Wooden caravans

I also have a vague memory that the name "Transcontinental" was once used.

The perpetual life of an editor: separating fact from fiction.
It is fairly easy with genuinely-formal names, eg Southern Aurora. It is less easy with generic names, particularly when they don't appear on a signboard or in a timetable. Some nicknames took hold, and became formal. Ghan started as just a nickname: 'Afghan' and 'Flash ghan'. Some varied through the years, I suspect clerical error, not conscious management policy: 'Indian-Pacific' became just 'Indian Pacific', and 'Trans-Australian' 'Trans-Australia' Trans Australia also have to be unscrambled. CR literature names the railway, not the train.
The original Transcontinental railway was the south to north one, Adelaide to Darwin, following the overland telegraph route. Only bits were built, and the project was overtaken by the east-west link, an outcome of federation. Certainly the name was in common public use for the east-west service, but I have never found it in formal use. There are four Transcontinental hotels in Australia: Brisbane (Qld), Quorn (SA, the junction of east-west & north-south routes for decades), Oodnadatta (SA) and Northam (WA).
Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

....sorry for taking the topic off track Rodders : :...but these little mysteries are good to tidy up....

...a bit like the definition of LUFTHANSA i guess !

Lufthansa isn't on my list.
Queer And Nice Types, All Stewards.
Such a Beastly Experience, Never Again.
I have a few more, but not on instant recall.

I am an ecumenical editor, and I have found that HCVC people are very ecumenical too. I do keep commenting across the whole technical-hobby spectrum: different equipment, but similar passions. Have Wednesday's post on Tuesday. I do keep rotating around the threads to which I contribute, and had these two on the hard-drive already. Picture Dave shipping his 1920s Bedford to Iraq, and then driving it to Paris. That is roughly the equivalent of what the railway hobby did for Australia's bicentenary. The legendary 4472 Flying Scotsman was shipped from UK for about a year, and got to Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Alice Springs and Perth. I had missed 3801 on its two Perth trips, but was there for this Sept.89 visit. The other loco was trucked from the Hamersley line in the Pilbara for a special meeting, then was trucked back, and has since been repatriated to UK. To meet Australian rules, FS had proper headlamps: sealed-beam units (predating led) camouflaged in the oil marker lamps on the buffer beam. It was also fitted with an air compressor and a hefty Australian whistle, under the tender. While in Australia, it took the opportunity to make a world-record nonstop steam run: Parkes - Broken Hill (NSW, using three water gins, no water troughs in Australia).
One UK magazine used trick photography to show that the loco had been converted to Irish gauge, and would never go back to UK: a Victoria resident for ever. It was besieged with letters of outrage from gullible pommies.

I do have my next real wooden-caravan photos ready to roll. At least these railway photos have wooden carriages: NSW ones bought by Willis Light Engineering (of Perth, the sponsor of the grand adventure to the west).

To get to Perth, I was aboard Indian Pacific. I would have flown home, but there was an airline strike. I made my second Nullarbor crossing by bus: De Luxe, a now-vanished name. Even on an express run, we paused at the lookout over the limestone cliffs, a great gesture. My earlier crossing had been by Greyhound (I had a one month round-Australia pass; the photos were posted a couple of years back). In Perth, the bedraggled alighting passengers said: 'That's it; I am cancelling the return portion and flying home'. I replied: 'I am climbing on again, and continuing to Dampier, Port Hedland and Katherine, and home via Alice Springs'.

890928Th Northam WA. 4472, having crossing the nation, outside Transcontinental Tavern. R Smith

890929F Fremantle Leighton Yard (Durban East, WA). Pendennis Castle and Flying Scotsman posing in front of Indian Ocean, with South African steam locos over the horizon. R Smith. That yard is closed, AFAIK redeveloped as ocean-view townhouses, but nearby Railway Hotel thrives as a jazz pub.

Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

Back to a wooden caravan. I was no longer caravanning with the family, so I don't know if this is the caravan park, or just a picnic ground. It is not the family caravan, which had been rebuilt in modern style by 1968. The photo is a crop; Murrumbidgee River is left of frame.

680827Tu Gundagai, NSW. Caravan. (Neil Smith)

Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

This one isn't wooden, but we have included 1960s aluminium before: 50 years old, and superseded styles. Here is one which I place as late 60s to mid 70s. Not historic as a vehicle, but arguably Australia's best-know caravan. It is the base for the east-west tunnel tollway (Melbourne, Vic.), and has been parked in a reserved disabled space for months. This has given it newspaper and tv coverage, nationally.

131009W, Westgarth St at Brunswick St, Fitzroy (Melbourne, Vic.). Anti-tollway protest caravan. J Bounds.

Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

Here is a classic early 1960s, in beautiful condition, matching its fairly-rare tow vehicle: a late 1950s Morris Marshal six cylinder. From notes to a different group:
* The car is probably a 1957-59 Morris Marshal, which was sold in Australia in both saloon and wagon versions, and was a badge-engineered version of the Austin A95 Westminster.
* It could be the Austin, but as far as I have been able to ascertain, the Morris was the main version in Australia. I have found a reference to a Morris wagon being sold, but no reference to an Austin one in Australia.
* See:
www.flickr.com/photos/dedlinz/4041454065
www.flickr.com/photos/retromotoring/345758776
www.flickr.com/photos/36844288@N00/4272103359
www.co-oc.org/A95.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin_Westminster

680827Tu Gundagai (NSW). Caravan. N Smith

Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

Copied across from poster 'Tacho', in a different thread.

Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

Copied across from a different poster, in a different thread. This style was built by Greythorne in Victoria: this could be one. It could be early 1960s, with aluminium windows from new, and that recessed front window.

Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

At the outset, I was envisaging just wooden caravans: automatically over 50 years old by now. Then I realised that 1960s-70s aluminium is now classic it its own right, and hitting/hit 50. Today I put in a possibly 1980s poptop: at ~30 yo, matching the age of the trucks on historic plates which formed the bulk of the Sat.12-Sun.13 Aths Crawlin the Hume rally. Both of these were being towed by historic vehicles, each carrying more history, so have these two here as well.

Craigieburn (Vic.): Two caravans being trailed to Albury as part of the Aths Crawlin' the Hume rally. Sat.12.4.14. (Roderick Smith)

Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria