Old photos

At the end of the war my dad worked a mobile workshop, I think they were building a road from Mount Isa to Darwin.

The writing on the back of one photo says "Travelling workshop, Rankine River en route to Brunette Downs".
The line up of their trucks is at Camooweal.
He realised there was an opening for earth moving contractors on those huge stations and decided to have a go.
Built this low loader under the house at Morningside Brisbane using only an oxy.
It was oxy-tack welded together in the photo and then he drove it to Hope's Body Works down the Valley and they welded it up. I think the truck is a Ford.
The trailer brakes were hydraulic, tee'd into the truck hydraulic system, think there would have been a lot of pumping.
The family mortgaged everything, Registered the Western Tank Sinking Company and bought any earth moving gear that was available.
It was 2nd hand worn out gear from years of defence work so he railed it to Cloncurry and set up a workshop to overhaul everything.
Their first job was a 10,000cu. yd. dam at Cowan Downs, 200 odd miles North.
Once established the enquiries for airstrips, windmills, tanks etc came in.

More photos to come.

jeffo,
Great find there,just goes to show what you could do back then if you had a will to do it.It also shows what these old trucks look like in their working clothes,not as flash as we are restoring them,no mud guards or mud flaps to fall off,Good one jeffo,got any more.
Colin

Here's some of the gear, tiny by todays standards.

They lived pretty rough, heat was the killer.
Dad said they'd start up in the dark and by breakfast the tractors were boiling. So he set up searchlights and they worked nights instead.
The oil viscosity gauge would drop the needle onto the stop from heat in no time at all.

Dad got heatstroke and they all suffered from loss of salt.
I can't find a lot of photos, there was one of a plains turkey, would have been 2.5 wingspan,big python, 9 metres long.
They'd bowl over a steer for meat, wild pigs, turkeys.
No fridge and water was always a problem.
Here's the Model A getting water at a bore. They'd throw a shovel of ash on top to settle the clay.

Photos were a luxury and it looks like they were only taken when the wives came out for a visit.
Here's Aunty Dulc. ringing up the Cloncurry store with the food order for the postman to bring out on his run.
They'd throw a wire up/over the bush telegraph line and wind away. Everyone listened in.

Mum and Aunty Dulc up a windmill. Built them completely on the ground and then pulled them up with the tractor.

Some small steel tanks.

Think that's it for photos.
One year they parked everything on the highest ground possible and drove the low loader back to Brisy.
Returned after the wet to find it had all gone under, biggest flood in all the local's memory.
Think that was the end for them but they'd made enough for all partners to pay off homes, get regular jobs, start families and that's where I came from.

Ther's one of those graders at Gatton, saw it today. Same except for steel wheels. In a line-up of machinery near the truck museum/ Lights on the Hill memorial.

Jarrod.

...thank you Jeffo for the beautiful photo essay ....

...i can't help but love the third photo in reply 2, whereby all are looking quite glum.....even the big puppy dog .....

They'd had a mouse plague, millions of the things, ate everything, hydraulic hoses, battery cables and of course drove everyone crazy.
The old grandad came up with a trap. He'd bury a 4 gallon drum in the soil, add a gallon of water and some lard which would float on top. A piece of stick spanned the open drum.
At night the mice were so hungry they'd fight when crossing the stick, fall in the freezing cold water and drown.
Each trap would catch a few hundred per night.
Dad had the sour face as he'd swung a kick at a rat, missed and kicked a 44 breaking his big toe.
No doctor out there and it shows in that photo.

Great photos as detective said even then the dog has an expression on it face
Feel a bit there was no people of the portly shape and I'm qualified to comment

Dad took up a job as Qld sales manager for Lanz Australia. My sisters and I started school and while Lanz struggled through various changes, (Kelly and Lewis Hastings Deering) Dad looked to buy a cane farm.
He finally found one in Bundaberg and we moved. It was a massive reality shock, hand cutting and loading cane is a killer and there were many times we had to carry him off to the chiropractor Dr. Pro.
We carted the whole stick cane on an Austin Loadstar bought from the repo yard.

About this time mills were moving from bagged to bulk sugar and they organised the transport. It was a complete shambles. The Hell Drivers had nothing on this. You had a sugar bin bolted on then and off to the mill where they loaded her up. Round the block to pack it down a bit, push in some more then hell for leather to the Port to unload.
The fastest trucks got more loads in per day and there was some serious racing to get that last load to the Port before closing.

There were many accidents, the worst one burnt for days and the mill managers were concerned with the poor public perception of the whole business.
For some reason they contacted Dad. It was way out of his league so he suggested a big Brisbane company might be interested.
W. Quince and Co was approached and they sent up their gun contracts man. But he went over like a lead balloon with the parochial mill managers so a local sand/gravel supplier contracted to cart for Millaquin mill. Quince hit the roof and flew his son up to sort out the situation. He went home with a 5 year contract for Bingera Mill and dad as manager.

The first change dad made was averaging of loads. All tonnage was toted up daily and divided by the number of trips, that was what you got payed. Immediately the favouritism from old mate loading the bins ended and once a schedule of daily loads was formed, there was no more racing.
It became a milk run job using owner drivers only and good money was made.
In the slack, most owners went onto tipper or body work but the money earned was nowhere near as good as the sugar.

As the mills increased production, we moved to 2-bin and then 3-bin rigs. Wallaville and Childers mills were also contracted to Quince.

Wallaville was a particularly old mill, owned by Gibson and Howes (Bingera) and using all their left over gear. It didn

Another great story Jeffo, Quince and Co, there's a name I havn't heard for a long time. They had a huge fleet of red D series Ford tippers. I remember seeing a photo in an old Truck and Bus of them all lined up. They had their yard down at West End near the river I think. What happened to them?

Used to be down Kurilpa St. from memory???
I think they went the same as us all, got old.
Col has been gone at least 10 to 15 years.
He had a son my age but I don't think he went into the family business.