Brambles Long Distance

I've just moved Greenie's stories to Historic Truck Chat to make it a bit easier to find them in the future, and they certainly fit the category well.

Again, thanks for sharing Greenie.

Here's a bit that happened to another driver that I was with

---

Went down to Melbourne with another driver, Wes Wright, to pick up a pair of CAM drives for a dragline that was being erected at Oakey Creek in central Qld.
Wes was a brand new driver for Brambles Heavy Haulage and I was told to hold his hand, too see how he got along.

While heading to Melb you get chatting at meal breaks and kind of get to know who your dealing with.
He had been working for the Crane Division as a cranedriver at the Hendra depot, but he really wanted to get out onto the road again.

His last driving job was carting race horses around the countryside, he had a tad of bother, with a couple of horse when he went to Sydney to P/U some 'fresh dog meat', loaded a couple of flat track gallopers and then had to P/U a trotter, now this particular trotter, had a virtual "twin" already onboard.

These two nags were identical, Wes swears you couldn't tell them apart, somehow these two nags got mixed up, as he had to stop along the way and stretch the legs of all this mobile dog meat.

Gets to Brisbane and delivers these nags to their respective kennels, the following morning the phones running hot, two very wild and irate owners are on the horn demanding to know what has been done to their nags.
One had been placed into the shafts of a trotting sulky and immediately kicked it too little pieces, owners not game to try again, as these 'sulkies' cost a pretty penny.
Now the other owner says, that the jokey can't get up onboard this "wild animal", he keeps getting chucked of and be blowed if he's getting back up onto it again.

Whoops, wrong nags to wrong address's, Wes is told to go rectify the situation ASAP, he does and is then shown the door when he gets back, he reckons the owners of that "dog meat moving establishment", had NO sense of humour at all.

Any way, I digress, I had my normal combo and Wes had another Road Boss with a 3 x 4 as well.

Get to Melbourne and arrive at the gate of Vickers Ruwolt, they used to be at the corner of Victoria St and Burnley St, Richmond, they have these two walking feet Cams ready, we load them and I chain mine down well. Wes on the other hand, is finding out that while his truck had been parked up at the Bris depot, with no master to drive it, some one else had decided that their need was greater and they removed a few of the big chains from the chain tray.

Hmm what to do now, I then get out all the good chains I've got left and help Wes tie down his load. These Cams for the walking feet are just on 24 ton and they have excellent machined surfaces, so that a set of bearing shells can be fitted to this machined surface on the Cams, we are not allowed to mark this surface, in any way at all.

If it happens to get a knick in that surface, the Cam will have to come back and be re-machined.

Everything looks OK, so we set sail for warmer weather, quite a lot further north, than this bleeding' fridge were now in.

The next day were well into NSW heading north, were now getting close to Coonababran and I pull up to check tyres and chains, just before that steep drop off, about 6 to 8 kays south of Coonababran, Wes doesn't stop at all, he just goes sailing over the top and down this hill at full bore. I jump back into the cab and grab the radio and ask him if he knows what he's doing, he answers. - " yep ", there is silence for about ten seconds and then, " OH $HIT ", followed by more silence.
Well, I take of after him and I'm going way too fast for this down hill slide, but not as fast as Wes is going, when I do eventually see what he's up to, all I can see is this great big cloud of white smoke trailing down of this big hill and him out on the bridge way down the bottom. Boy, were his brake linings making some smoke that day, it was so thick, that James Bond would of been proud of laying smoke so thick, as what Wes was making.
I get down further toward the bridge, Wes is doing the uphill bit from the bridge, he gets to the top and stops. By the time I arrive, he look like he was about to throw up, was he so scared.

I thought OK, lesson learnt here, or what ?

Waited about 15 minutes to let the brake linings stop smoking, had to do a tad of adjusting brakes too, we headed north again, this time Wes was tucked in behind me, he wasn't going to go round me again, maybe he did learn a lesson after all.

Get up to Narrabri and head for Moree, he stops for a 'call of nature' and I tell him over the radio, I'll be waiting for him at the halfway stop, just north of the village of Bellata.

About 3 clicks north of Bellata, the road goes up and over the main railway line, this bridge has had the ground sink away from the concrete bridge and if your not aware of it, it is a pretty good jump up to get onto the concrete, told Wes all about it on the way down, so hopefully, he will remember about what's there.

Wait at the pull over for about 10 minutes, when a car pulls in behind me in a cloud of dust, this driver jumps out and starts to stutter something about a truck back at the railway bridge, I calm him down and get it all straight then.

He was following Wes onto the bridge and as Wes hit it, he was going far to hard, the tri axle rear end did a jig up into the air, then Wes gets to the other side of the railway bridge this jig happens again, only now, there is a right hand turn chucked into this mix. This bloke saw the chains break and the load start to go sideways, the load then stands up straight and heads out into the paddock, Wes has now hit the stoppers, that's where this bloke in the car said, enough is enough and ripped around Wes, he then saw me parked just up the road and pulled in to tell me of what had happened.


to be continued ---

second instalment

---

I turn around to go have a look see and sure enough, here's this Cam, sitting way out in the paddock just about to lean on a power pole


Hmm, this is a doozy, how in the heck, are we going to get that thing back on, while it's stuck under these power lines, which just happens to carrying about a couple of hundred thousand volts, don't think any crane driver in his right mind, will even attempt this lift.

Thought about all that as soon as I got there, then went and saw Wes, to see how in the 'hell' it all happened.

Already had half a story from the car driver, lets see what Wes says.

He was open about it all, saying he was going far to quick for the jump up and when he came down this side, all hell broke loose. He describes to me what and how it all went pear shaped, all about the first 'hop up', then what happened on the 'hop down' from the bridge.

A rough version of events follows.

So the tri axle does this hop up again, and as it comes down hard, some of the chains snap and now the truck is into the turn, busted chains plus the gravitational forces, now tell this Cam it's time to depart this merry ride. It slides of to the left as the L/L is going right, the weight takes over about now and the float starts to tip over to the left as well, this terrifies Wes as nothing is doing what it's meant to be doing, the Cam is now touching the ground, with one side of it starting to dig in, the Cam is now free of the low loader altogether and just stands straight up-right and starts this very fast roll.

One side of the Cam has a larger circumference on the rim than the other side, so it takes of down the side of the road out into the verge, then proceeds to flatten the fence and way out into the wheat paddock with this large curve, so, out into a wheat field shouldn't be a problem, BUT, there are these power poles out in this field and this 24 ton Cam is coming to get them, these power lines supplies the whole of the NSW countryside from Moree and places further north and west, oh-oh, big trouble now, but the Cam actually stops rolling about 3 feet away from that first post.

A bit of head and butt scratching follows, then we go out into the field to inspect the machined surface on the Cam, would then know which way it could be taken, north or south, walk out into the field and looking at this thing closely, can't find a mark on the machined surface, even the grease covering it has not been touched AT ALL, the side bits are another matter altogether, they got plenty of marks on them.

Into my truck and back to Bellata for a phone call, this took about an hour to get it all sorted out, calls between Bris and Melb and back again, us ringing every ten minutes to see what to do. Eventually the blokes down in Melb believe us, that there are NO marks on the machined surfaces, so I'm told to do a vanishing act, Wes, will just have to cool his heels here overnight, while a crane is found that will get that thing back onto his truck.

I heard from Wes much later, that an old 8 wheeled Lima was working nearby, so it was requisitioned to do the 'deed', Wes was on his way once again, only 24 hrs later this time.

Me, when I got home, well I was in the 'deep end of that foul smelling pond' once again, boy, did I have to fill out some paperwork and do a lot of explaining about this fiasco, that was ALL created by another driver,

---

sometimes you just can't win, eh.


regards greenie [smiley=vrolijk_1.gif]




heres a pic of the offending article, you can see the fence line way back in the distance, the photo was taken, while I leaned against the post, that the Cam was very close to knocking down.

One thing about Heavy Haulage, it was NEVER the same thing BORING thing day after day, no close the doors on the trailer, now let's play "spook " heading north tonight, then tomorrow, do the same all over again, only this time your going south, still playing at being a " spook ".


What a boring existence that lot is, may as well be a robot, with a digit stuck up your fundamental orifice, eh.



Now Heavy Haulage is completely different, it's always

---

surprise,

---

surprise, no two trips are EVER the same.

I was given a job to take a 'rubber tyred front end loader', to a place called Mt Surprise, told to to use the inland track through Charters Towers, OK, used those roads before, so nothing special. The only thing unusual, was that I had to use a certain 2 row of 4 low loader to put it on.

Went to pick this front end loader up from Hastings Deering at Archerfield, usual thing, told where to go to load and who to ask for.

Get it onboard, chain it down and told to go see a fella in the front office for the paperwork. Get the paperwork and there is an extra bit of A 4 paper attached to all the CAT delivery paperwork, it's got a lot of chicken scratchings all over it. Turns out it's a mud map, showing me where to deliver this machine, as Mt Surprise pub, is just the starting point for this delivery.

Look close at this bit of paper, with all these chicken scratchings all over it.

Down the bottom of the page, is a rough drawing of the pub with Mt Surprise written on it, with some words written alongside the pub, "stand at the bar and look out the door, you'll see a track leading north, take it ".
A bit above the drawing of the pub, is what looks like a creek with 3 crossings, two have big crosses through them, words written alongside this state, use the third crossing, the others are too steep coming out on the other side.
Then there is very unusual looking thing drawn on the paper, words alongside," clay pan and bower bird nest, must turn left at the nest ", by now I'm starting to think that this is all a joke, but it's not.
Then another drawing up near the top, shows what looks like a hill and it's covered in something like round things, words say, turn right and go around this rocky outcrop, then a drawing of a rough hut with a big tick alongside it.

The bloke who gave me all this paperwork, sees the look on my face and starts laughing, as he had read this map as well and thought what a 'crock of crap' this lot is. Ask this fella what are they doing up at Mt Surprise with this machine, answer, - " digging up alluvial tin ",

---

OK.

Follow instructions and duly arrive at the Mt Surprise pub, walk into the bar, needed a beer anyway, front the bar and look out the door, yep, there's that track alright, going straight across the railway line and off into the scrub. If you were not forewarned about this track, you would think that the track only led you to the siding at the railyard, not keep going out into the scrub.

Had a very good talk to the bloke at the pub and started asking lots of questions, showed him my little 'mud map', this bloke just looked at it and did that 'nodding of the head', as though what he was looking at, was a normal everyday occurrence to him, so he starts talking about the place I have to get too.

Found out in the pub, that this area was occupied by the Yanks during the 2nd W.W, that's why the pub and railway siding is there.
These yanks made a heck of a lot of airstrips out here in the bush, they parked up heaps of planes and had them hidden away, ready for when they were needed.
They used the 'white ant nests' to make these air strips, they crushed them and added some D.D.T. as they mixed them up in a giant tumbler, added a tad of water, then spread this crushed stuff, out onto the ground and hit it with a roller. Now 30 odd years later, this stuff, is still as hard as concrete and that D.D.T has sure stopped any white ants venturing out onto it and building a nest, even the grass didn't/couldn't take hold out on this hard surface, the fella at the pub reckoned it looked like they had done this only last year.

Now, when all these air strips that are hidden away out there were built, the trucks they used to make the airfields, were mainly old short wheel based blitz trucks, think you know the ones I'm talking about.

Started to go up this track and noticed that the country up here, is grass savannah land, with a few stunted trees thrown in, just to give it a look that it's not quite completely desolate.
Lot's of tall grass equals lots and lots of white ant nest too, so plenty of them sticking their tops above the tall grass.

The ground around here is a very red soil and there are lots of rocks about 1 or 2 foot round, scattered about everywhere, this type of rock was called Scoria rock, it is a light weight red rock, and it has heaps of air bubbles all through it, when it was spat out by some volcano many years ago. All these air bubbles when broken, leave very sharp edges all over this rock.

So as these short wheel based trucks moved through this country, and when one of these Scoria rocks would pop it's head out of the ground, the old rag tyres didn't stand a chance at all with these sharp edged rocks, so as each one showed up and caused a flat tyre, it was dug out of the ground and piled up along the sides of the track, forming a sort of low twisty wall down each side, defining just where the track was.

The truck and float I was using, was a bit longer than what a Blitz truck is, so I was able to get the prime mover around these twists and turns without the tyres on the truck touching these very sharp rocks. The workshop supervisor, Eric Collier, had me fitted up with 8 BRAND new drive tyres, before I started this little jaunt, I was under strict instructions, that these tyres would have to last me a very long time, so 'no touchy' any of these sharp protrusions.

Pity about the tyres on the float though, they just had to rub along side these rocks, then ride up and over all these sharp protrusions and then come back over again, they were going to cop a fair hiding, going into this place.

This track led through the bush, every now and then, the track would pop out onto one of these airfields, now were these old airfields smooth as, you would drive from one end right up to the other, then duck back into the bush and once again into these twisty ribbons of rocks.

Follow this mud map and all these things that the bloke has drawn, were correct, even found the bower bird nest OK.


to be continued

---

next bit

---

Arrive at the site and unload, then told I got to take a little Drott back out to Mt Surprise, load the Drott onto an empty rail wagon, then head back into the mine site again and put on an excavator to take back to Bris, nothing about doing all this extra work is written on the paperwork, there sure aint no phones way out here in the sitcks, I do as I'm requested, I would just have to make that phone call, when I get out of here back at the pub.

Get back to the rail line and there's the correct number wagon waiting, with doors open both sides, sidle up to it, unchain and then proceed to get this worn out old Drott thingy up into the wagon, a few hairy moments doing this, but eventually got it onto the rail wagon and shut the doors.

Over to the pub for some grub and a phone call to Bris, nope, they knew nothing at all about this double shuffling, so they added all this extra stuff to the blokes bill, next morning back in to get the excavator.

Get back in there again, load the excavator and work my way out once again, then head for Brisbane, now all this running about in amongst all that sharp edged Scoria rock, did not enhance the appearance of the side walls on the tyres of the low loader at all, boy, these things were looking like they had done battle with a samurai swordsman, cuts and bruises all over them, I would be very lucky, to get them home in one bit with-out some of them blowing out on me.

Eventually get back to the depot and guess who spots the tyres on the low loader, yep, Mr Eric Collier, he started in on me about me abusing these bits of rubber, so I let him finish and then informed him of what they just had gone through.
He forgot all about me then, shoots over to the office and did he let the blokes in there have a serve, both barrels actually, they then had to amend that blokes bill once again.

Must of been about 6 to 9 months later, I'm doing some work on the 'horse' and I'm called over to the office, I'm informed that the fella up at Mt Surprise, wants me to deliver another machine to them, as I 'knew' where they were hiding.

This next machine is a rather large HOUGH wheeled loader, either that little machine I had already delivered can't be big enough, or they got production way up, anyway when the time comes to do the job, I've got to use the Allison 3 x 4 float, as this Hough machine is decidedly heavier than what they are now using.
Had a chat to Eric with 'what is about to happen to all these little tyres on the low loader', into the tyre lock-up and get a good supply of tubes and whatever old tyres that would fit the rims on the float. Had to get myself a good supply of spare rubber, knowing what was coming.

Load the Hough and I'm away again, easy going to Mt Surprise with-out too many problems and start into the scrub once again.

All is going well until I get to that creek, pass the first and second crossings and down into the water at the third crossing, start to climb out of the creek and something does not look quite the same, I get the 3 x 4 rear end not quite out of the water when, bugger me, the float bellies out on this great big rock, oh $hite, in trouble again. It will not reverse of this rock and you can't go forward either, only thing to do now, is unload this HOUGH front end loader and use it, to push the whole lot over this obstacle.

Now the fun starts, it fires up when I first hit the key, then abruptly dies, oh-no, this sounds like it's out of fuel, the loader on the float is pointing decidedly backwards, consequently any fuel in the tank is now at the rear of the tank and away from the P/U point, hmm, I'm going nowhere fast, not until I can get enough fuel drained from the tanks of the truck, into the tank on the loader, so I can prime the pump and have another go at starting it.

All I could find to transfer the fuel, was an old 5 litre plastic oil bottle, this is going to take some time, eh.
At it for about an hour, when I reckon there's enough fuel in it to try again, prime it and get pressure, good, hop up top, hit it and it starts, good, now to get the chains of it without it slipping sideways into the water.
Another body just happened to walk over the top of this rock and offered to help me, your never going to knock back anybody's help way out here, specially someone who wants to get wet and dirty.
So he offers to drive this thing off the low loader for me, all I had to do was guide him, OK, unchain it and hoping like #ell that it isn't going to go sliding sideways into the water, nope, he managed to reverse it off the float, jobs done and now for the big push, get the lot over this rock and re-load, wasted about 2 and a half hours at this rock and the days ticking on, still have to get to the shack, it's about another hour and a bit away still.

I thanked him for all the help he has given me and promised, that a 'cold carton of barbed wire', will be waiting for him at the pub.

Arrive in the late afternoon and unload, sun now is starting to go down, so I've got to spend the night out here, no way am I going over that track after dark.

Have a meal and a few cans and start to loosen up a bit, told these fellas about that rock, they just start to laugh about the bit, where I told them I was going to leave a carton at the pub for this fella, who was kind enough to give me a hand.

Ask them why they are laughing so hard and they inform me, that it was that very same person, who made that rock such a steep climb out of the water, he'd gone and washed away all the gravel from down below the rock looking for tin, hmm, that carton was getting to be a rather distant memory about now.

Got back to the pub the next day, went and saw the bloke who ran the joint and told him about what happened to me out there, he smiled as well, he knew from others, of just what this bloke had done, so NO carton from me, will be left there for him. Please make sure you tell WHY, ---- " OK, will do that - gladly ".

Uneventful trip home empty, think I used about half of that extra spare rubber I took with me though.




regards greenie [smiley=vrolijk_1.gif]

This may be not as elequent a story as Greenies but here goes.
Loaded out of Brumbles in Melbourne,thanks to John Pincott,with a full load of broadloom carpet from Bell Street in Preston going to Brisbane.
Rained all the way up to Narrabri and on to Moree.
At Moree there were trucks parked up everywhere.In those days the Moree to Boggabilla was all dirt.
The next day Mr Plod comes and says the road should be open...So off we go....Stop at the end of the bitumin as a B moel is coming south.He stops and says yes he got through.The b model eas a bogie drive with the meanest all purpose lug tires you have ever seen...Mud still oozing out from between the spiders and skid marks half way up the fuel tanks...
Instant decision,turn around back to Moree and try the Moree Inverell road and then either up through North Arm or across ot the New England then north again.
Great idea so off we go in a convoy..
Going great until we come to the MiaMia creek..oops one lane bridge..Looks good ..the give way sign is facing the oncoming traffic..Bugger.. committed to the bridge and realize I have a car coming at me,hotly persued by one of Border coaches
Desperate times ,Drag the truck along the the side of the bridge and miss the car which had stopped.Then more disasters,the coach had skidded half onto my side of the road,while trying to stop.
More instant decisions..Just clipped the front of the bus(coach).By now we are over the bridge and stacking chainwire fencing up on the front of the truck and with a severe lean to the left as by now we are half off the road.
Finally we stop ,only to feel the truck continue to keep on leaning to the left until it fell over...again BUGGER.
Push the door upen and climb out..No one hurt at least thats good.The major damage is to my pride and joy.The almost brand new Cline Inter,and the frontcorner of the bus missing
Now then who is who for witnesses to the prang..
Bus driver ."no it's not my fault"
car driver " no it's not my fault and I am the lucal Sheriff"
Steveb this is not looking good ,let the Police handle it
Leave the truck upsidedown as it won't go anywhere and return to the Moree Plod Station."yer OK we'll look into it in the morning.
So in the morning get Len Dawson from Greenbah Steel to come and do the recovery as well as one of Haddad's 1418s to transfer the load onto. Allthis is good and as well it is my birthday(SWMBO was not happy)
All goes well until I get a phone call from Haddad's
"how heavy was that load,wejust got nocked off at Gailes"
They had the load on a spread with a single drive.I only had it on a single axle trailer and single drive.
The upshot of all this is the police report said my truck bounced off the edge of the bridge and into the path of the oncoming traffic as stated by the local sheriff.nothing about the sheriff going through a give way sign or the bus unable to stop for the vehical in front or both not giving way.
Ah! well that was 43 years ago.Greenies articles reminded me of this as his depot adjoined the Brambles Long Distance yard,and they must have smelt the diesel soaked broadloom for weeks until the insurances had decided what to do with 20 ton of carpet :'(

The upshot of all this is the police report said my truck bounced off the edge of the bridge and into the path of the oncoming traffic as stated by the local sheriff.nothing about the sheriff going through a give way sign or the bus unable to stop for the vehical in front or both not giving way.

Sometimes you just have to shake your head and wonder, at how those fellas, kind of protected their own, eh.


regards greenie [smiley=vrolijk_1.gif]

Hey Steve, the old one lane bridges, as well as all those Bailey type bridges that NSW used to love got the heart rate up on just about everyone using the roads in those days. I remember all those one lane bridges north of Mackay in Queensland that you used to drop down on to. At least at night you could see if someone was coming.

If it was 43 years ago, and I'm only 48, so I would have been a kid then obviously, but there is a fair chance I would have either known or met the Border Coaches driver, I might even be related to him. LOL. My Grandfather owned Border Coaches and my Uncles and Father used to be drivers, not that Borders didn't have quite a few different drivers, including three Greens, none of em' Greenie (even though he, my old man and myself had stints at the Long Dog over the years)and Brennan's old man too drove for them back in that era. Actually it was only a few weeks ago at Brennan's old man's funeral that there was a few ex Border Coaches (amongst other bus company) employees present.

Sorry it panned out like it did with the accident, it is quite interesting hearing the story, thanks for sharing.

Hi Cam

---

all those one lane bridges you talking about were up past Proserpine all the way to Home Hill, the general rule of thumb back in the late 70's into the early 80's, was the loaded NORTH bound trucks, had the 'right of way', even if the signs said, the south bounders were meant to get the 'right of way'.

Lot's of road work and bridge widening going on sometime around 80-82 on these bridges, by the time you got way up north into this area with all these single laned bridges, well, by then you had your BUM in 'gear', with your MIND in 'neutral', not many trucks were stopping, or, even bothering slowing down for the work crews, this made working on them a tad hazerdous for the workmen.

They got around this with a magical solution, they went and hired a lot of female back packers, from then on, ALL the persons on the STOP and GO signs, had to be dressed in a very skimpy bikini.

You could see big long black skid marks, all over that bit of road, for about a year after all this roadwork and bridge widening was finished.

Even got me to stop, as these "apparitions", were sure better than looking at cows and gum trees.


regards greenie [smiley=vrolijk_1.gif]

Hi Greenie, great hearing your stories about your days on the road, really a good read. Putting them in a book sounds like a good idea.

The story about the Walking Dragline cam wheel at Bellata sounded very familiar as I was the crane driver that reloaded it back onto the float. I have a couple photos of the job and when I work our to post pics I will post them.