Brambles Long Distance

Greenie ... who had the contract for the roadside slashing? He did a bluddy good job!!

Greenie ... who had the contract for the roadside slashing? He did a bluddy good job!!

Who ever scored that contract, had it made for life, eh Bugly.



Here's a couple of signs from out in the paddock, you will never see anything like these over on the East Coast.


regards greenie [smiley=vrolijk_1.gif]

I think I posted this on this forum years ago, for those that missed it

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Willow Tree Weigh-bridge.

Back in the late 70's early 80's, the "Mr Plod" couldn't read a log book very well, it was only the NSW and Vic "Mr Plods" that had been taught to read them, they even had flying squads on the prowl, so you behaved yourself whenever these turkeys were around, in those states.

But, the NSW Main Roads Department sure knew a thing or two about what was going on, the 'scalies, or mermaids', were a right pain in the proverbial actually, so every time you headed down into Cockroach County, you had to be right on the ball.

One Monday morning I was given a job to take a Euclid 35 dump truck, from Brisbane to Singleton, head around to load this bit-o-gear onto the tri axle low loader, get it onto the deck easy enough, one of the workers at the place loaded it onto the low loader for me, he even reversed it on, to make unloading it a lot easier.

OK, when it's up on the deck, I take a good look around to see if all is OK, I take a look at the tyres on the low loader and W.T.F. they look like they are half flat, ask the fella's what have they been doing to this thing, to make it so heavy.

I'm given a blank look by these turkeys, so, I climb up onto the machine to have a look in the dump bowl, WOW, they have welded all these heavy gauge bit's of angle iron into the bottom of the bowl, just for good measure, they had welded these very thick plates to the sides as well, even threw in a couple of spare tyres ( fully rigged and full of water ) and a couple of drums of hydraulic oil were chucked into it as well.
This machine was going to a new dam site near Singleton, and they were shifting bleedin' big rocks, hence, the all these extra's strong bits were welded into the the dump body.

Hmm, this is looking decidedly different than what a normal Euclid 35 should weigh, with a tri axle, you could just get away with carting one of these on an overload permit, but, this thing now required a quad axled low loader.

Oops, better ring the boss and explain all this, he say's no one else is available and it's me, or, don't let the door hit me bum on the way out, OK then, I can see which way this hand is being played, so, who's going to pay the overload fines if I get grabbed, a couple of minutes later I'm told they will pay, BUT, just don't get caught, PLEASE.

Needed a pilot vehicle as well, because it was a tad wide and the law down in Cockroach County said I needed one, so we eventually get going about 10 AM, a bit late, but that's OK, no great rush to get this thing there.

First night is spent at the Glencoe Pub, left there the next morning and get down to Willow Tree for lunch and am informed that the 'scalies' have arrived at the weigh-bridge south of town and it looks like they are going to settle in for the week. Oh boy, this is going to be very boring waiting to sit them out.

Onto the phone and I'm told to' just sit tight', if I'm not out on the road, they can't book me.

So Tuesday goes by, Wednesday comes and goes by, Thursday comes along and ring Bris again, this time I'm told to go check out some of the local roads, to see if I can detour around these turkeys.

Any roads to the east of the highway are useless and then in the afternoon, we check out the road to Merriwa, things are starting to look promising about now, so we decide to depart this village of Willow Tree at about 1 am Friday morning.

Now the 'scalies' have the weigh-bridge open 24 Hrs, so that means there are two crew's who man the weigh-bridge, nobody knew exactly where this second crew was hanging out at, they used to use one of the pubs in town, that is until a few truckies heard about it and decided to burn their car, now, nobody knew just where they were located.

So sneak of out of town and head for the hills, literally, for after a while you run into a rather steep range of hills, all gravel road and now getting decidedly skinny, like one lane only. Start going up the hill and the pilot tells me that there's a very sharp right hand corner up ahead of me, so stay well left, and try and remove my L/H mirror on the left hand clay bank as I go round this sharp corner. I do as I'm informed and this corner isn't just sharp, it turns right back on itself, in a very short distance.

I'm starting to think about now," I'm in trouble again", when I'm only half way around this corner, so, I turn on my rear loading lights to see what's going on out the back.

Boy-oh-boy, wish I'd never turned those lights on now, the side of the low loader is way out in fresh air, and I'm dragging it around with the right hand chassis rail rubbing on the ground, keeping it from tipping over and going down the hill sideways, the wheels on the right side are not turning at all, their just hanging out in fresh air, the white posts on that side of the road are just getting popped out of the ground with the side of the low loader.

Turned the lights of real fast, and started 'praying' that this thing, will get around that corner without falling over.

Managed to get around that sharp corner and kept climbing this range, got to the top about 2 AM and started to get rolling along again, as it was pointing down hill and I get up a good comfortable pace, the road did a few twists and turns as you rolled along with a few slight rises and dips just to keep you on your toes.

Got a bit more comfortable than I should have as I shot across a Grid, now this thing was real noisy, as the railway lines it was made from, were all welded together and only just placed into the concrete form work, in other words this framework of steel was only loosely fitted in, they were not cemented in place at all.

At a bit after 2 AM, this noise was like a stick of dynamite had been let off, even made me jump, it was that loud.

Keep going downhill with lots of twists and weaves and in the high beam of the headlights, all the gum trees growing down each side of the road had a sort of square cut-out shape about them, right down the middle of the road, from where cattle trailers had done a bit of pruning, it looked rather neat the way it was all trimmed up so nicely.

About ten minutes after the grid, a set of headlights comes up real fast from behind me, he's sitting on my arse end as though he'd used super glue, followed like this for about a half a kay, when he does this sharp left turn and heads into the bush, eh, what's going on back there. Tell the pilot what's happening back there and sort of say out loud, "maybe it's a drunk coming home late".

Car comes up close again and not long following closely, does the turn again, this time to the right, this keeps going on like this for about 5 kays, up real close, then he would hit the skids and do a sharp turn, either left or right, he must have got sick of doing all this stopping and turning, so he drops back and realises that he can't get passed me.


to be continued

second attempt

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Eventually the road comes out from the timber line and now there are open wheat paddocks on each side of the road, the road even widens out to two lanes of dirt.

Car following screams up along side me and then he turns on those horrible purple flashing lights, oh $hite , I'm in deep doo-doo now, so pull up and then the turkey driving gets out and he's absolutely livid, he's screaming at the top of his lungs at me, whilst the older fella in the passenger seat asks him to quite down.
I'm ordered to follow them into Merriwa and we stop directly outside the 'Mr Plod shop', I know where I'm going, if I decide to burr up and not co-operate with these two turkeys.

So they get out the weigh pads and start weighing me, my front axle goes for 7 ton, oops, should only be 6, the drive goes 20 ton, oops, allowed 18 in Cockroach County, the tri down the back goes for 27 ton, oops, max allowed on the tri, even on an overload permit is 24 down here, they got me cold on this lot and there's no way out of this.

When this overloading happens when your using an overload permit, then your going to get a ticket that shows what your max weight is, against what a legal load should be. Me, I'm sitting here with about 54 ton all up, against a legal loading of only 38 ton, so the fine will generally be about a grand a ton, eh, this ticket is sure going to be a Lu-Lu.

They finish weighing me about 3-30 AM and the "angry turkey", snarls at me for my log book, licence and permits, grabs them and then stomps of down the street.

Now I'm left with the 'older sensible turkey' and ask him where the angry one has gone too, he informs me he's gone around the corner to the local phone box to ring THE boss in Sydney, what at 3-30 AM, ah well, I'm in it pretty deep now, so might as well start talking to this older dude.

For the first time I have a real good close up look at this dude and then I notice he's wearing slippers, his pyjamas are poking out of his trouser legs and his shirt is actually his pyjama top. I then ask him what in the #ell were they were playing at, with all that running of the road back there in the timber.

He really sparked up with that question, so he ask me how tall I am, about 5ft 10in I reply, -- no you idiot, the bloody load, I tells him -- about 4.9 metres tall, why.

His eyes get all big and white as he's telling me about all the timber I was cutting down, and dropping it on the road in front of their car, each time they went bush, a BIG branch lobbed on the road right in front of them. He reckoned that I should go back and clean up the mess that I left all over that road.
A quick scramble up to look into the bowl and he's right, I had about a years worth of firewood stacked up in that bowl, wow, never collected a load like that before.

What had happened, was that I had the Euclid loaded on in reverse, so the back of the bowl was sticking up and leading into all these trees, the sides of the rear of the bowl were just cutting any and all branches that they came in contact with, no wonder branches were raining down on them.

Had a dig at him about his dress code, and asked him - how in the #ell did he know I was out there. He starts to tell me, that as they we're the other crew for the weigh bridge, they were staying at this 'DUDE RIDING RANCH', that is close to that loose grid. As I hit it and made that load bang, he woke up and stuck his head out the window and there I was, his offsider asks, what is it, he reply's, " I dunno, but it's effin huge ".
So they decide to set sail and grab me, all they threw on were their pants and a jumper, still, with the PJ's underneath and no time for shoes, slippers will just have to do.

After about 10 mins or so, the 'angry one' comes back, and he ain't just angry now, he's about to blow a gasket, he's fuming, so he walks up to the 'older wiser one' and starts talking to him, I can't quite hear what is being said, but the 'older wiser one' is now laying down the law, to the 'angry one'. The 'angry one' marches back to me, tosses my paperwork on the ground at my feet, doesn't say a word to me, just glares at me.

Now if looks could kill, I would have been dead ten times over, then he turns and marches of back to the car and gets in it.

The 'older wiser one' comes up and explains that the phone call to Sydney, did not go down too well at all, the boss told the angry one, to go and get stuffed, to never ever ring him at home at that ungodly hour, ever again, or, he'll be looking for another job. The boss orders them to let me go, as I was only using my initiative, by driving along these empty back country roads, instead of using the busy highway.

PHEW, what a relief, no slammer for me today, so lets go.

Delivered that machine and never said a word to the blokes at the dam site, about all that extra timber on board, figured they could use it to keep warm`.

Head on into Newcastle and waited until the next day, for the bit of gear I had to P/U, would be finished, it was a brand new JOY Coal Shuttle Car, you little beauty, a legal load for once, not wide, not high, not long, nor heavy at all. An easy load to go all the way up to the central Qld Coal Fields, ooooooh bliss.

Head North up the highway, towards Willow Tree and that pesky weigh bridge is still open, ah well, all's legal with this one, so I slide right in onto the bridge. Look out the window at the two blokes working the bridge and blow me down, if it aint the 'angry one' and the 'older wiser one' in there.

A quick toot on the horn and I give them a big smily and I wave at them, - ya' know, - just being friendly and saying g'day, the 'angry one' looks up and just went berserk, he starts waving his fists at me and was swearing at me as hard as he could, 'older wiser one' stuck his head out the door and told me to -- " just eff orf', -- before the 'angry one' has a heart attack ", so, I did just that, laughing all the way into Willow Tree for tea.

Had a bit of an audience in the cafe that evening, I started to tell the bloke who ran the joint about my little escapade with these two clowns, he stops me about halfway through and informs all the other drivers to listen in to this lot, now, I got some of them laughing so much, I thought they might have downloaded into their britches, they thought that little effort was a 'wee ripper'.


regards greenie [smiley=vrolijk_1.gif]


the scalies nightmare, eh

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Greenie, I can relate to that yarn...

As I've had occasion to use that same track (for similar types of reasons).
Even today It's not much better, than you describe..

keep 'em coming..........

Here's a bit about "road rage" that happened in Brisbane.

Driving my car to the depot one morning and was travelling west on Kessels Rd, then had to turn right onto Orange Grove Rd, Kessels Rd has two right turn lanes at this 'T' intersection. Got a red light and pulled up in the left lane, another car then stops on my right, and I'm just looking around whilst waiting for the lights to change. See a car approach on my left and he hits the stoppers, as he's now got a red light, the driver following him, just don't stop at all, he just rear ends him and it's a bloody good whack he give that car in front too.

Now the fun starts.

Driver # 2, jumps out of his car and runs up to driver # One, grabs him by the shirt and starts whacking into his face big time, I've now got a green light,

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piss orf,

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this is getting real interesting, car alongside me decides to stay put as well, just to see what eventuates.

About now, driver # One, winds his window up real fast, trapping turkey # 2's left arm real good and tight, driver # one looks at us parked there and see's were watching the proceedings, so he drops the toe and moves off real quick.

Turkey # 2 - aint - going - nowhere, other than up the road with that car, we watch as they go up the road and turkey # 2 , is now striding it out like an Emu, he's really taking huge strides just to keep up with the car. Driver # 1 must have gone about 50 metres up the road and had got up a good turn of speed as well, when he decides to wind the window down and let go of this 'turkey' that's doing this 'impersonation' of an Emu at full flight.

Turkey # 2 is now free, but he sure ain't home and hosed just yet, his right foot hits the ground the first time, his leg is stiff, another giant stride and the same thing when his left foot hits the ground, now for that pesky right foot again,

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whoops,

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he stumbles and trips,

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his head is now leading the race for the tar.

Wham, he hits it hard and just keeps sliding, OUCH, that's gotta hurt, big time.

Eventually he stops sliding, realises he's in the middle of the road and staggers upright,

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boy it must have been painful to even try and move.
Anyway, he picks himself up, and starts to walk back to his busted up car, WOW, what a sorry sight this turkey is, gravel rash all over one side of his face, the front of his shirt is in tatters, the knees are missing from his pants and now it's all starting to bleed.

He sure looked a sorry sight all right, but, no sympathy for this 'turd' at all, he got what he deserved, in 'spades'.

Got the green light again, so this time I took of up Orange Grove Rd and drive passed this idiot, who is just standing there on the footpath soaking up all the pain, he sure looked real sore about now, so a couple of toots on the horn, a flip of the bird and a lot of laughter, and I head of for work.

regards greenie [smiley=vrolijk_1.gif]

Great stories Greenie, better than anything on the TV .

This did not happen to me, but everybody sure heard about it

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Brambles had acquired some Drake Platforms and a few Leaders to drag all this HEAVY gear around the countryside.

Two Leaders were up front of a 10 row of 8 Drake module, this had a bit-o-lard on board, somewhere near 80 odd ton.
Errol Guetz was hooked to the neck of the module and Frank Wharton was out front on the stiff bar, they had a pilot and a Mr Plod, to keep that "silly lot of car and truck drivers " away from them.

They departed Glen Innes heading south, now these sort of combo's, are not known for the ability to get up to a good top speed, nope, these things just plod along at a steady pace.

South from Glen Innes is a remote railway siding, that goes by the name of Stonehenge, the railway line used to cross the New England here at a 45 degree angle, there was a house close to this rail crossing and it had enormous Elm trees growing as a huge hedge along side this railway line. It was very hard to see if a train was approaching from the Glen Innes way at all.

No wig-wag signals on this open level crossing back then, you took a gamble, any time you stuck your nose out onto that line.

Time is about 10 AM as they get near this rail crossing, Mr Plod goes over the line OK, followed by the pilot car and ' NO ' noise on the CB, about any trains around at all.

Errol and Frank have got it rolling along very nicely, Frank sticks his nose out onto the line, he even does a quick look both ways to see, nothing to report at all, now Errol is just starting to get out onto the line and he sees that 'bloody big spot light' back over his right shoulder, as this rail motor had just popped over a crest and was now approaching far too quick for Errol's liking, he grabs the mike and screams

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TRAIN.

Frank and Errol can only hit the go pedal harder, not too many other options are open to them.

The trucks give a surge forward, but not quick enough for Errol, he's done the mental arithmetic and it didn't look good at all.

Train is fast approaching the rear of the platform, Errol's hoping that they are clear of the line, NOPE, he feels a whack down the rear end, grabs the mike and starts yelling, - WE JUST GOT THE TRAIN ".

Now this got the attention of the pilot and Mr Plod real quick.

All proceedings come to stop, even the rail motor, which is stationary a couple of hundred yards down past the level crossing. Everybody with the load, is out and looking down the line at the rail motor, even the passengers are starting to get down from it, no sign of the "driver" coming back towards them at all.

Mr Plod now decides to take charge of this lot and starts to walk down the track towards the rail motor, he yells at the passengers, - " where's the driver ", followed by a little voice from way, way back behind him, - " I'm here ",

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every body looks around 180 degrees, here he is alright, walking down the line towards the rail motor, eh, what's he doing there ?

Errol now has a real good look at the back end of the platform, at the very end of the left rear corner, there is a silver paint mark on it, whew, just missed out on a bit of mayhem here, that rail motor must of had a slight dent with red mark on him, at the same height on the front right hand corner.

Just paint marks and a bit of a bump really, but it was that close to major destruction.

They soon find out why the driver is walking, one of the passengers from the train starts to abuse the driver real good.

Turns out, when the driver of this rail motor saw this rather large 'slow moving object' directly in front of him, well, he weren't hanging around to see what eventuated

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AT ALL.

He slammed the stoppers on, swivelled around in his seat and bolted for the back door, opened it and just bailed out, most of the passengers are looking at him deserting the train, some must have been looking forward as well, lots of panic and lots of screaming onboard about now.

Heck of a lot of paperwork was required/needed after this little effort, the Plods were involved as well, this lot took months to eventually blow over.


regards greenie [smiley=vrolijk_1.gif]

End result.. the house is still there ,so is the hedge but now no trains

Sometimes you have to wonder, if some people have any BRAINS at all

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Sent to Hasting Deering at Archerfield to pick up a small dozer, think it was a second hand Drott, had to take it to a farm just a tad north-east from Monto.

Arrived at the gate and told where this machine was and who to ask for to get it loaded, all's good with the loading, chain it down tight onto the Allison 3 x 4, then told to go see another person in the front office for directions.

Do that, find the guy and he hands me a piece of paper with a lot of bad scribbling on it. We both work it out ( should read decipher ) what these scribbled directions are.

From memory, it was written down short and sweet, and came out something like this,

Monto, Kalpower head north, turn right Blackmans Gap Rd, ignore the sign, down the hill, cross the creek, red mail box on stump, turn left and the farm is up that track.

Great directions eh, the fella that wrote them down, HE lived there, so HE knew what he was saying.

Get to Kalpower, head north looking for Blackmans Gap Rd, it was right where the map say's it's meant to be, turn right and head of up this dirt road, the road is now heading uphill, as there is this rather large mountain in front of me.

Working my way UP the HILL, as the directions called it, eventually get right up top of this bloody great big lump of dirt and there's this great big sign up there that reads, " This road is not suitable for caravans, please go back ", W.T.F.

No room for me to turn around up here at all, look at the scribbling on the paper again, it say's IGNORE THE SIGN,

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OK, I'll do just that,

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bloody big mistake doing that.

Now, the 3 x 4 Allison low loader, is actually about 10 foot longer, than a normal 40 foot trailer, so I'm decidedly longer than ANY car and caravan could ever be.

The road is now just one lane of dirt going down this mountain, a few twists and turns soon warn me I should NOT be here at all.

As I go down this track, it gets even narrower, it's now only suitable for a car, then, I notice that the road has been carved out of the rock wall, this in turn means there is a very steep drop of down on the right hand side, yep, sure is and it's a bloody good 'un.

The track is now that skinny and the turns are getting that tight, boy, I'm in the doo-doo again.

At one point, the track does this very sharp turn to the left around a rock wall, I look in the mirror and the left rear end of the float is actually trying to climb this rock wall, oops, think I better go a tad wider for this corner.

NO BLEEDIN' WAY can this be done, as I poke my head out the right hand window, there's this very, very steep drop off down the right hand side, virtually straight down, I can see a crashed car, way, way down the bottom of the gully and it looks like a matchbox toy, I'm now looking out the r/h window and I'm hugging the top of this cliff with the right hand front wheel, knocking out all the white posts as I go around it.

Oh $hite, I'm in trouble again, the rear of the float sort of starts to try and go up the cliff face, then slides down again, does this a couple of times and the arse end is actually getting dragged/pushed sideways around this very sharp corner, I keep going down this HILL, eventually, I get to the bottom and there's the creek.

The bridge over this creek is very short and it's in the middle of a right hand turn, eh, something has to give here.

Start out onto this wooden structure and realise I'm far to long to get around the corner with all wheels on the deck of the bridge, nothing to do now except keep going, the truck is across it and now for the rear end of the float.
The r/h rear wheels start to ride up onto the r/h bridge beam, the one that's been placed there, to stop cars from going over the side and into the water. The white posts and rails haven't got a chance now, I drag it around and they just kind of get all squashed off, at least I'm off the HILL and over that creek, now where's that red mail box.

The mail box is now in sight and there's the track I need, so swing left and up a long drive to the old house, way up on the side of this mountain.

Get to the house and a few people come outside and are gawking at the truck and float, one of the blokes comes over and introduced himself, he's the one the dozer is for, unload it and he then ask if I've had any tucker this morning, nope, so all inside and the cook gets the stove going.

This bloke then asks me, - " how in the hell did I get that lot, down that hill ? ", my answer, - " with a great deal of difficulty, and who's the 'clown' that wrote out those directions ", turns out it was 'him' and then tells me that he goes up and down this hill with his low loader all the time. Where's this truck then, he points out the vehicle up the back yard, it's a single drive ACCO with a very short single axled low loader, which looks like it had been homemade, from scavenged scrap bits left over from the 2nd W.W. This bit of 'wild gear' would have been only about half the length I was, ah well, $hit happens, eh.

Tell him what I've done and he then says, -" oh-oh, think I better get out there and repair that bridge then ", as he is the only fool, that uses a trailer on that hill and the fellas who do the work on that road know it, they'll blame him any way for all of what I've just done.

Ask him how do I get out of here, without attempting to go back up 'that' hill, " oh, that's easy, just turn left at the mail box and you'll be in Miriam Vale with-in the hour.

By now, steam is coming out me ears, all this 'crap' and I could of sailed straight up the highway and arrived at this joint with-out any hassle AT ALL.

Left there, shaking my head, just wondering what some people used, or even had, for brains, eh.

regards greenie [smiley=vrolijk_1.gif]