Brambles Long Distance

If it was around the Eagle Farm area, then it's got to be the Hendra yard that the photo was taken at.

As BK said Eagle Farm - Tanker Division, Hendra - Crane Div & Heavy Haulage

Now about 85 - 90 Crane Div and Heavy Haulage DID have a second yard on Beaudesert Rd Coopers Plains, this experiment failed, as it required TWO lots of office johnnies. With half the gear at Hendra and the other half at Coopers Plains, it was a tad messy, as a lot of the times, the wrong sized gear, was at the wrong yard when it was required for a job.
Everything from the Coopers Plain yard, eventually went back over the river to Hendra again.

That 2 way radio aerial, I seem to remember looking at it quite often, as you went out the gate near where they had put up a brand new office, - aka, - the Taj Mahal, as it was known as.

Me thinks, it's got to be Hendra.

Now about the time I departed, then Sully decided to throw the towel in around then, so the name Case Sholtz, I might have heard about that time as well.
Can not remember WHO took over from Sully.

regards greenie [smiley=vrolijk_1.gif]

On the subject of Sully, just a few things about him that I can remember

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He managed to wangle from Brambles, one of them big fancy A/C 4 x 4 'stump jumpers' as his daily wheels, this vehicle he put to good use by wasting as much fuel as he could, running up and down sand hills, out the back blocks of western Qld.
This vehicle had ALL the goodies required to flashen it up, to suit 'the poser' that Sully was.
One of these bits of flash gear was a large aluminium bar up front, if you hit anything harder than a blade of grass, then this bit of flash crap would crumple. One way he reckoned he could make it stronger was to add two alloy pipes,about six inches across, along the top of this bar.

Had been talking with a couple of crane drivers having a laugh about this bar, they reckoned Sully had filled the two bars with booze, one with Scotch, the other with Bundy, they talked about this as a joke, so me and a couple of other H/H drivers thought they were pulling our leg.

Anyway Sully parks this flash stump jumper where he normally DID NOT, it was near the dunnies and you could get at it with-out Sully spotting you, so, over to the stump jumper and low and behold, these bars/pipes/tubes are there, as described, one end was capped and the other end caps had these little taps fitted, did not take anytime at all, to find out they WERE filled with these vital liquids.

Over to the H/H workshop and the word spread faster than wild fire, about 4 of us are at the tap of what ever tipple you desired, did not take long to empty these bits of alloy either. A few satisfied customers went back over to the workshop, to do what ever we had to do.

Sully didn't twig to the fact that his booze store was empty until he next went bush, a few expletives would of eventuated when he discovered this, suppose he twigged to when it went walk-a-bout though, that vehicle was NEVER parked with-in easy reach of them Ar$eholes from H/H again.

Sully had managed to requisition a crane from Sydney, this particular jigger was made onto a low step deck semi trailer, you hooked on and moved this thingy to where ever you wanted it. You then folded out the legs from the side of the trailer, then started the hydraulic motor to set up the legs, then unfold the main stem/stand/whatever, this was able to go up to about 120 ft, then you could extend the mast out about 90 ft, so it had a good working arc and could be hired to someone who was doing a building in confined spaces, or whatever you needed it for.

Saw this brand new apparition up the other end of the yard being played with by one of the crane drivers called Richard, a small bloke but cocky as buggery, he was just practising with it that day, it could be operated from the ground with one of those long cables attached to a wonder box, once it was all out and up in the air, you could climb the thing and it had a small operators cab up top.

The next day was the funny one, Sully had some customers/suckers lined up to view what this wild bit-o-gear could do, the customers front on site, Sully gets the man cage out and Richard hooks this together, Sully and suckers get into the crate, all hooked up their safety harness, Sully's got the hand radio and the word 'up' is given.

Richard is doing this from the ground with that box, he had the stick flat and extended out fully, the main bit was pushed up to it's max as well. So when Sully gets up top, there's this wonderful view out over the Airport to Morten Bay, back to the City, halfway to the Gold Coast and you could even see way up towards the North coast.
The cage had just stopped, when Richard decides to go up the main mast as well, he gets there and all persons on the ground watching this, are about to have a heart attack, Richard just started to walk out on the mast, no safety gear at all and way up in the air, he got right out to the end of it and was looking straight down on top of Sully.

Sully must have spruiked enough B/S to the fellas and uses the radio to say - down, no answer as Richard has left all this stuff on the ground, a couple more times Sully gives the order, no movement AT ALL.

About now Sully gets pissed off and sticks his head over the side of the cage and hollers for Richard to get him down, all the while Richard is standing on the mast directly above him, this went on for a couple of minutes and Richard let Sully work up a head of steam when he eventually said - "what did you just say", Sully must of dirtied his nappy about now, he looks up and there's Richard

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W.T.F., he's then into Richard, so Richard turns around and walked back in on the mast, gets to the steps and gets down, he was still laughing when he got down and then got the cage down.

Last I saw, was Sully marching back into the 'Taj- Mahal' with Richard in tow.



regards greenie [smiley=vrolijk_1.gif]

There was a bloke who worked there, Murray Grant, a giant of a man, 6 ft 6 and two pick handles across the shoulders, think you've all heard the song about Big John holding the earth up down that mine shaft, well, that song could have been written about this bloke.

He was an ex kiwi, a pakeha, and about the easiest going bloke you could ever want to work with, took a heck of a lot, before he even got riled. He was a true gentleman and a scholar, a real gentle giant.


The poor bugger started at Hendra and had only been there for about a week or two, when he's given one of the R 700 Macks, seeing as how he was such a big bloke, then he should be given the big gear. Didn't matter that he still had to curl up and sort of squat down, just to see out the front window below the sun visor, he used to look funny, as he uncoiled himself from that cabin.

He had to load a scraper at Hasting Deering early one morning, to be delivered to a place out at Ipswich. He's meant to have a body from Hastings to help him load and chain this thing down. This other bloke is a no show, so Murray has to do all this on his own, along comes the pilot and he starts to help Murray. Then along comes Mr Plod who starts barking orders, that if thing isn't ready by such and such time, then it's grounded till much later in the day.
Mr Plod had the permit and hands it over to Murray, he checks whats written on the permit, runs the tape over the load and everything is honkey dorey, so they do the bolt, just with-in this cut off time Mr Plod was squawking about.

Out onto Ipswich road and all is going great when they come up to the overpass of the Warrego highway over Ipswich Road, the sign on the bridge, says such and such a height, Murray knows quite well, that he is below the height stated on that sign, so he keeps the toe down hard, in under the bridge with the prime mover and the next thing he knows, he's up hard against the windscreen and things are slowing down real quick about now.
The thought of W.T.F is crossing his mind, his head is twisted to the right as it's mashed up against the front glass, he's looking straight at the R/H mirror where he can see this shower of large grey rocks raining down onto the road and a Mini Minor just drove clear through this falling shower of rocks, with-out getting a scratch, eh.

Everything is at a stand still and Murray gets out to survey the damage, the mini driver has pulled up along side the Plod on the bike and yells at him out the left widow, - " did you see that ", Plods answer, - " yeh, now just eff off ".
Murray is out and looking at the load, not a pretty site at all, the scraper is half off the 4 x 8 and down in the dirt on it's left side, the Drake is leaning left with all the right wheels of the ground and now it's mayhem with all this morning traffic.

Took all that day and into the night to get that lot removed from the road, the bridge that got whacked, took about 9 months to be repaired, as Murray had busted up the first three concrete beams and came to rest on the fourth one, in other words, it was a bloody big mess.

The bloke that owned this brand new machine got a bit worried, when it hadn't turned up by about 8 AM, he goes for a drive to see if he can find his lost scraper. Did not take long to find it at all, now this bloke starts dancing around and hollering at all and sundry about damaging his BRAND NEW machine, turned out, he never even bothered to get it insured, not for that quick trip down Ipswich Road, ho boy, moneys now flying out the window real quick.

This is when I first heard about that legal eagle that Brambles owned, he was onto this quick, the upshot of all these 100's of thousand's of dollars that it will cost to repair this lot, only cost Brambles the legal eagles lot. Turns out, that the Main Roads Department, had added another thick layer of black top to the road and nobody had changed the signs, or notified anybody at all, that it had been done, Murray was fully legal, according to all known records, so the Qld government wore the repair bill for that lot.


Pub at Capella.

The publican at this town in Central Queensland, got a bit of a rude shock, when he decided to argue with BIG Murray

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Murray had a pilot and a good Plod by the name of Noel Bombgardener, Bushy for short, they had arrived late in the day to the town of Cappella, up north from Emerald, they had to go into the Oakey Creek mine site and now it was too late, so they decided to spend the night at Capella.

Back then you could park over the road from the pub, in front of the railway station, big wide dirt area and easy to get at.

Over the road into the pub for tea and a few barbed wire sandwiches, as the evening progresses they decide to grab a slab and adjourn to the truck, so Murray calls over the young fella working behind the bar and lays a brick down for a slab of barbed wire, this young fella grabs the brick and bolts around the corner to where the big fridge is, only he keeps going out to the back bar, then starts serving those outside in the beer garden area.

Another round has now been drunk and no sign of this young bloke, or the slab at all, the publican, a grizzled old fart, was working the bar now, so Murray asks him when the young bloke will be bringing the slab he's paid for, the boss knows nothing about this lot, an argument ensues, so he goes and gets the young fella out to the front bar and asks him, what is Murray on about.

The young bloke denies that this event ever happened, so the boss has to stand behind what his worker say's.
By now Bushy is burring up real bad, the pilot is making lots of noises as well.

Nope, the publican aint moving on this one.

Around about now Murray gets up from his stool, the owner must of thought, oh $hit what have I gone and done, but no, Murray just calmly walked out the closest door, the bar was on a corner of this old wooden two story building , the bar had two doors that you could come and go through.

Murray went over to the truck and proceeds to unhook it from the load and reverses the truck back over the road, to where it's about on the corner of the pub. He then pulled all the big chains out of the chain tray, walked in one door and out the other door, whilst linking and dragging these chains behind him through the bar, when he gets back to the truck, he hooks these chains onto the rear tow pin.

By now, most of the locals have done their sums and are exiting this bar anyway possible, it's a mad scramble to get out the doors, some even used the windows, by the time Murray has hooked these chains to the pin at the rear end of the Mack, the publicans nerve gave out, he dumped two cold slabs on the counter and then dropped a brick onto them as well, all the while yelling at Bushy, - " to stop this bloody madman ".

Murray never had any more trouble from that establishment, not after the ground rules had been laid.


regards greenie [smiley=vrolijk_1.gif]

Murray never had any more trouble from that establishment, not after the ground rules had been laid.

Love it! Gotta watch those quiet Kiwis!!

Did that many trips up and down the "BRUTE" highway, it became like the driveway at home, you knew exactly where you were at very twist, turn, bump and where it was a tad dangerous, yep, knew that road like the back of my hand.

Had a wide one onboard one trip north, this lot only required a single Mr Plod, Qld had different rules to the other states, this anomaly appeared every now and then, of only one Mr Plod needed with NO pilot.

Just north of a place called Gin Gin, (about 20 clicks north) the road went down a good hill, down the bottom was a right hand curve, with the creek just down in a bit of a dip. Now when you started on this good downhill slide, you slowed up on the top and went down a couple of gears and started down easy using the motor to hold you back.

As the down hill run gets serious, then up another gear and as the revs peaked out, into another. So if you started in 7th, you had a couple of changes and you would hit the bottom at a tad over the dollar.

The Plod up front really knew his stuff, he was doing a good job, he knew not to be too slow on a down hill run, as that was the only time I could catch up to him, as well as knowing about the CAT 3306 - NOT- having any engine brake, so he kept that downhill run clear for me.

Get to the top of the Big Dipper, as it was nicknamed, back a few and down easy, picking each cog as required, into top as the right hand curve starts and then

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Oh-Oh,

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lock up required as Mr Plod is stationery in the middle of the road. He had the right hand door open and as I hit the stoppers and made that familiar squealing noises, he popped out of the long grass on the right side, he sprinted to the car, jumped in and floored it. By now I'm right on top of him, bracing myself for that crashing noise I knew was going to come, I'm now wide eyed and staring out over the bonnet, the Plod car disappears from view, no loud crunching noises yet, then the Plod car starts to emerge from out of the shadow of the bonnet and boy, did that motor rev it's ring off.

Stopped just up the road, Plod comes back and I'm into him about what a stupid effin crazy thing to do, stop in front of me, specially on a down trot, so ask him why, -- well, he saw a roo hop off the road to the right side and he reckoned it was time to do a bit of target shooting, yeh, he had his pistol on the seat still. He managed to hit it while it was moving and then he wanted to do the humane thing and "despatch" it properly, that's why he was out of the car.

Little did he realise, that I was about to despatch him.

Informed him of how lucky he was and from then on, he did it by the book, had him up front a few times after that lot and always had a laugh about it.


regards greenie [smiley=vrolijk_1.gif]

Mt Isa was a destination that was 'visited' quite often, a rather popular destination actually,

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not.

Got some pictures of one bit-o-gear that had to be delivered as a one piece item, so it took three of us to cart it there, Big Murray with his R 700, two of the Road Boss's, one even used as a Road Train.

It was a large mobile crane, now when it arrived, it was to be put together and sent to work straight away, so we all had to arrive as a group.


The obligatory group photo.






Murray Grant, aka - Big Murray






Ian Black, aka - Blacky







Me with what looks like nothing, have a good look at the floor, got a couple of large counterweights down there.






An easy trip until we get to Winton, now there are two ways to get to Mt Isa from Winton, straight up the highway through Kynuna to the 'Curry, or out wide through Boulia, which way depended on how rough any of these dirt roads were at the time.

Winton to the 'Curry had about 150 clicks of dirt, Winton to Boulia had about a 100 clicks of dirt, this way had a tad more kilometres to get to the Isa, but sometimes with less dirt and a better surface it would be a lot quicker to use it to get to the Isa.

Picked on the least dirt so Boulia it was to be.



A travelling shot of the three of us, good dirt too, don't ya' just lurv the interesting scenery, eh.







Heres a bit of the 'local wild life' you can run into, having a cook up on the side of the road and this one turned up, must have got good whiff of what was cooking, but his beady eyes were firmly fixed on the 'two legged' bits of meat. He was about 5 foot long and a cranky bugger too. Kept a close eye on him till he realised he wasn't going to get anything and he wandered off.




Headed north out of the mission settlement of Dajarra and keep heading north. Way out in the middle of no where another tracks heads of out west to a joint called Urandangie, this intersection of roads, is down the bottom of a long easy downhill run down near the dry creek. I eventually get to the top of this rise and look way down the slope and can Blacky in front, then way down near the creek and this intersection is Murray.

Me, being way back up on the high point, can see some big serious cloud of dust, fast approaching where Murray is heading, a quick calculation says their both going to be at the same spot at the same time. Murray just keeps going straight ahead when all of a sudden a Road Train appears in front of him on his left, Murray locks up whatever brakes on his lot that are working, the R/T driver does not look like he's stopping at all, he just keeps coming out of the scrub. Blacky is stopping as he can see all this lot happening as well.
Th R/T just keeps coming, Murray now is trying to get down the road the R/T has come out of, that R/T just keeps coming trailer after bloody trailer.
The truck was an old Flintstone and all the trailers were the older single deck lighter ones, all EIGHT of them.
Do you know, just how much time has to go by, before all those trailers were out on the highway, Murray did, as he's now down that track to the left, all this action was a bit close, but when the R/T did stop and the driver got out, we found out why he did not stop -- he couldn't.

Working out in the dust and crap country out there, soon chews through whatever brake linings you might have started with, this bloke had been way out west of Urandangie moving cattle around between properties, for over a month, consequently NO brakes working on anything.

Murray excepted all the apologies and we got going again.

An interesting drive had by all.

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Was sent to Mt Isa another time with Nifty, we had unloaded at the Mine and headed around to the big Shell servo on the east side of town for some fuel and a feed, a shower was in order too.
Having a shave and a bloke comes in and asks a simple question to all and sundry, there would of been over a dozen drivers in that shower block, so he got every bodies attention real fast when he asked, " how good is the dirt road down through Kynuna ?"

All silent for about ten seconds when an old dried out wrinkled up R/T driver says one word, this one word now had everybody present waiting with baited breath, that word, - " depends ".

The question asker consumes this vast wealth of knowledge and then asks, - " what do you mean ?"

The dried up one then says very wisely, - " depends,

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on if you own it or not,

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there will about two hours difference ".

He was correct about that 'geuss-timation', that dirt was crap, which would make it about what it normally was.

regards greenie [smiley=vrolijk_1.gif]

Had to take a CAT D7 Dozer to Sydney from Brisbane, told to use a closed 4 row of 4, OK, all's sweet with this easy load, except they shoved the second bit of stuff in under the machine, it's the blade and arms all wrapped up tight, so a tad overweight, whoops, permit needed.

Anyway, I get to Berowra on the way into Sydney and it's about 3-00PM, was forced to go over the weigh-bridge, then the bloke operating the weigh-bridge gives me the bell and just waves me through, eh, no overweight permits were asked for at all, so, a quick look in the mirror and that last axle wasn't even on the weigh-bridge plate at all.

OK, I'm gone from here, before they see their mistake, now being that late in the day and being a tad over length, I should have pulled up at the RSL, just down the road at Berowra and cooled me heels till morning, as it was now fast approaching the evening rush hour here in Sydney. All oversized vehicles have a curfew at the peak hour times and there are only certain hours/times that you can move an oversize load around Sydney, that curfew was fast approaching for me.

Nah, be boogered if I wanted to camp at that bleedin' noisy spot, so I just kept sailing along, right into the joint I had to unload at, which was way out at Blacktown.

Now for those that know Sydney, will know that this little jaunt at this time of day, sure aint gunna be a simple 10 minute drive, eh.
Had to re-train quite a few idiot car drivers that afternoon, yep, gave plenty of them a real good "attitude adjustment" all right, some of them had to go out over the double lines, just to avoid the side of the low loader, they even had to do a bit of dodgem-car driving, trying to avoid head ons with other cars over on that wrong side of the road, even put a couple up of them onto the footpath, yep, this is fun, eh.

Eventually get there and some of the workers were doing a spot of overtime, so, into the yard and they help me take this CAT D7 off.

Once empty, I'm then informed I had to load this KOMATSU WS 235 scraper for Rockhampton, eh, I know nothing about this lot, so a phone call back home, to the joker who was at the front desk handing out the work. He informs me, yep, seeing as your there early, put it on and a pilot will meet me at the gate at 4.30 AM the next morning.

One quick question remains, " what about the bleedin' permits, both for size and weight, you aint gunna get them at 8.00PM at night, now are you?"

Told to stop worrying, it will all be sorted in the morning, the pilot will take me out to the Berowra weigh-bridge, I'm to park off to the side, then the pilot will take another truck with a wide load, coming down from Newcastle into Sydney, he'll then go and pick up the required permits, come back out to me and away we go, all legal, yeh, right.

Hmmmm, what about from Blacktown out to Berowra then, as one certain plod, who had very bad breath, just used to sit out on the side of the highway near Mt Ku-Ring-Gai, sweating on D/H's, like me doing what I'm about to do.

He then says to me, "no worries, we'll be paying for it, that's if anything goes haywire ", this sounds a bit dicey, eh.

I start to load this Scraper onto the float, didn't have the correct timbers with me to get the front wheels up off the deck, to shoot the nose of the scraper way up onto the neck of the float, only had a couple of short blocks with me. In the process of getting the nose up onto the neck, these timbers were spat out by the front wheels and they kind of busted up the timber floor real bad, right at the front near the neck of the float, yep, daylight looking though these big holes, will definitely need some new flooring for this bit-o-gear. Eventually get the Scraper up onto the neck and as far forward as I can, chain it down and get a bit of shut eye.

Suppose you've all heard of Murphy's law, if something can go wrong, etc, etc, then what about O'tooles law, ---- he reckons that Murphy is just a 'bloody optimist'.

So the next morning this plan is taking shape well, all's good, as I'm heading north for the weigh-bridge at Berowra, get up to Mt Ku-Ring-Gai and guess who's sitting there waiting for any clowns, dumb enough, to do what I'm doing.

As I approach him, he flashes his beady eyes over the load and then looks back at me, been here before and knew the drill, so, I just give him one big cheery wave and he just waves back at me and stays put, whoa, bluffed him big time, eh.

Up to the weigh-bridge and off to the side and park up, the pilot disappears to do what he had to do, then one of the scalies from the weigh-bridge spots me sitting out on me own, he walks over and tells me to drive over the bridge. "Sorry pal, just filled me log book out and I'm now on a break, anyway, it's far TOO wide to go over the bridge, without me tearing something down ". He has a good look at the load and say's, - "OK, I'll let you get some sleep".

Must have been about an hour later and the sun was up and beaming into the window, then the prime mover starts to shake about, eh, W.T.F. is going on here. Stick me head up and here's Mr Plod, the one with the bad breath, he's standing on the step trying to open the door, he's got a tape measure in one hand and it looks like he's taken a few measurements of the load already. I'm now getting out, he turns to me and wants me permits, RIGHT NOW, -- oops, so I start to tell him my sad and sorry tale about how the pilot has somehow managed to hold onto them, and he's gone back into town doing another job, but, --- he aint swallowing any of this $hite at all .

Rules are, No Permits in the cab with you, means automatically, you will be booked, as travelling with NO PERMITS AT ALL.

Yep, he then proceed to write out two tickets, one for over length and the other for over width. He then hands them to me with these words of wisdom, "here's your daily double", then strolled off feeling full of himself, to go and have a chat and coffee with the 'mermaids', I'm left sitting there with a couple of tickets, and they aint for the policemen's ball either, oh well, $hit happens, eh.

So whilst waiting for the pilot to get back, another Komatsu scraper, that's identical to the one I got onboard, was heading north and the driver just dragged it straight across the weigh-bridge, whooooops, I'm gunna be in real deep doo-doo now, if some bright eyed scalie spots this lot going over the weigh-bridge.

Well, some bright eyed mermaid did notice what had just happened, so two of them come 'frog marching' out from the weigh-bridge, they order me to 'back up and go across the bridge,- now'.
Ooops, no where to hide out here on the bare concrete, better do what I'm told, so over the weigh-bridge I go and I have a look at that big red needle, as it just seemed to keep swinging around with out stopping, oh crap, another ticket and I haven't even left Sydney yet.

to be continued

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2nd instalment

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Whilst being weighed and given the extra ticket, the scalies are laughing about this lot, as the cop with bad breath, had told them he'd already given me the daily double, aaaah so,- now - I - got - the - Trifecta, giggle, giggle, just like a bunch of schoolgirls.

While this was going on, I noticed that the M.R.D. have a crew doing vehicle inspections, whilst utilising the undercover parking inside the weigh-bridge building, they were doing a roadworthy on a tray truck which had a petrol tank fitted to it. The poor bloke driving the tray truck had a sad look on his face as he read the bits of paper he'd just been given, the M.R.D blokes looked around for another sucker and there I am, ready to 'plucked' once again.

Get back in the truck with the three tickets and one of these M.R.D. jerks, walks over to me and say's with a laugh, " you now want to win the Quadrella ", hmm, this comedian had heard about what was going down, he has already had a good look at the floor of the float and he's seen the two bleeding' big holes punched into the floor, from where I had spat out the two blocks of timber.
I'm in no mood for this crap, so I jump down and grab the hammer I used for checking the tyres with, march straight at him and asked him, "do you want another hole in your 'effin' head "', he kind of picked up on it real quick like, that I was not going to co-operate at all, he turned around real fast and left me alone, he got me drift real good, eh.

It's now time, that the QLD depot is open for business, so, cross over the highway, to make a phone call at the public phone box over on the south side of the highway, and report in, with all these going's on.

The bloke who should have been at the front desk to answer the phone, wasn't there, the phone call keeps going around until someone, somewhere in the system answers it. Well, I got hold of Eric Collier the supervisor, chief driver hirer and firer and head mechanic, from over at the workshop. So I proceed to tell him that I've just won the Trifecta down here in Sydney, he seems to be all pleased for me, then ask's me how much had I won. "Ohh, maybe it will cost you lot, about twenty grand or more, - " EH, - what - are - you - talking - about ".
So, I proceed to tell him about the three tickets I got in my hot little hand, how and why I managed to get them, well, you could see the steam coming down that phone wire and out of the hand piece I was holding, he was as cranky as, the phone conversation ends abruptly with, "you - just - leave - this - with - me",

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"yep, OK, it's all yours,

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bye".

Eventually the pilot returns and I start to tell him about all that's happened, he just laughed and laughed, it was all I could do, to stop whacking him.

Anyway, we hit the road.

North from the weigh-bridge, there is one heck of a long downhill run to the Hawkesbury River, now with no engine brake fitted to a 'grub' sized CAT motor, aka, a 3306, it's normally a very long slow crawl down this hill with the stick stuck in Grandma.
Pilot drops way back behind to warn any fast approaching vehicles that I'm there, now, at a certain point on the down hill crawl, you can let it loose, and not top out too much over a buck twenty, as you go flashing across the bridge, you sure can get a l-l-l-long way up that next hill, before you have to 'pluck' it back into gear, easy enough to get it just right.

Anyway, I get to this point on the downhill slide, find the big sloppy cog and I'm just 'gone like the wind', the pilot wasn't watching me at all, he was looking in the mirror at the vehicles behind him when I let it loose, when he does look out front again, no me, I'm gone, eh, how did 60 odd ton of truck just vanish like that, it took him until I'm over the bridge and well up the next hill, before he even came into view in the mirrors.

Working along OK, I had to use the Jerry's Plains detour around Singleton, the load was just a tad too big for the bridge at Singleton.
Now this bypass road has a very nasty, very short, very steep jump up, just shy of the Jerry's Plains residences, I knew it was there and started on it, the load was a tad heavier than what I normally go over it with, so no fancy gear changes to be used here, just go down two or three at a time, anyway, get down to the bottom of the box and grabbed third deep reduction, let the clutch out and feed it some fat, the motor does this big jump up and down, then the gear stick hits me left leg.

Oh $hit, not again, the right hand engine mount has sheared off again, I had that gear stick smack my left leg three times, while I had that Road Boss.

Didn't even get past Jerry's Plains with that lot, they had to send another prime mover down from Brisbane bob tail, to take on the load, - me, I just got out a very heavy short chain, jacked the motor up and wrapped it around the chassis rails, then let it down onto the chain to support the motor and kind of took it easy going home.

The 'Trifecta' of tickets I got, should have cost Brambles up near 20 grand for what I had just done, but, when they came up in court, the Brambles mouthpiece won the day with the argument, 'that I was doing it all legally anyway, only that the permits hadn't caught up with me', the judge agreed and the case was closed.

Brambles were such a BIG company, they DID NOT use any insurance company at all, they covered it all themselves, it was far cheaper, to have a good mouthpiece on the payroll full time, then, when anything like this came up, send out the big guns.





Stuck at Jerrys Plains,





regards greenie [smiley=vrolijk_1.gif]


ps - that mouthpiece was worth his weight in gold for Brambles, over the years that I was there.

Oakey Creek.

Brambles had the contract to deliver ALL the bits, for two draglines, into the Oakey Crk Mine, this mine site is roughly east from a town called Cappella.
When all this started, the only way into this mine site was an unsealed back country road, this then deteriorated to what was just a well beaten country track, it was hard on the gear and hard on you.
It was hardly ever graded, just a long series of severe bumps, potholes or very bad corrugations, about 35-40 clicks off solid crap you had to contend with each time you went there.
The main Highways leading to Capella weren't what you would call expressways either.

Been going into this mine for about 12 months when the local council EVENTUALLY got around to grading this garbage track, oh bliss, good smooth top and away you could go, I enjoyed it while it lasted.

At one point on this track it did a left turn, went over a rocky outcrop and dived down to a quick right turn to a dry creek crossing, all's good on this smooth loose gravel freshly graded bit of track, till it's get to the corner with the rocky outcrop, the grader driver had pushed the loose surface around the left turn and covered the rocky outcrop altogether.

Me, I was enjoying it too much, came around that left corner expecting that rocky outcrop to be there so I could hit the brakes to slow down, nope, applied the stoppers and just touched them when everything locked up, oh-oh, can not get the speed off and now that right hander down the bottom is fast approaching, quick toss up and the open grass directly ahead was the softest option, had to dodge or mash a few small trees before stopping, but no more damage than a bit of paint missing and a change of undies required.

Reverse out of the mess I just put myself into and proceeded to the site to unload, while unloading, along comes Ross Brownley with his R 600 and another lump of steel for the dragline.

He hops out and starts laughing at me, about having to go scrub, now he was the sort of person that liked to 'dob' on anybody that did something wrong, silly or just made a mistake, Eric Collier would now hear about what I just done.

Got all my gear packed away and ready to depart, so goes over to Rossco's truck to give him a hand, he immediately declines this offer, eh, this never happens, so walk around to the left side of his truck and soon spot why he don't want me, any where near his wheels at all.

Left hand fuel tank is kind of squashed, air start tank has been moved rearwards and all this clay and grass was stuck to the steps and jambed in between the fuel and air tank, hmm, quick deduction here, Rossco was pedalling along the GOOD gravel also, discovered the rocky outcrop was no longer there, but he tried to hook around the right hander down the bottom.

Speed did not do it for him, only made his R 600 slide sideways and whack the clay bank going down into the dry creek bed.

Lot's of sheepish looks now coming from Rossco, so we came to a 'gentleman's' agreement, to say NOUGHT, he could come up with whatever story he wanted to and I staid right out of the equation.

A few of the workers at this mine site had discovered a bush track that led east out onto the Fitzroy Development Rd, wasn't long and this motor bike scramble track was converted into a truck and trailer scramble track, OK, it was rough, but it cut an hour of the drive back to Dingo.
The later part of this goat track, actually then became the road into German Crk mine site, when this happened, we would sneek into the Oakey Crk mine site through the back door, literally.

Had to go back to Oakey Creek a couple of years after the mine opened and it had a brand new town called Tieri, the road now was a super highway, wide as and smooth as, but alas, very few big heavy loads would ever see or even use this new black top.


If only 'somebody', had put that road down in the first place --- ?

Here's what the assembly yard looked like, these thing weren't any toy, about 5000 ton when completed.
If somebody can join these two pics together, then a panorama shot of the yard will be visible.




regards greenie [smiley=vrolijk_1.gif]

There were some many and varied 'colourful' characters that had worked for, or were still working at the Hendra yard.

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A bloke by the name of Graeme Knowles aka G.K., was just one of the many to have worked for Brambles, he departed for another 'money depleting' exercise, he went and bought his own truck, a Scania R 141.
Somehow, he had managed to score a contract with a food store in Brisbane, called Jack The Slasher, yep, an el cheapo grocery outlet, so that meant what they paid to ANY owner operators, was just as cheap.

His contract was to haul a double fridge R/T, once a week Brisbane to Darwin, NO MATTER WHAT, HE HAD TO DO IT.

Now Jack The Slasher was paying just above the 'poverty line', so, he had to get some form of loading back to Brisbane, like

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ANYTHING AT ALL

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that paid.

He trawled around up there at Darwin and eventually got two trailer loads of chilled beef, once a week to Brisbane, the P/U was way out in the scrub at a certain place, it was literally "a bush abattoir", then this lot had to be delivered to Hemmant.

So what you may ask, well then, how many can remember the "Korean" 'bouncing beef' fiasco, yep, that was G.K. carting all this 'bouncing beef'. When he arrived at this abattoir, he was told to reverse one trailer up to the loading dock, get out and go to the canteen and have a few coldies, when that trailer was loaded, go get the other one and resume downing the coldies.
The fellas doing this loading, didn't have a clue about weight limits, they were told to just fill it up so high and all the way to the rear doors. Each loaded trailer, would/could be about 30 to 40 ton payload, just a teeny weeny bit overloaded, eh.

When you do this with de-boned chilled RED meat packed tightly into boxes, it soon adds up and your a tad overweight very quickly.
G.K. was getting paid extremely 'well' for carting this 'bouncing beef' back to Brisbane, he knew the risks and where/how to avoid the known obstacles.

The reason that the load was called 'bouncing beef' was that about a third of the load was kangaroo, the rest of the load could have been donkey, camel, dog, anything at all that had meat which was red in colour, about the closest that these loads got to beef, were all the wild buffalo, packed into the cardboard boxes that had the word BEEF printed on the sides.

Coming down the Toowoomba range G.K. whips around me, he gives me a big wave and grabs the CB and says, - " see at such and such a place ", - "OK, see you there".

He asks me if the load I got on, is a tad over and will I be holding up the weigh-bridge by going over it, yeh, I can do that for you.

Onto the bridge at Gailes , the red needle shows me over, so out with all my permits and log book, now G.K being as cunning as a $hit-house rat, is about one minute behind me, the plate is occupied with what I got on, so he gives a quick toot and just drives around the empty lane, the scalies never twigged, just waved.

He would do this every time he came into Brisbane, he'd look for someone he knew, that would tie that plate up for a while.

The deal when unloading, open the doors, reverse it into the dock and a bit of folding stuff would then cross the palm of his hand. Go over the road and have a coffee, or three, when it's unloaded, a young bloke will come and get you.
All this 'red meat' the G.K. had dragged from the Territory, was immediately unpacked from the cartons and it was sent down the boning line, proper beef was then mixed into this mess, so these 'operators' were sure scamming the Koreans.

As he bought each trailer down the range and when it was unloaded, then around to Jack The Slashers at Kingston, go get the next trailer and do it again. As he pulled the first full trailer out of the Kingston warehouse, he would take it to his home at Redbank, the highway then, was nothing like it is today and you could do a right turn across the highway into Redbank.
When the second trailer was loaded, around home again and make up the road train at Redbank, at about 1.00 AM on Saturday morning, he would now tow this road train out onto the highway and do a bolt for the Toowoomba Range, he must of done this for a couple of years and NEVER got caught doing it, had plenty of stupid looks from lots of drivers, but NO Plod nailed him.

This bouncing beef was a good deal as long as you could get it, this lasted until the Federal Government was asked some very embarrassing questions by the Korean diplomats, about the validity of this so called beef, it then turned into a political bun fight - big time.

With this extra cash source vanishing into thin air, about now G.K's accountant told him that he would going backwards very soon, wasn't long and the repo agents were on the warpath.

While all this was going on, G.K. had to use a lot of '

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' substances to keep going, so lot's of night time work, one such effort was rather a good one, it was night and he was heading south from Mckinley over the crap dirt to Winton, a car comes up behind him and just leaves the headlights on full beam, this sort of stuff is frowned on, even way out there, as he keeps going this set of blazing lights are really getting to him, so, as he approaches a fence line he knew which had a one lane grid on it, he stops, so that this idiot can not get passed, out with the hammer to check all these tyres on the R/T.

He described it as such, I walk down towards the rear, whop,whop, - whop,whop,

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whop,whop,- whop,whop,- whop,whop,

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whop,whop,- whop,whop,

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whop,whop,- whop,whop, - whop,whop, as I gets down the back end, smash, smash, smash, smash, oh dear, oh dear, the headlights no worky anymore, whop whop, all the way back up front, he gets back to the cab, hops in and drives off.

This happened just before Kynuna, so this idiot without any lights makes his way into town, spots the sign to the Plod residence and into he goes to tell this sad and sorry tale.

G.K. keeps heading south towards Winton, thankful that he got rid of this idiot, swings around the corner coming into Winton and these blue lights start to flash, he pulls up and starts talking to the local Mr Plod.

Mr Plod from back at Kynuna, had given him a phone call and described what had happened,the only information that was available was that it was a R/T heading towards Winton, so please stop ANY R/T and ask the drivers some questions, G.K. just happened to be the first R/T to come into Winton, so, he wants to know WHY he did it.

G.K. tells Mr Plod from Winton, just what that idiot was doing, that's why he did what he did, G.K. gets a bit of a lecture and then he's told to P.O.Q. -so he did that.

to be continued