Tall Stories

Have to share the award(s) with others on this forum............................

A little surprised that I thought a few more old hoary (tall) stories may have crawled out of the woodwork. Looks a bit like life is getting too serious these days.
Which reminds me of a time, not all that long ago, when there were still restrictions on (in NSW at least) covering the transportation of grain. At one stage it was illegal to cart some species of grain (mostly wheat and oats) in direct competition with the state railways. Not too sure just when deregulation of the State rail came in, in regards to grain cartage, about the time nearly all State governments were having fire sales on publicly owned assets every day of the week. But that's another story.
If I recall, you, as a carrier, or a cocky, were allowed to cart grain from your farm to the closest rail head. And remember southern NSW and the Riverina were a veritable maze of branch lines at the time until economics closed them down. About this time we saw the advent of some big gear appearing, quad tip over axle alloy trailers, not to mention some of the dodgy practices that went along with them. Lift up air-operated axles on short-ass single platform weighbridges, running "hot" grain into blokes back yards in the middle of the night, they reckon there was quite a few blokes who specialised in loading out of the cockies paddock, weighing off at one of the small town, out of the way bridges, dropping the odd couple of ton into either their own silo's or yards and then delivering the load. Go back and split the 'difference' of whatever had been dropped off, with the cocky.
As usual, I can't vouch for the veracity of such a statement. It could have well been mere heresay. But I did hear about a bloke in the western suburbs of Sydney who made such a welter out of it that he had to hide a bit of cash money by purchasing an ocean going cruiser. As luck would have it he was investigated and busted, but again, maybe just that, a tall story. I think in this day and age, that sort of practice has been all but eradicated. But it did get me to thinking about some of the shifty movements in days gone by, of the lengths and means some of the carriers as well as the cockies would go to circumvent what many saw to be an interfering, obnoxious burden on their livelihood. And I'll bet a quid it was not only restricted to NSW! I only point out that state because I spent most of my formative years there. I wouldn't mind betting there are a few on these forums who could elaborate a story or two on how they got around some of these restrictive govt regulations.
Cheers, Dave_64

Not a tall story, but true. my first interstate trip in a Big Banger.

Old mate was getting on in years and was struggling with the interstate running. I had heard a few close calls were had and as he had given my a heap of his time when I really needed it, I owed him.
His intervention in my early years are most likely why im here in my later ones!

So....I says to the new bride, im taking holidays from work and giving "the Coombes" a hand, running a few Sydneys for him.
I word up John, arrange to meet in town around 7pm and pile in and head north.
He's got hold of the tiller , says he'll drive till he's weary and i'll take over, we roar off into the night....80kph kinda roar....

We are in his pride n joy, a early cabova slim line Kwopper, 8v71 13 od on crow bars.

This thing has carted logs, spread super, general freight, containers on the wharf in melbourne now running sydney with the overnighters! It'd been tipped over, bogged, flogged and unloved. the roughtest cabover to ever run down sesame st!

Tonight we have a 40' triaxle, full tarp height, loaded with meringue tops, (pavlovas?) the pallets weigh more than the produce

Im propped up with the straight through exhaust roaring away behind my head, heater non operational and around 2 am didnt I know it! Im sitting on my feet trying to get the feeling back in my toes, about 7000 trucks have rounded us up and im knackered, cold, deaf and feel like ive been riding a park bench for a week......and loving it!

We pull up for a cofffee and a pee (im nearly pissin blood from kidney damage) , stretch the legs and im behind the wheel!

I run her up to 2300 and flick her up another gear, and another, and another.......up into over drive, Im the king of the road! and the heater works on the drivers side!

Down into Sydney town we run, drop the trailer, run around to another depot, pick up a drop deck, im chewin the ear off anyone who was unlucky enough to stand near me, we throw a 20' container over the drive, its loaded with crap, off to another yard, on goes a diesel roller (after we spend a couple of hours getting it going) chain it down with chain n dogs supplied, i steers to the gate , bit harsh on the stoppers and the chains break, roller smacks the back of the container, then rolls back, a dog on the tray stopps it before it falls off the back!
Coombes goes off his nut! I'd never seen him go off before!
Yard boss comes out, chains were crap, new high tensile gear turns up in a flash, dog her down again and away we go.

Off to a truck stop for tea and a shower, I didnt even bring a towel let alone a change of clothes, I borrow a towel, have a freshen up and we are off again.

I steer away into the dark with the bright lights in the mirror, not so bright lights in the front! We are spinning along well, My jockey asleep against the window (must be confident in my ability ) and we start a slow climb, I drop on gear, couple of minutes later, another and so on.....I get to the bottom of the top box....Its been about 4 years since I have driven a roady, never the cabover, never in the dark, never with a decent load on....Im psyching myself up for the change, run the revs down a bit low, coombes wakes up from his dozing in the corner and yells, JEEZUS, YA'D BETTER CHANGE NOW!
I promptly shit myself, loose where im at, and start cleaning the teeth of the 13 speed, we end up stopped on a hill called AERO PLANE, buggered if I know where it is, but the CB is crackling, theres a dinosoar stopped on aero plane!
Im in low, trying to get going, the clutch is hammering like a barsard, the log books bouncing every where, old mate is yelling "ya gunna rip the centre out of the clutch"! I whack the maxies on and yell back "you f@$kin drive it then!
I dive outa the cab, he climbes over the top, whacks it into deep reduction (thank christ it was geared low) and gets it rollin.....takes about half an hour to get up to the top...no yappin going on.
We pull up at a roadhouse a bit up the road, I cant say where.
Im stuffed, embarrassed, dirty, cold & hungry. a mate rolls up in his DAF, Coombes suggests I could get a run home if i wanted with him, I take up the offer and crawl into danny's bunk and sleep till we hit the home town lights of mansfield about 5 am.

I shower change and climb in with the bride, she askes how the trip went...Yeh good, Im going to finish my apprenticeship though.

Coombes comes into the servo the next day, fuel up, we yap, I fix a couple of lights, he says "Im thinking of getting out of the trucks, do you want them? I says, I cant afford them mate, he says I was giving them to you.....Nah mate, thanks but id best be finishing my trade. We shake hands , he climbes in the cab over and fires her up, the eyes twinkle, he gives a wave and hes off again.

Do I regret my decision? yes and no. I heard later on, he didnt really want me to go driving as he reconed it was a mugs game and tried real hard to make it a crappy trip. he succeeded in a bit of that.

Im still a sucker for a GM, would love a Diamond reo, know where the old cabover is resting and will look into its wellfare.

Thats my first tall story

Scratcha

Beautiful......

Jarrod.

good on ya scratcha top read

Paul

Thanks fellas. Ive got a few stories about the coombes.
He literally took me under his wing when i could have gone off the rails.
He's been gone just on 4 years. I never told him what an impact hed had on my life.
He helped many. Asked for no thanks in return. Sort of the original pay it forward fella.

What about making stuff-ups through not checking your info correctly?
Back before the days of mobile phones and CB radios in trucks, had NSW black and yellow (local) plates on my rebuilt Pete. Having spent about 9 months getting her on the road, keen as mustard to start earning a quid. Bloke I worked for in the old Express Freight workshops arranged for me to tow a tanker for a liquid cartage mob (now defunct). Job was cart a load of diesel out of Sydney to Maitland, run up empty to the old Guyra abbatoirs, wash out there and call office. At least I got that part right. Told over the phone to load tallow out of Wallangarra and take to Marrickville Margarine. AHA!, I thinks, must be MM in Brisbane, used to be somewhere up around the Storey bridge. Loads the tallow, weighs off and starts heading for Brissie, getting a bit late in the arvo, better ring Sydney depot. Pull up on side of road at a phone box, reverse charges to Syd, accepted, "Where are you?" Was either at Applethorpe or The Summit on the old New England hwy.
"You're WHERE?" came the thunderous reply! Repeats where I am. "You so and so moronic D/H ! I told you M/Margarine in SYDNEY! Did you even check your paperwork?" And, you guessed it, M/M in SYDNEY, not Brissie. So, long story short, he tells me to keep going to Brissie, damage is done now. "Ill have to try and arrange somewhere to off load, you (expletive deleted!") Turns out that the load of tallow wasn't up to spec what they wanted, besides after sitting in the tank, although insulated, was beginning to go off. Ended up costing me two days (stuck in a bonnetted truck with no sleeper) paid my own fuel and didn't get paid for the load. After washing out at tank farm at Eagle Farm, was told to report to the tanker mob at Rocklea. Yard boss there thought it worthy of a giggle or two. Organised me to load another one of tallow out of Toowoomba, this time to M/Margarine in SYDNEY! Even included written instructions along with a MAP, underwritten with, "for benefit of SYDNEY drivers!"
Completed rest of trip uneventfully, but did note that next few trips for this mob were restricted to carting bulk diesel fuel WITHIN the state. (no restrictions on carting non-flammable those days).
Lesson learned! Worked for quite a few years for a milk transport company in Victoria, had a subbie that I thought almost matched my stuff-up. Was supposed to load milk out of COBDEN and turns up at COBRAM! Which, I suppose in hindsight is easy enough to do. He got reamed out for that as well, only load available was to go through to Sydney, so he too went unpaid for the part of his journey.
Bottom line:- Read the details, or if by phone, double check them!
Dave_64

Reminds me of a pick up address I was given for a load back to Melbourne, it was in Bells line of road. WTF? Yep I read the address a few times looking for a road name! Lucky for me it was in the Sydway. That's a Melway for NSW Swissy

This is all beaut stuff, thanks for posting.



Jarrod.

One of the subbies for Comet in the early days with a 5 series Dodge was given a full load out of Melbourne to Campsie NSW. Didn't bother to look at the manifest, just took the dispatchers word for the destination. Unfortunately Campsie and Kempsey sound similiar. You can work out the rest . Didn't quite work out to be overnight.