* * * Manure Happenz * * *

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Cya

[ch9787]

Don

Wo can eye say







WotSayU?

Cya
[ch9787]

aaahhh swisy .. all i can say is peterbilt ch/no 18129..alan pierpoint, subby to R&H out of newcastle NSW...

Those older trailers were only designed for single drive prime movers - and couldnt handle the extra pudden up the front end when hitched to the new fandangled bogie drive PM's.

Saw quite a few suffer a similar fate as the one pictured behind the PB - when working on poor roads.

Sorta similar problem as the load of pipes - something to do with those cogragations. Wide spreads had big trouble getting both axles singing the same song.

Oldfulla

aaahhh swisy .. all i can say is peterbilt ch/no 18129..alan pierpoint, subby to R&H out of newcastle NSW...

I haven't heard that name (Alan Pierpoint) since we both subbied for Western tpt in the late 60's, I think he lived at Stanthorpe then.

g'day BK .. alan did hail from stanthorpe and bought his peterbilt new and operated it in its original 4X2 configuration until he fitted the pusher axle

she still survives as a wreck, with the cabin fitted to another early 4X2 cabover pete being jim robinsons original purchase

jim died in a nasty accident in his truck at the bottom of bulli in the late sixties/early 'seventies, with the cab being completely torn from the chassis, but the truck was rebuilt and still survives as a goer today...even though she's on her third cab

Thanks.

The above R&H pic reminded me of a serious 'Manure Happens' involving R&H back in the early 70's.

This was when the Goonyella coal mine (Cent QLD) had just started and they were using R&H to cart their 'nitropil' (fertiliser) expolsive ingredient from down south somehwere - up thru Monto - Emerald - Clermont.

Anyway (the story goes a bit like this): one day (around the Monto area) a local farmer saw smoke coming from the highway not far from his property - and sent his son to investigate.

Very soon after there was the biggest BANG of all times and the fire/smoke became much worse. So the farmer went to have a look for himself - only to find bits of truck and trailer spread over a 100mtr radius centred on a big hole in the road. The engine block was found a 100 odd mtres from where it started out.

If I recall correctly nothing was found of the driver or the farmers son.

Proper investigation was impossible other than for the experts to assume that: The truck was stopped due to mechancial failure of some sort (something had caught fire) and that there had been a fuel leak happening from some distance before. It was assumed that fuel had been leaking - and spraying on the load making the normally inert load of fertiliser into a very high explosive. (IE: they mix fertiliser with desiel to turn it into the mining explosive).

But to set it off it requires an initiating explosion - usually a stick of 'jelly'. And in the case of the truck - that initialising explosion is thought to have come from the belly tank under the trailer exploding due to the initial fire.

From memory the truck involved was a COE KW. But some of the other usual R&H runners on this job was a single drive R190 with a C160 under the bonnet and an ACCO 2050 with a 6V53 providing the motovation.

Oldfulla

Old Fulla, funny how that story has been around for years eh?
I don't recall the exact details, and what I have heard is all 2nd+ hand, and as you know with these stories, one wouldn't want to get a little thing like truth get in the way of a good story.
The story I heard was very similar to yours, with the farmers son going to investigate, I didn't here which company was involved, but I thought the truck was a 3070, and that the driver had 3 X 44 gallon drums of Diesel on the front of the trailer as a bit extra for the truck, and one had split. As I say, I never saw any evidence of the accident, just like a bit of an urban myth.
I'd be interested to know if it was true and the details. I thought it happened in the 70's.