Yanky Iron Fix II

Some Diamond T's
 
 
 
 
 
 

They were a big old truck those Diamond T

Paul

This may be the same truck as in your 4th picture??? At the Aussie Haul of Fame in Alice Springs, NT, AU..
According to the placcard it is the first Road Train?? That pile of drums is on the third trailer. But Paul says there there was another pioneer at the same time which used a group of ex WW2 wagons..
 

 

It isn't just me that says that
The bloke that built that actual road train, wrote a book called "A son of the red center"
In the book he mentions how he wasn't the first, but almost was the first
I get the feeling it may of only 6 months or so
To me, all these men were pioneers in the industry

There were lots of other road trains about long before these blokes, there was steam powered ones, the government road train, Big Lizzie and so on

But of the modern type of truck and trailer combination of things, these blokes were the very beginning

Paul

The man who built that road train from surplus WW2 equipment and wrote the book was Kurt Johanson. It was said to be the first self tracking road train, in that all the wheels of the trailers followed in the tracks of the front wheels.
I met Kurt at the opening of the Road Transport Hall of Fame way back. He was an old bloke then, about the age I am now. He and his son were there with his huge Pontiac (I think) station wagon with a gas producer on the tailgate. This was the time when the museum was accepting donations of anything relating to trucking. Kurt and his son where at the front of a partly built truck with a Ford engine and FORD letters mounted on the radiator. Kurt said that the chassis was nothing like any Ford he had ever seen. I explained that the chassis was from a Thornycroft Nubian and that only the engine and the name letters were Ford.

The first self tracking road train was the government AEC that I believe is at the same place

I believe reading Kurts book thats were ge got the idea from (his words from the book)

Anyway it doesn't really matter to me

Like so many things, the passage of time creates it's own version

I'm just going off what I remember reading in that book

Now days the book has been re done and is slightly different to the original

I have both versions of the book

I wonder if Kurt was still around on the second run of the book ?

Paul

A tad bit more

Here is the book I mention 

 

If you read the book, there isn't a huge amount in it about the road trains he built 

Like all things I guess, there's a lot more to the man behind these road trains than most people would expect

Paul

Another road train
 

With all those single axle converters and trailers is this a picture of Kurt's road train?????

Door has the name S. Baldock on it......another operator of road trains in the NT .......I think this pic is from the "Road Trains of the NT" book......which I have somewhere ,but cant find it ATM.