Brambles Long Distance

Not sure whether this is the right place for this question?

Does anyone have any information about a company called Brambles?

i think they may have had a few reddy orange colored trucks running around at one stage?

I did hear that they may have carted timber beams for the old crooked pub, up north of Albury..

A mate of mine drove for them before he drove coaches..
lives in Queensland now somewhere i believe,,


chocs

Chocks, plenty of rantings from a certain "mad person", are posted on this forum already, you'll just to do a search and see what comes up.

regards greenie [smiley=vrolijk_1.gif]

OK, if you can't find any of my tales from the road, here's one I posted years ago.

Been on a couple of weeks rest and recreation, aka, holidays, it was a bit quite at the time, so the company, Brambles, decided on giving a few of us, some time off with the family, now when I get back to work, I can't see my truck in the yard to go load all my gear into it.

Up to the front counter at the office and am told that another driver has got my truck and he's on his way back from Jabaru, I'm told to hop into Wes's Road Boss, who's on holidays, grab a trailer and go load it. Then take off for Tambo and told to wait for Gary at Tambo, who's driving my truck, I'm to do the change over with the trucks and keep going north to Jabaru, ditch the load and head straight back to Brisbane for another load.

OK, get to Tambo early the next morning, no sign of Gary with my truck, so I have breaky and then Gary rolls south into town. Talking to Gary before we swap horses, he informs me that he just hit a pig a couple of hours ago.
Yeh, where, -- as you don't want to run over a dead one ever, as the mess is twice as bad. Gary informs me that it's on top of the rise, 3 kays east of Ilfracombe. It did stink a tad when I was under hooking up the trailer leads, and this stink is from a freshly killed one.
Do the change over and head off north, sure enough, 3 kays before Ilfracombe, there's the pig, dead centre of the east bound lane, so I pass it on the westbound lane . Eventually I get unloaded and head back home.
Lo and behold that damned pig was still right where it got hit, only thing now after about a week, it's starting to inflate, you could see where road trains had gone to the north and into the gravel to miss this stinkin' porker, so some must have even gone over onto the wrong side of the road to miss it, no body, had even come close to hitting it.

It was now very "ripe" and was sporting a big bunch of blow flies, that were like a mini cloud hanging over this stinkin' rotten corpse. Anyway, I just keep heading south and swing around the corner and into Tambo.
There's Wes's truck parked up pointing north with a loaded trailer, I pull up to have a chat with him and it isn't Wes, but Gary, who's laying across the seats, crook as a sick dog, he'd already worked it out with Brisbane, for me to do the change over right here, so he could get back home.

Do the change over again with the trailers, and head north again, coming towards Ilfracombe and that pig is still where it should be, and no one's touched it yet. Of up to Jabaru and unload and head for home again.

Coming out of Longreach a taxi slips in behind me, it's got the driver and three passengers with broad rimmed hats on, the passengers are a railway crew, heading out for a change over, with another crew down the line somewhere.
This taxi stays real close to me and no matter what I do, he aint coming around me, each time I would give a quick blink on the right hand indicator and move to the left, all he would do is just move the car out to the centre of the road, with the right hand wheels rolling along the white lines. Must have done this about a dozen times and about now, I'm getting a bit peeved of with this turkey, just sitting back there on me dot, for all this time.
Get up to Ilfrancombe and slow down in the main street, it's nice and wide and he could have passed me easily, but nope, he stays tucked in right behind me.

Ah-ha, click, that little light bulb lights up in the grey matter, I look up the road and there's the pig, by now after a couple of weeks in the hot Qld sun, it's blown up like a balloon and it's ready to go "pop", so try to get this turkey to pass again, no way, he's staying put, he still just moved out to the line and kept following me.

Chuckle, chuckle, surprise, surprise is about to happen to this joker, eh.

Get up close to the pig and I give the R/H blinker a quick blip , pull left into the dirt and look in the mirror. Yep, this turkey is now staddling the white line with his R/H wheels, I kick up a cloud of dust so he don't know what's in store for him, which then puts his left hand wheels directly in line with the pig.

Look real close at the mirror as I pull it back on the road and yep, the car does a little jig as he hits this plonker. The car only managed to go another fifty or so yards, when it screams to stop to the left in a great big cloud of dust, four doors are then flung open and four bodies are running away from the taxi, as fast as they can.

By the time I had crested the next rise, which was about another 3 kays down the road, the taxi was still sitting there, I could just image the words of wisdom these turkeys were saying, like, " you get in and drive it", "nah, piss-off, you get in it ".

Me, I was still laughing about this little effort all the way back to Brisbane.

regards greenie [smiley=vrolijk_1.gif]

That's a terrible thing to do, Greenie!!

Thanks Greenie, that story makes the detours through the topic more than worthwhile.

Here's something that involved another driver from Brambles Heavy Haulage from Brisbane.


This happened to another driver by the name of Greg Jones , now deceased, he used to drive for Brambles H/H at Brisbane before I was driving there, he'd gone and bought himself a truck ,and was consequently now a permanent subby to Brambles H/H Brisbane.

When he was a driver for H/H, he used to drive a B model Mack, this lot happened, when was heading down to Melbourne with a load.

He had departed Narrabri early one morning, way before sun-up, and headed out onto the "crystal highway ", aka - Newell Highway, before it was sealed, it was called the crystal highway from all the busted windscreens scattered along the roadside. It was a cold morning and as anyone who has ever driven a B model will tell you, in the cold, they we're 'effin' cold, then again, when the day was hot, they were 'effin' hot, so he had kind of rugged himself up agin the cold, he'd put on a set of cover-alls over his shorts and singlet, yep, that should do it.

Well, he was about half way out into 'Yowie' country, when nature just didn't call, it hit him in the guts real bad, so he gets up to the top of the next rise where he could pull over, grabs the torch and a roll of 'bum fodder' and heads out into the scrub as quick as he could.

Finds a likely spot and proceeds to do the job at hand, when all's finished, then he has to get the cover-alls back on, so, bends down and pulls them up, left arm into left sleeve, right arm into right sleeve

---

W.T.F.

A funny sort of a warm, then cold feeling, as something slides down his back, EH.

Yep, you guessed it, he'd done the job onto his cover-alls, and now it was all deposited down the back of his singlet.

He spent quite a while there, trying to clean up.

I heard this story from another driver and then asked Greg about it, he kind of smiled, hung his head and said "yep, it's true".

regards Greenie

think I put this lot up once before ?

Back to the original subject.....Remember loading out of Sydney with Brumbles up to Gladstone with wide loads.The original hot pit beds for QAL the aluminum smelter in about 1970.Three trucks unloaded ,only one got to Miriamvale .Two had slipped off the road just out of Gladstone.(first rain on a greasy road).At least I got a back load to Sydney.(one truck and one trailer on the old C1800)...These hot pit beds had to be tarped to the combing as any moisture would damage the special tiles on the bases . It was a three day trip with the old Perkadyne blowing black smoke and flame all the way....EPA would lock you up these days

Back onto the subject, - OK.


Had to P/U a long bit of steel frame work, which was for an overhead conveyor belt, this frame had to go to the Aluminium Smelter at Gladstone. This converor belt was across one of the busiest roads in the smelter works area, that's why it was a tad longer and heavier built bit of framework.
I had to use this rather long, stretched out old Low Loader, which had been made specially to cart brand new coal cars to the rail line, you also had to thieve a bogie single point suspension out of another L/L, along with the number plate, tsk- tsk.

This frame work was both long and high, bit too high actually, P/U was from Brekky Creek area, so had to use a Mr Plod, who turned up on a bike, we head of up Sandgate Rd, all the way to Boondall and chuck a left at Beams Rd, then head for the highway at Carseldine.

This 'route' was printed on the permit.

Of we go bright and early, oops, very dark and real early actually, going good till I get to Beams Rd, the first bit of Beams Rd to Muller Rd is OK, as the houses are all double story, but, after Muller Rd, most of the newer houses, are now low set.

What's this got to do with anything you may ask, well, all the electric power poles are on the north side of Beams Rd, so the wires coming from the poles to these low set houses on the south side of Beams Rd, are now with-in easy reach of this rather large bit of framework I'm carting. Didn't matter if I drove on the wrong side of the road or not, I was just going to get all these wires, yep, got most of them, would be some very angry people waking up to the fact they had no power or phone on this cheery cold morning.

Get up to Carseldine, swing right onto the highway, look in the mirror as I do the turn, wow, I got me a long tail of wires dragging along the ground, pull up at the servo just around the corner, hop out and start winding all this wire up into a big tangled ball.
No sign of Mr Plod, he's vanished up the highway.
After about 5 mins of franticly winding up all this loose wire, Mr Plod returns and ask me "what in the hell am I doing", -- "nothing, just collecting all this wire for a bit of booze money", he looks at me stupidly and shrugs his shoulders and away we go again.

Had to take a couple of minor detours as you go north, or the load will get a bit bent up, now the funny thing was, this Mr Plod on the bike started to wander all over the road every now and then, I put it down to him having a bit of a stretch on the bike whilst moving. The further north we went, the worse this wandering around the bike was doing, eh, something not quite right here.

Whoa, is this bloke half cut ,or what, never seen a Mr Plod on a bike, ride like this before ?

Eventually get to Miriam Vale for some fuel and pull of the highway to get to the bowsers, it's now getting a bit on the dark side as the sun had set, was only going to go to Bororen and pull up for the night anyway.

Finished fuelling and pulled away from the bowser, now the best way to get back onto the highway, is to go straight down the main st of Miriam Vale, then pull out onto the highway on the other side of town, OK, out I go and get to the intersection and stop, as a car was coming south on the highway.

When I stop, I'm out in the middle of just grass land, no houses close by at all, but, I then see all this bright flashing lights around me, exactly the same as a welder makes, W.T.F. is going on here, quick look at the mirrors and it even looks brighter back there, quick glance at the top of this framework, and bugger me, it looks like a science experiment is in full swing, all these small arcs of lightning are hitting onto this steel frame coming down from the high voltage wires I've stopped under.


Just dropped the clutch and gave it heaps, felt sorry for the poor car driver, he had to run off the road to avoid hitting me, but, it was him or me getting fried, so he lost that argument.

Get to Bororen and pull of to the side for the night, Mr Plod comes back and I say to him, "did you see all those lightning bolts hitting on the frame", - his answer, "yep, it's been getting better as the day went along, but that was the best one for day though".

Eh, I didn't realise it at the time, that the QLD power grid or power lines, got lower the further north you went.
Now being a tad on the 'over' the high side, this bought the steel legs on the framework up closer to the power lines.
So as the day progressed on, the power lines got closer, as they got closer, the more arcing and sparking they produced.

Now that was why Mr Plod was doing all the wandering around, as I went underneath every power line that crossed the road, his eyes were stuck to the motor bike mirror, waiting and watching for this special fireworks display.

regards greenie [smiley=vrolijk_1.gif]

Good one Greenie . I didn't think we were so literate back in those days.Always told Mr Plod I had trouble filling out my Grimm's Fairy Tales, and he should have been too old to read them

Now for a bit of humour, totally unintentional, but it just happened

---

Here's something that was rather funny at the time, it was absolutely and TOTALLY unintentional, but what a spectacular result.

Northbound from Moree and the highway used to have a lot of causeways/floodways instead of all the bridges that are there now. Building a causeway was a heck of a lot cheaper than building bridges, so you just got used to these concrete slabs scattered all down the highway.
A large band of clouds had deposited a heck of a lot of rain around that area, and these causeways were loaded with water, some a tad deep, others not so deep.

The old "rule of the road" back then, was if it's bigger than you, you back off, the big 'un's get right of way ALWAYS, all the locals and regular users of the highways, understood the reasons for this unwritten rule.

Just up near the halfway point between Moree and Goondiwindi is a series of these causeways and they were all loaded with water.

Anyway, coming up towards the last causeway, I see a Southbound Mercedes car approaching this causeway and he started to slow down, good, he's giving me the go on this lot and I never even lifted my right toe, just kept it flat and headed on towards this lot of shallow water.

This south bound Mercedes had slowed down a tad, but, now he was trying to beat me across this large puddle, well his timing was WAY OUT. It's now far too late for me to back off, so he's about to get his car washed real quick.

He'd driven straight into the water and was about a quarter of the way across this puddle, when I hit it at full noise. I noticed that it was an 'old codger' driving and it had a Canberra rego plate on it, his missus had one of those up in air beehive hairdo's, think about the TV show The Simpsons, 'Marge' has a blue beehive hairdo.
Anyway I notice all these little things as I head into the water, I now got a BIG wave coming of my front tyres, it's about 4 feet high and being thrown sideways about 10 feet, rather 'kool' looking at this wave in the mirror, l Iook back up front and see this 'old codger' is frantically trying to wind his door window up.

Well, he was just a tad 'too late', as we passed in this puddle I reckon about 20 gallons of water went straight into that open window from the wave I was making, look in the mirror and he's now vanished in this wave of water.

As I come out the other side, I can now see the car in the mirror, he's stationary in that large puddle, I must have swamped his motor with that bleedin' great wave I was making, as well as, dumping all that water into his open window.

I take a quick look at his 'missus', and that big beehive hairdo just ain't no more, it's now looking like wet string, hanging straight down from her scalp and down to her shoulders, not only did the 'old codger' got a bath, his 'missus' got one too, boy, that wave must have been like a fire hose aimed at that open window.

I couldn't stop laughing at what had just happened and I thought to myself, that bloke will definately give way to anybody and everybody from now on.

regards greenie [smiley=vrolijk_1.gif]

Good yarns Greenie, was Sully driving there then??