Our first "bus" with upholstered seats no less!! must have been a break for the poor old passengers. had perspex windows we could put up if it rained which was rare.

We had a lot of these Scammells, funniest looking truck, wouldn't win any prizes for style, seemed a solid truck though.

This Rolls-Royce powered Antar built by Thornycroft was used on the hydro=electric project, as it was a Commonwealth Government project all trucks had to be of British manufacture, they did keep an old Diamond "T" tank carrier under wraps and secretly bought it out if the Antar ran out of breathe

I was allocated this Leyland Hippo tipper on the project, me standing in front, the trailer behind gives an idea to the size trailer that the Antar pulled, The Leylands were a strong truck, cool running, easy to start, but a bit sorry in the power department, what I did was jam a tennis ball between the inline injector pump and the engine block holding the cold start button open, took off like a rocket!!
After a couple of days rounding up everyone else the shift boss flagged me down, hopped up into the passenger seat, lifted the engine cove, took out the tennis ball, shook his head and got out. I guess the smoke gave me away, we had Scammells there also, ugly as sin. Stayed there until the summer ended and got so cold I had to pull out my drivers license one day to check my gender. Only a few Australians there, 1955, I left there speaking with an accent!!

Thanks melonreo, it was an interesting time, everything wide open, like the wild west!!! The trailer on the back of the K6 has a bit of history, it was originally from an International ex-army K3 semi, when the K3 died we made it into a 4 wheel trailer, 16 inch wheels, During the 50's brothers Jim and Stan Martin who originally owned Martins Overland transport, carting out on the Murranji track to Wave Hill Stn, started a Pan Australia Parcel Service between Adelaide a Alice springs using Inter R130"s and used this trailer as a semi on one.

What a great restoration swishy, Ford's were the majority of trucks, interesting pic's tatra, always like to see what other countries come up with.

Yeah Alistair, Might get a bit exited with all that power, and an exhaust brake? wow, and brakes that stop you, have to take some valium to calm me down!!
tatra: about 35 mph flat as a lizard drinkin' on a down grade with a tail wind.

Always take up the slack first!! Squishy, like your shorthand, where did you learn it?

Then we thought , to hell with, lets go for the max! hung another one on her, one problem, she balked at the jumpup's, so we had to break it up and pull one trailer over at a time, time was not a big item so didn't matter, when I was a kid it was my job to follow it up with a bloody great rock to jam behind the drive wheels if needed, I believe I would be too scared to handle the power trucks have today!

The old girl did well so we hung an extra trailer on her to test her out!!

Time to hit the road to see what she would do! couldn't find a right windscreen so made one out of plywood with a piece of perspex to see through, mail on the back trailer, Len Tuit was not interested in freight work just tourists, but the top end was developing so fast he was pressured into handling freight and pereshables, as there were no rules people did pretty much what they liked as far as making up trucks

After getting the detuned, naturally aspirated Gardner oil engine coupled to a 5 speed fuller box and Timken double reduction diff assembled in the chassis we took it out through the hills for a run, too fast, did about 60 mph, would pull nothing. Went to the abandoned military dump next door and found a low speed diff for about 35 mph, took it back to the shop for "cosmetic" work.

The thing I really like about this forum is someone posts a picture and out comes a wealth of interesting information, this was Len Tuit's first "coach" after he was awarded the Royal Mail contract after the war when the military left, he combined it with a passenger/mail run to Darwin, a KS5 with a tropical cab and wooden seats on the trailer, one of my first jobs was unbolting the seats after we got a proper bus, guys were PAYING ten pounds to go to Darwin!!! I could put them in sequence when I find out how to do it! Onetrack, good info on the road, poor Aussie drivers were limited to 25 mph to save on tyres and fuel, they truly deserved a medal for hardship, and yes, the yanks didn't give a hoot, just drove like crazy, big deal made about their health problems, nothing about the locals!! I drove the South road for a fair while which was bad but I was the only one on it so no dust, on a side note, I was having lunch with Kurt Johannsen in Adelaide mid 90's and we were talking about Len Tuit and Kurt said he "blotted his copybook" old saying! anyhow Len was sucontracting for Kurt when the contract came up for tender, Kurt told Len he was puting in 6 pence per mile, Len promptly went and put in 5 pence per mile and secured the contract, probably worked out best for both of the though

www.hcvc.com.au/forum/YaBB.pl?board=truc...;title=StartNewTopic

This the last journey for these two trucks