P J Willing

When that contract finished he sold the truck and started buying and selling trucks and machinery. He bought a lot of trucks in Sydney, drove them up to Townsville and sold them locally. This Commer was one of them.


In the late 70s he bought this Isuzu SBR with a contract running fruit juice from Townsville to Cairns and Mackay, a great little truck he reckons

Great photos and thanks for sharing

People seemed to have a lot more go in them once this does not appear to be the case so much these days

Paul

You are not wrong there Paul, Wiley was never shy when it came to putting his balls on the line and having a go. He picked up a contract to run veges to Mt Isa and set up this CK30 which I drove and later bought in about 1979.

It was cut down into a prime mover, pulled a triaxle fridge van for a while (heavy on the drive officer?...never!) and was traded on a Road Commander.
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Wiley then bought the UD back when he sold the Isuzu and got back into civil construction.

Here is a good load of formwork.





This is one of the campsites possibly Biloela, He did work all over North Queensland

Early 1980s he picked up a contract building drop structures , flumes, channels and widening culverts and pipes on the duplication of the coal railway line from Hay Point to Moranbah, mainly on the Koumala Range section. Building a drop structure on Cherry Tree Ck, had just backed in a trailer load of formwork when a 40 ton dump truck drove over the edge of the railway formation, rolled 4 times and landed on the trailer, scattering formwork for 200 metres downhill. The driver was cut and bruised, completely covered in his own excrement, but otherwise unhurt. He went back to work 2 weeks later and rolled another one and couldn't understand why he got the sack!.

The Freighter strap trailer was a write off and insurance upgraded him to a more modern Haulmark 34' hi tensile....serial number 112!



This was one of the job trucks named "the Fiat" after a pommy carpenter kept insisting that he had one in London and it was a Fiat not a Toyota!

A bit more carnage from the same job. A couple of concretors lost control of the ex army D series Ford coming down the Koumala Range and ended up A over T. We stood the truck up the same day and it was back at work the next day with very minor damage to the cab.

Wiley also rolled his V8 Falcon station wagon on this job, coming back from the bank (and I suspect pub) in Sarina with the payroll for about 20 blokes. Ended upside down in a creek almost drowning, trapped in the car with $50 notes floating past his eyes. Good thing he made money on the job!

Mid 80s and he secured contracts on the electrification of the coal railway lines from Hay Point to Moranbah, Dysart and Blackwater, many small and odd jobs which entailed many small crews with specialist tools and vehicles set up as required. He had all kinds of 3 ton trucks on the job including Nissan Cabstars, Toyota Dynas, Mazda T400s, Dodge D300 dual cabs, Daihatsus....well just about anything available on the second hand market.

This one taken at the Moranbah yard shows a fair assortment of vehicles.

This dual cab ACCO had a 345 V8 petrol and 5x2 and was called the "prawn trawler". It was used to hang the chains, bells and signs on the height gauges at the railway crossings. It would back into the middle of the crossing, the outriggers folded back 90 degrees and became mobile scaffolding for the guys hanging the "jewellery" on the height gauges. I haven't seen another dual cab ACCo like it, other than fire trucks!