern bridge architecture, were also built by Trapp in the course of their constructing such traffic facilities.
The range of road construction work executed domestically encompasses everything from farm roads via county, state and federal highways, motorways with concrete and bituminous pavements, municipal roads with all secondary installations right up to airports. The company's own mixing plants for concrete and bituminous pavements increased efficiency. The central Wesel laboratory as well as numerous laboratories on the actual sites ensured the quality of the material being installed was invariably uniform and of a very high standard. Motorways were built in the Franconian and Austrian regions even before the second world war. After the war new motorways were built which, due to the elegance and harmony of their lines as well as because of the rapid construction demonstrated, caused admiration from all onlookers and pleasure as well as pride amongst the participants. All the motorways in Germany today are to be seen as forming one combined integral link for international traffic throughout Europe. The fact is that Trapp are considered to be prime contractors in this sector of civil engineering.
Directly after the war, in civil engineering and road construction - hand in hand with earthworks, canal construction and engineering hydraulics - Trapp became focused on rapidly changing building requirements and techniques by continually adapting and modernizing their equipment fleet and training their staff up to the highest standards prevailing at any time.
The first large scale airport project after the second world war was the extension of the military aerodrome at Weeze, in Germany.
More recently Trapp have been decisively involved in extending the A 1, A2, A3 and A560 highways. Not to be forgotten here are the access roads, work on the runways at the Berlin-Tegel, Tempelhof and Duesseldorf airports as well as a large number of by-passes and municipal roads.
What must be especially underlined here is road construction in Berlin which was executed in cooperation with the subsidiary Paul Gresitza. The work and services they delivered have left their positive mark on the face of the new federal capital.
