* * * Manure Happenz * * *

All

Alan - great find - shows it does happen fairly often and does result in huge damage (A Big Bang). Also - that the R&H incident was caused by a nitropil explosion and only a small part of the load was involved. IE: didnt involve the 'whole' load exploding.

I clearly recall following the media coverage on this incident - and the 'hole' was something like 10mts across and 4 mts deep - in a bitumen road. There was essentially nothing left close to the crater - but the engine block (less most of its accessories) was 100mts away and half driven into the ground (due to hight and speed of travel).

The incident took my interest at the time because:

1) Nitrolpil as an exploasive was just coming on the wider scene with the advent of large scale coal mining just begining to happen.

2) R&H were the carters for the Goonyella mine and regually parked over night outside the a local pub in the main street of Clermont. They didnt park there anymore after the Taroom incident.

3) I was palying with the stuff at that exact time - running around a quarry site with fertiliser, diesel and gely in the back of a ute. We carried the gely in the cab after this one. And I knew about mixing it (in a small hand cement mixer), spilling it everywhere, packing it in holes etc. all pretty harmless until the planets line up.

4) And I knew a bit about trying to ignite diesel too - pretty hard. Was there when the hose on an industrial bowser got burnt thru with oxycutting slag. Bit like pretol can be - saw (from a distance) guys dropping lighted matches into full 44's - demonstrating how it worked.

So you can see I paid a bit of attention to the Taroom explosion.

From memory - the theory was:

Truck was stopped at time of explosion.

Truck was on fire sometime prior to the explosion and probably the reason why it was stopped.

Evidence to suggest the driver was leting it burn (may have been judged by him having stacked his gear away from the truck) indicating the fire was out of control.

Evidence that fuel had been leaking for some time prior to the truck stopping, mention of fuel being transfered from a belly tank using air pressure, while moving.

Some mention of a defect with the floor of the trailer.

Fuel sprayed on (from below) and absorbed by a 'few' bags at floor level.

Those 'few' bags exploded due to belly tank exploding creating the initiating factor.

The explosion was a downward force - hence the crater and general damage.

If one imagines a hole in the trailer floor, diesel (under pressure) spraying up onto it from a broken transfer hose, and being absorbed by the bags adjacent to the hole. Fertiliser being a great sucker of liquid.

Belly tank below explodes due to build up of heat and pressure from the pre-existing fire That explosion sets off the couple of diesel soaked bags above it - and those few bags are surrounded on 3 sides by 20ton of dry bags all held together by gates and a tarp?

All very similar to some diesel soaked nitropil shoved down a hole along with a stick of gely, a sand bag placed over the hole. Small sand bag lifts an inch off the ground and the rock mountain underneath blows out into a million pieces.

What happened to the balance of the load - burnt to ash in the resultant fire.

All my theory only.

Oldfulla - over and out.

Used to love using Nitropil and Gelly blowing stumps on the farms, good bang for your buck!!!

There is enough power in a 4 litre tin of the Nitropil mixed with diesel if placed in right place under a big gum tree to lift it clean out of the ground,I would set it off with a 1/2 a stick of Gelly.Put one grain of the stuff on a anvil and hit with a hammer if you are game but I wouldnt :oThat was back in the 70s when laws were not so tuff to buy it. Urea will do the same job but have to use twice as much as it is only 46% nitrogen
Colin

Hi everybody- I agree with what Oldfella said. From what I remember The truck was supposed to be a Mack and it caught fire. The driver got his gear out of it and took off. The farmer had seen the smoke and sent his son on the motorbike to see where the smoke was. Nobody knows but one theory was that the driver came back to tell the young fellow to get going when the whole thing went up. There was a picture in the courier Mail showing the crater and where the engine block landed, if somebody has access to it. I took notice of it because I was carting Ammonium Nitrate Fertilizer and they warned us at ACF not to put Diesel on the same load.I remembered that the bare block ended up 100 yards away.Regards - Michael.

I've Heard of It raining "cats & dogs"

But raining Sheep

www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/national/...freuzr-1226378721772

Asheep at the wheel?

Asheep at the wheel?

you could say he's had a BAAAAAAd day. (that's enough out of me)

Ewe should know better than that Chugga

Wool you two stop it? This might have serious RAMifications!

..i've had enough of this LAMBasting!..everyone is being sheepish about a meat ROLL... : :