A few tales from an old worn out steeringwheel attendant ----------------

[Greenie]

Scored a job driving for Brambles Heavy Haulage in Brisbane, Qld.


Transformer from Brisbane to Adelaide, Sth Aust,
Snuck into town (Brisbane) one afternoon, with-out letting the office no where I was, thinking, er, hoping I might manage to get a half day of the following morning.
Didn't work though, only been at home for about an hour and the phone rings, the missus was already clued up and to say, I'm not here, she answers the phone and immediately states, — “I’m not here”, this conversation went back and forth for a few exchanges of ——— “I’m not here”.
Eventually she just handed me the phone, as she was NO match for John Gerber, the bloke who used to do all the dispatch work.
John Gerber then tells me to be at the Acacia Ridge depot, at such and such a time in the morning for a load to South Australia, hmm, —— no time off for the wicked, eh.
Some times I used to think that Brambles Heavy Haulage had a hot line straight from that Gailes Weigh Bridge direct to the Hendra Depot, as this happened a few times before, they always knew when I was at home and shouldn't have been.
Next morning I arrive at the Acacia Ridge depot at the due time, Greg Jones( R.I.P.) is there with his blue coloured Looselybuilt, two tri axled Low Loaders are already loaded with transformers.
Greg’s told to take one and the other is mine.
Ho boy, ho boy, ——————— suppose you have all heard of the song by John Denver called — “Some day’s are diamonds, some day’s are stone”.
Well looks like that Ar$hole with that effin big boulder, has smacked me in the head with it once again.
The transformer Greg has on, is about half the size of the thing I got on.
I had dragged a few transformers around the countryside by now to know, just what these things were capable of weighing, so Greg’s would have to be about the18 to 20 ton mark, the one I had to drag to Adelaide was, in my eyes, about 35 - 40 ton.
I could see real bad things eventuating, dragging this bloody heavy thing into Sth Aust.
The scalies over there just did not muck around at all, if they got you overloaded on an overload permit, then it was straight to jail and do not pass “go” to get your 200 bucks either, just watch your fingers as the jail door slammed shut.
The only way you were able to be released, was that the fine had to be paid in FULL, bloody good fine too way back then, once paid in full ———‘ it was on your bike, sonny’.
Protestations were met with deaf ears as I was told, ———— " JUST DO IT ", so, Greg heads of out the gate and I follow, they had even supplied me with a pilot, don't know why, as it didn't need one, suppose he must of been there for moral support, eh.
First thing in the way was that pesky hill called Cunninghams Gap, no fancy gear changes with this lot on, just idled up to the first bit of the uphill climb, slowed right down and slipped it into 3rd deep, that way I could pluck first deep, —— if it was really needed.
Good choice of gearing, so decided to use the same on the second uphill ‘rush’.
In the meantime the pilot and Jonsey had done the fast dash up to the top of the hill and were patiently waiting for me to appear on the scene, ————— it was one hell of a long wait until I got up there.
The steepest part of Cunninghams Gap, was that last left turn way up top, there were a few other pinches on that climb, but not steep like that last bit was.
The motor had done a bit of dropping in the revs as I went up that hill, so decided to grab that last cog in the box, aka —‘grandma gear’, where I could do it safely, just before that left turn up top, there used to be a waterfall on the left side of the road, the road actually flattened out a bit near this waterfall, perfect spot to grab that elusive cog, you could get it real easy.
If you didn't get it and missed it, then the only cogs that would be of any use to you, would be them ones that went in reverse.
Jonsey and the pilot heard the motor do the double shuffle, then all went quite, I did not want the right hand engine mount to break if I poured on the fat too hard, so just let the motor take up the road speed after the gear change. This loss of noise had the pilot and Jonsey worried, they thought I had missed the cog and they came running down around the corner expecting me to be either locked up backwards into the bank, or, disappearing over the edge. They both stopped running real quick when they saw me coming at them, Had to wait about 15 mins up top, before that motor had cooled down enough to continue on.
Get to the border of Sth Aust and NSW on a Saturday afternoon, stop at the pub that used to be there right on the border at Coburn, into the bar and find out that there are NO permits there for us to pick up. Ring Brisbane and find out somebody had forgotten to apply for the permits, so, we would have to cool our heels till a couple of permits could be delivered to us, they would eventually appear from a bus that used to do the Adelaide/Broken Hill run, this bus will not be appearing until Tuesday morning.
Greg Jones was like sponge when it came to beer, he enjoyed those few days of enforced hard drinking, me I could take it or leave it, so a quite time was had by all waiting for these permits.
Tuesday morning rolls around and the bus duly arrived with these said bits of paper, along with a few word’s of advise, “ that the scalies were spotted parked up at such and such a place”.
Did not know if they were heading east, or, west, so, —————— the game now heats up.
Greg is sent ahead as the scout, with all that booze in him, I reckoned they would just lock him up when they smelt him, without even spotting me at all.
So, a pub crawl down the highway, as we get to each fly spot on the map, we stopped at the pub, into it to find out if the scalies have ventured as far as this place.
Good excuse for Greg to 'top -up' at each of these establishments. We keep going and keep stopping to find out any information about the scalies, when eventually we get to one fly spot on the map, Yunta, yep, the scalies had been here and now they were heading back to Adelaide.
Just the news we were after, so of once again, this time with me in the front as Jonsey had to finish his ‘pot’, could not have been any more than five clicks out of Yunta and low and behold, two bloody cars full of these ‘grubs’ appear over the crest, they both stop in a big cloud of dust, all are out waving their hands in the air.
Greg's got no choice at all, so he just pulls over and stops, me on the other hand, when they jumped out of the cars they were behind me.
Now I need to get a bloody big gap between Greg and myself, just so that NO visual eye contact can be made, between these two vastly different sized bits of gear.
So I just creep ahead at a slow pace moving in and around all these white posts down the left side of the road, when at the top of this rise and when I could NOT see Jonsey in the mirror, that's when I stopped.
In the meantime a very fat and overweight scalie is running, trying to catch up with me, I reckon he might have lost a couple of pounds of booze by the time I did stop.
He was not amused at all, with this little stunt I had just pulled, he is now threatening me with all sorts of recriminations.
Explained that I had to find a safe place to stop, ———————— he DID NOT believe that little porky, eh.

Eventually he calmed down, maybe it was ‘he was out of breath’, anyway he orders that I hand over my log book and the overload permits.
OK, do that and he takes a walk down the back of the float, oh Chri$t, I'm gone now.
Those little wheels down the back-end of the float normally had a good bulge, —so at a glance, — you could see just how heavy this load was.
He walks back up front and tells me off once again for not stopping, hands me my log book and permits, he then informs me that my name will now be in the scalie’s system FOR-EVER, ————— for this little effort.
EH, NO TICKET for all that weight I got onboard, so, as he walks of into the sunset, I jump out of the cab to have a look at these 'give away' little Low Loader/float tyres.
I do not believe what I'm seeing, the outside tyres are as round as the day they were made, W.T.F. is going on here, stick my nose over in between the two tyres and the inside one is deformed all out of shape, bulging so much it’s mashed hard up against the outside dual tyre.
What had happened is that the inside right hand side tyres, had stopped on the ridge of gravel, that gets pushed up any time a car goes of the edge of the road.
With the inside tyres sitting up on this ridge, the outside tyres had NO pressure on them at all, “well buggar me”, ——— dodged that bullet, eh.
Head on at a very steady pace and duly arrive in Adelaide early the next morning.
I'm under strict instructions, that I must make a phone call when I get to the Golden Fleece servo at the corner of the Barrier and Sturt highways, get there and Jonsey does the bolt as he knows where he's going, me, into this servo and make the phone call, it's to Brambles yard in Adelaide.
This call did not go to the front desk, but direct to the Depot Managers desk. I tell him who I am and the first thing he asks, - " are you parked out front of the servo " , -_ " yep ", — " quick —— better move it around the back of the servo, — so that it can't be seen from the road, oh, and stay put till I get out there ".
OK, —— I’m getting paid by the hour so no skin off my nose if I have to park me butt in a stationary chair, I could of got used to that real quick, eh.
About an hour and a half later this bloke walks in and glances around, spots me and makes a beeline to me, he is the Depot Manager and he informs me that the weighbridge is open down the road at Elizabeth.
These dudes had been opening early in the morning then closing down in the afternoon, been doing this for a couple of days and hopefully today was no different.
The manager has a Brumbles two way radio in the car, using the same two way channel as what I had in the truck, told to go back to the truck and wait for the word from this bloke, each time he would drive up north passed the weigh bridge and do a "U" turn and go south, he would report over the radio as to what was happening, all these rude noises from the company two way radio were stopping me falling to sleep as the day wore on.
Eventually in the late afternoon, he says 'start it up' and he would be my guide in to Adelaide to the drop of point.
Get going and the bridge is locked up tight, so down into Adelaide and we do some twists and turns, me, I'm lost about now, so just keep following this car.
We do a right turn into what looks like a wide dead end ally, it's got this big tin fence down the end of the alley, me, I'm thinking that this bloke has led me down a dead end street, when all of a sudden this big tin fence starts to open up, I'm told to just drive straight into this yard, do that and then this big fence is shutting once again.
Turns out that this is the back door, to this place where the Electricity Commission of South Australia, store the transformers, so it didn't take long at all to get this one heavy chunk of metal of the Low Loader.

Here's the only photo that I got of that transformer, parked up in the yard at Adelaide, Sth Aust


.

 

[Meanderer]

@Greenie I enjoyed reading your story very much! Thanks.

 

[Meanderer]

30,000 LBS OF BANANAS - HARRY CHAPIN​

 

[Mr. Ed]

Excellent story @Greenie!

 

[Greenie]

I was lucky enough to 'jag' a job, as a driver for Brambles Heavy Haulage, Brisbane Division back about 1978, I even managed to get a brand new 1978 White Road Boss to drive, it had a CAT 3306B - 275 hp motor fitted, a 15 speed Road Ranger, Eaton 38000 lb rear bogie with 4.1 centres and a Hendrickson single point 38000 lb suspension. Then they even gave me a brand new Allison 3 row of 4, all in all a good small set-up, remember the operative word, -------- S - M - A - L - L.

Suppose you've heard the song by John Denver called "Some Days are Diamonds, Some Days are Stone ", well, to me, that pretty much sums up what Heavy Haulage was all about. You can be rolling along great for a week, a month, maybe even two months and those days are diamonds, then, some Ar$ehole is gunna come along and hit you over the head with a bloody great boulder.

Things had been rolling along far too good, for far too long, when I'm sent down to Melbourne to P/U a ships motor with a generator hanging of the back of it, according to the paperwork, it was meant to be approximately 25 ton, so had my 'horse', a tag axle and my Allison 3 row of 4 L/L, this lot should be OK for the P/U, ---------------- not.

Get to Melbourne and had breky at a servo, directly over the road from Ford at Broadmeadows, rang Bris to let them know where I am, then I'm told that the pick up with this motor, is not scheduled till about 1-30 PM.

Told to waddle on down to the quarry at the cnr of the Hume Highway and Camp Rd, another driver, Don Buckman, aka - 'dada' ( as he was the oldest bloke driving for Brambles H/H Bris at the time ), he will be in there loading an old clapped out Bucyrus Face Shovel, told to go give him a hand, then head around to the joint I have to get this motor from.

Drop in to give 'dada' a hand at loading, he's got his bent 8 Mack, 2 row of 8 dolly and his Drake 4 row of 8 swingwing Low Loader. He'd dropped of some bit of gear south of Melbourne yesterday, this was his bit of puddin’, to take the bumps out on the way home.
He had a pilot with him also, Geoff Chambers, so it was a bit of a 'gab fest', while we there loading this old rusted bit of gear. It was not that often, you actually run into some one from home, when your that far away.
This old face shovel, had the dipper arm and bucket removed, so it was just the shed, tracks and main arm, wow, maybe all up, about 25 ton was going to be put onto this big 4 x 8 bit-o-gear, 'dada' was laughing, he hadn't had it this easy, for a very long time.

The Vic. Main Roads Department “scalies”, had already been called and were on the way out to the quarry, they had to deliver the permits for both me and 'dada', they duly arrive and inspected the loaded face shovel that 'dada' had on board , they tell him to go hit the quarry weighbridge, everything is just honkey-dorey, 'dada' then sets sail for the border.

One of the “scalies” has a chat to me about this motor I've got to P/U, I inform him of what I know and he says to give him a ring on this number, once I've got it loaded, as he wants to get out of the office again that day, just to have a stickybeak at how big and what this motor is.

OK, no worries, I can do that.

Get to there early to the appointed address, go in and introduce myself to the bloke in charge, he has a squiz at his paper work, yep all's still OK, he's got it penciled in for a P/U with the crane, at about 1.30 PM.
Turns out this place used to be a used machinery wheeler dealers joint, it had gone belly up and been put through the receivers, everything in this building had been sold at auction and it was all being cleared out on this day.

The crane set-up had everything organised and it WAS to be run to the timetable that had been set, or big dollars will be lost.

Walked into this building looking for this motor, found it by the lot number, WOW, 25 ton be buggered, this thing looked more like 35 ton to me. It was a very large, inline 6 cylinder ships motor, with a generator hanging of the back of this bleeding' big motor and all this was attached to very heavy bit of framework too. This thing could have powered a town of about 5000 population, real easy.

Ooops, onto the phone to Bris, what or who in the heck, gave out these dimensions and weights. Told it was just a 'wild arsed guess' from the buyer up in Brisbane, ho-boy, I'm going to be really buggered if that scalie actually sees this thing, ——————— Brisbane then told me, —————— " just put it on ".

OK so who’s paying for the overloaded ticket if I get one, the fellas in Brisbane said they would, so no skin of me nose, eh.

Well, after lunch, all's going well with this loading, at last, the motor is dragged out the door with a very big fork lift pulling it out of the building, they're using rollers to keep it going along easy, stop it in front of the crane and they unhook, then go back into the building for the next bit of machinery.
The crane driver yells at me "to get everything ready and back up under this motor, once he's got it in the air, oh, by the way, how much weight is in it".

I tell him my paper-work say's 25 ton, but he better start thinking about 35 ton, he's got a rather new Tadano Crane, about a 40 tonner, or so, maybe it could lift up a tad more. Up the top of this big stick, there are 8 sheaves up there, he's got it rigged with 8 parts of wire, 4 sheaves, so he's still got a bit up his sleeve, if it don't like picking this motor up.

Dogman hooks on the chains to the big motor and gives the up signal, cranedriver gives it a rev and leans on the up stick, motor nearly dies and the legs on the other side are about 2 foot in the air, OH $HITE, down easy and driver yells at the dogman, un-hook and give it another sheave.

Times starting to be lost about now, and the schedule is looking decidedly off.

Dogman rips it up another sheave and away we go again, same drill, dogman hooks on the chains and gives the signal, driver hits the go pedal, quite a bit harder this time, and reefs hard on the up stick.

Only thing this did, was jack them pesky other feet of the ground even quicker and a tad higher than before, whoa there bullock, by now the crane drivers cranky, he yells at the doggy again, he does the same thing again, only problem now, if this don't work, -----------------they gunna need a much B-I-G-G-E-R crane.

Dogman does his thing once again, driver really revs the motor and this time, starts to pop that 'up lever,' this in turn starts the big motor to bounce along on the ground, it's coming in real close to the crane legs as the driver shortens the stick and lifts up the tip, well, he can only go in so far, before this motor starts to smack the legs on the crane, a decidedly B-I-G no-no, eh.

He sucks it as close as he's game too, then really lays into the up stick, popping away at it again, he eventually bounces this motor about 3 feet of the ground and he hits the horn, that's my signal to get the Low Loader under it FAST. Reverse it back real quick and the dogman waves ‘stop’, I do that, then apply the park brake, now before the park brake could even work, the crane driver just dropped this motor straight down onto the Low Loader, the whole truck starts to shake and bounce about, oh-oh, it better be in the correct position 'cause I'm not going to be able get them to move it around after all this mucking around, eh. Oh boy, oh boy, times money and they just wasted about an hour, got a real cranky cranedriver now.

I'm then ordered to pull away from the crane, park it up and then hop out to have a look, just to see where it's landed.

Turns out it was loaded pretty straight and in the approximate place where it should have been, so chained it down good and tight, then go ring this number I'd been given for the scalie.
He answers and then says- " what took you so bloody long", - I tell him "the crane they used, was a tad small for the job in hand", he didn't query that at all, just asked me how wide it all was now it's loaded, told him " lt's all just with-in the floor area of the L/L, not wide or long at all ", he says - "OK, piss off and head for the border ".

Oh boy, oh boy, very lucky that he never asked about the height, even luckier that never came out and saw the squashed tyres on the Low Loaders tri axle, the tyres were actually pushed down so far, that they were touching on the inside, yep, they were rubbing together.

Headed for the border, the servo at Yarroweyah was to be my camping spot for the night, needed a good sleep after this days antics.
It was rather slow going with this motor onboard, the traffic up around Shepperton was bad, as they had the trots on that night, so traffic everywhere and it was slow going. Got to Yarroweyah and eventually had a camp.
Had breky there and headed for the border, now anybody who has travelled that road, before they built the new big wide concrete bridge, will tell you that the old shaky road/rail bridge over the Murray River at Tocumwal, weren't so crash hot AT ALL, this thingy was loose and rattly and the noises you made using it were horrendous, now I'm more than a tad overweight down the back end and the deck of this shaky old bridge looks decidedly weak, for what I'm about to do to it.

Crawled across it OK with lots of squeaks and protests from each and every loose bolt, then I spot 'dada's' horse and cart. He's off getting his New South Wales permits from the local plod, who issues them to all and sundry, pulled up and was talking to Geoff about what I got on, he goes and has a look, comes back with these words of wisdom, ----- "think you two better swap loads somehow, or, if you get caught with that lot on, your heading for the lock-up ".

Hmmmmm, what a predicament I'm in once again, 'dada' comes back and say's the very same thing, I got the wrong load, big time. We worked it out, that the pilot would range out in front of 'dada' about a click or two, I would try and hold another click or two behind 'dada', now if anything 'ugly' was around, Geoff would use the CB to contact 'dada', then 'dada' would use the company radio set to tell me what's going on, as I had NO CB in the truck back then.

The word was, if anything is around, find the nearest gate to any paddock you can find, drive it in as far as I could then get out and bloody well run for it.

We get going and it's me that's holding everybody up, out onto the flat country heading North for Finley and as soon as I tried to get it into top gear, the motor would throw the towel in and I'd just have to go back a gear, wow, from here to Brisbane stuck in 9th gear, this is gunna take a day or two, that's for sure.

Took a tad longer than that, 4 and a half days of driving, to eventually get back home.

Everything was going well, no hiccups at all, couple of flat tyres, but that's normal, until we are approaching Moree just on dusk. The scalies were working the pad on the south side of town in their usual spot. I get the word they are there, but, there's a turn off to the right just before this pad, this is where Brambles Liquid Haulage depot is. So, we bunch up and the pilot goes around the corner, followed by 'dada' and me stuck to his tail, like it was super-glued to him, up to the gates at Liquid Haulage and some tanker driver was in there doing something, so the gates were wide open, you little ripper, straight in and park up, whew, dodged that lot for now, eh.

All into the pilot car and head for the nearest pub for some grub, the scalies see the pilot car come back out onto the highway and wave us down, 'dada', cool as cucumber, just hands them his permits and states, - "I'm driving the big one", - "oh, OK, all's sweet then ", - yep, ----- whew, it looks like I've dodged another bullet, eh.

Now this trip starts to get serious, so, very, very early the next morning were away, there' no scalies at the pad, so, out the gate and turn left into the night. If we had turned right out the gate, it would have put us straight back into Moree and who knows where them scalies were hiding.
Turning left pointed us down the Warialda Rd, funny way to get to Brisbane, eh, if you look at a map, you'll see a track heading north out of Warialda, this proverbial 'goat track' points to a small village called North Star, then back onto the Newell highway, way up north of Moree.

Now these two places are not on the scalies radar at all, this is so far way out in the sticks for them to be looking, even if they were looking for us, we had by now completely vanished from them. If they wanted to find us, they would've needed the the Air Force to spot us way out here.

Make Warialda and it's still dark, turn up the 'goat track' toward North Star and head north, sun starts to pop it's head up and we can now see again, 'dada' was using the Brambles company radio, telling me about a bridge up ahead of us, it's an old "bailey type " constructed bridge, something that you would have seen the G.I.'s building in the 2nd WW, these type of bridges just look like a big Meccano set construction. There was another one of these bridges, built over the Gwyder River, just north of Moree on the Newell Highway, only thing was, the one on the highway, over the Gwyder, was built a damned site heavier and stronger, that what this one was, that is now directly in front of me.

'Dada' had stopped short of this bridge, I pull up behind him, he gets out and comes back to me and gives me a stern lecture about this particular bridge, whilst he is on it, I'm not to get on it AT ALL, until he is fully across this bridge, OK, I'll do that.

He informs me that this bridge is a bit weak and while he will be driving over it, from outside his truck, just in case he has to jump, eeehhh, —————— this is starting to get a bit scary.

'Dada' goes back and gets in his truck, finds Grandma in both boxes, pulls out the choke( hand throttle ), gets it rolling and opens the door, steps out onto the step tank and shuts the door again, he's now steering it through the open window, this is all happening while the Mack is creeping forward, as he starts to get further out onto this bridge, the road way starts to dip down with all this weight taking the top rails with it, I'm at eye level with these top rails and can not believe what I'm seeing.

This floppy little bridge, has sagged about two foot downwards, by the time 'dada' is out in the middle of it, these top rails are now stretched way out of shape are looking more and more like a boomerang, me. I'm sitting there wide eyed and can not believe what I'm seeing.

When 'dada' starts to get out fully onto this bridge, a ute with three blokes in it, swings onto the bridge coming the other way, and attempt to drive onto the bridge with 'dada' on it, whoops, no room up there for that ute and 'dada' too, so it backs off the bridge. The three blokes get out and start to walk along this bridge, a couple of them chicken out when they realise just what shape this bridge is in and just what 'dada' is doing to it, they go back fast to firm ground.
Only one brave soul, or maybe this 'turkey' had no brains at all, he get's out to near the halfway mark and then has to contend with the width of the 4 row of 8 swingwing Low Loader spread out to 12’-6” wide, so he just flattens himself up tight against the steelwork.

Now the penny might have dropped about now for this turkey, or, because maybe he felt the vibrations and protestations coming from this steel work he'd pressed himself up so tight against, well, about now, " shit's are trumps ", ———— he's had it, and does a bolt back to safety.

Well 'dada' does get over this bit of 'sloppy liquorice' without busting through and going into the water,———————— s-o-o-o.

Now it's my turn, I put it into Grandma and open the door, with my right foot on the top step of the fuel tank and the left toe just touching the ‘go’ pedal, steering with my left hand finger tips, couldn't shut the door, as there was no hand throttle fitted to this truck.

If it's good enough for 'dada', then I better do the same, eh.

Start to creep out onto the bridge and you should of heard all these loose bolts/rivets squealing, complaining and protesting, as more and more weight gets put on them, it was so loud, that if I was wearing ear muffs, the sound would still have been deafening. You think a set of fingernails scratched over a blackboard makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up, well, you should of heard this lot, ————————————— it was just an appalling noise.

Out to the halfway mark, no backing out now, those top rails are now looking like there about to chuck in the towel, me, I'm shaking like dog $hitting razor blades, never been put in a predicament like this lot before.

Somehow that lousy bridge took what we had just given it, so, as I get of it, 'dada' starts moving and I just follow, down the road and around the corner to the local cafe for breky.
We seat ourselves and then these three blokes from the ute march in, they want to know how much the Mack weighs all up, 'dada' ask, - " why do you want to know this", turns out these three blokes are from the local council and are there to put up some load limit signs on this bridge, "yeh, what sort of weight limit is on these signs", - "we've got these 20 ton load limit signs to put up", - choke, choke, gasp, gasp, - "eh, ---- what, ----- your ----- joking, --- right", - "nope, that's what's going up ".

So 'dada' and the head turkey start to have a discussion about this bridge, 'dada' asks him, - " how many cows could you fit onto that bridge ", head fella reckons, - " at least a hundred ", - OK, what do you think that that lot would weight then, hmm, yep, right, so a 20 ton limit is a bit silly, cause cows can't even read road signs, eh.

They thought 'dada' with the bent 8 Mack, was the heaviest, but they never realised what sort of weight I had on them little back wheels on my Low Loader.

Dodged everything all right with that little detour, got to the border and 'dada' had to go north from Goondiwindi and I'm on me own now, eventually I get to Warwick and spent the night there, big days run, eh, Moree to Warwick in one full days driving with the truck, you can do it in 3 hrs with a car, ————————— WOW.

Leave Warwick early and stopped on the top of Cunninghams Gap, to check the chains and tyres, got back into the cab and just started to go over the top of the range, when the 6-00 o'clock morning news started to be broadcast on 4 KQ, now it was going to be a very long drag coming down off this lot, as I was so heavy, I just got it locked down in Grandma and that's where it's staying for quite a while.
Other trucks caught up with me and when it was safe, I would pull off the road as far as I could to let them pass.

All was going well until I get near the twisty turns at the clay walls down near the bottom of the first big slide, look in the mirror and bugger me, here's an Ipec overnighter whipping around the corner just behind me, he was going like the clappers too. I had no CB to tell him to back off, so, surprise, surprise for this joker. He slips right up in behind me and then pops his nose out to overtake me, going over the double lines to do the job, when suddenly a car came screaming around the bend in front going uphill.
This idiot car driver is playing like he's Stirling Moss, he's out in the middle lane, has his arms are locked straight, hands gripping the wheel in a death grip, and now the Ipec truck is directly in front of him, no more that 50 feet away.

Shits are trumps right now, for all three of us, I'm frantically trying to get over into the dirt, the Ipec driver has everything locked up, now the kid has really frozen, his eyes look like the underneath of a saucer and just as big, his arms being locked like they were, was what saved him and he just kept turning in towards the clay wall, this cleared the middle lane for the Ipec truck, he shot passed and looked at me and wiped his brow with his left hand as he went passed me, then he's gone.
Now this kid was in a bit of bother, as he must of dirtied his nappy by now, must of freaked out at this lot happening right in front of him.

He managed to come back into focus, just as the car was about to slam head on, into the clay wall, he flipped the wheel and just missed the clay wall, but was down in the drain. He did manage to stop his vehicle, as I just slipped around the next corner, so I can't tell you, if he got out and was emptying out his nappy or not.

I'm nearly down that first slide and can see the corner where there is now the Heli-Pad, this last bit of the first slide, is a long straight run down hill, there is only one lane up and one lane down, I'm about 2/3rds of the way down that straight, when I look in the mirror and here comes a blue KW K100 with a pan trailer, he's fairly got it flying as it's got that speed sway going on, I look forward and see a car towing a caravan has now come around the bottom corner heading uphill.
In this car dad is driving, mum in the passenger seat and two kids in the back seat with the caravan hooked up, the KW is still bearing down on me real fast, something aint quite right about now. I do quick mental calculation and all three of us are going to be at the same spot, at the same time, —————— oh shit, ——————— not again.

I go for the left side of the road as quick as I can, I got well over and start knocking down the white posts, the KW has suddenly realised far too late, what is about to eventuate, he locks everything up and starts smoking all the rubber, now he's got the arse end sliding from side to side, with the cab doing the opposite of the trailer, a perfect lockup and power slide is now under way, he's leaving these big long twisty black marks on the road.
The stupid car driver has not even twigged that he, and his family are about to get annihilated, mum's got her finger pointing and wagging at the KW and saying something to hubby, ---- but, --------- he's just keeping to his side of the road, this D/H didn't move off the road AT ALL, maybe he reckoned he pays his taxes, so he's entitled to this bit of tar.

By now I'm just about completely off the road and the KW is that close to my butt, it's either he hits me in the butt, or he attempts to squeeze through, he chooses the later, so as he comes through, his left hand mirror is removed by the big flywheel sticking out on this motor I got on, the car and caravan are still taking up all the other lane, so, the car looses it's right hand mirror on the bullbar of the KW, as it goes screaming through, be buggered if I know how that KW managed to miss the side of that van. That KW had only lost about half his road speed, when all this happened, in a flash he's off again, around the bend and gone.

The idiot in the car now stops and get's out of his car, don't know what he was thinking of, or what he could do, but that KW is now 'gone like the wind', no stopping and swapping names and addresses way out out here, eh.

I did happen to recognize the KW, it was from that mob called the OverNighters, blue cab with yellow circle and a black bat in the yellow circle.
I can even remember the absolute look of horror, on that truck drivers face too, I often wondered if he ever came down that hill, at that breakneck speed ever again.

Eventually get to the Shell servo at Aratula for breky, the radio announcer at 4KQ, has just stated the time, it was 7.30, WHAT, an hour and half just to get off that bloody hill.

Head on into toward Brisbane thinking, how in the heck am I going to get around the Gailes weighbridge, as they had been working both sides of the highway 24/7 for about a month.

Thought out what to do, so as I get through Ipswich, no bypass road back then, the highway was still only two lanes out here too, so as I get near this place where St Peter Claver College is today, you could turn right and go across the other lane and up into a large yard, can't remember who's yard it was now, but I had dropped some machinery off there before. So I just drove on in, went and saw the bloke in charge and asked if I could leave the Low Loader there for a couple of hours, as I had to get over to the Hendra Depot to pick up a dolly.

No skin of his nose at all, so all's good again, drop the L/L and head for the depot, picked up a 2 x 8 dolly and spread it out to 12 foot and a bit wide, got this weigh bridge stuffed now, you can not fit on it, with a 12 ft wide bit of gear.
Back out to P/U the L/L and hooked up and just drove around the side of the weighbridge, stopped, walked back in with my permits and logbook, all's OK, had the book stamped and headed to Archerfield to unload.

I had already warned them at the depot, that they would need a bloody good sized crane to get this thing of me.

Get to the place and there's the newest crane that the Crane Div had, it's a brand new KATO 50 tonner, even had Bobby Burgess driving it, go and have a chat to him about what happened when it was being loaded. Bob already had it reeved up to it's max and he even had a set of scales hooked up to the main wire. Get it into position and unchained as Bob's dogmnan hooks on the chains, he's given the 'up' and he slowly takes the strain, it lifts of the L/L as easy as, he gets it up a bit higher and calls out for me to hop up and have a look at what it weighs, it's a tad under 43 ton, wow, no wonder I couldn't get that truck into top gear.

Was very glad to get home and have a day off after that lot.

Here's a few pics of the ship's motor and generator, when I dropped the L/L in the yard out at Ipswich.

 

[Greenie]

Here's another bit of a blunder by the 'office johnnies', wrong truck, wrong load, used to happen every now and then.


Back in the late 70's early 80's, the " Mr Plods ” couldn't read a log book very well, it was only the NSW and Vic "Mr Plods" that had been taught to read them, they even had flying squads on the prowl, so you behaved yourself whenever these ‘turkeys’ were around in those states.

But, the New South Wales Main Roads Department sure knew a thing or two about what was going on, the 'scalies, or mermaids’ ( the Ar$eholes that worked on the weighbridges ), were a right pain in the proverbial actually, so every time you headed down into Cockroach County, you had to be right on the ball.

One Monday morning I was given a job to take a Euclid 35 dump truck, from Brisbane to Singleton, NSW, head around to the place to load this bit-o-gear onto the tri axle low loader, get it onto the deck of the Low Loader easy enough, one of the workers at this place loaded it onto the Low Loader for me, he even reversed it on, just to make unloading it a lot easier.

OK, when it's up on the deck, I take a good look around to see if all is OK, I take a look at the little tyres on the low loader and W.T.F. they look like they are half flat, ask the fella's what have they been doing to this thing, to make it so heavy.

I'm given a blank look by these turkeys, so, I climb up onto the machine to have a look in the dump bowl, WOW, they have welded all these heavy gauge bit's of angle iron into the bottom of the bowl, just for good measure, they had welded these very thick plates to the side walls as well, even threw in a couple of spare tyres ( fully rigged and full of water ) and a couple of drums of hydraulic oil were chucked into it as well.
This machine was going to a new dam site near Singleton, and they were shifting bleedin' big rocks, hence, all these extra strong bits were welded into the the dump body.

Hmm, this is looking decidedly different than what a normal Euclid 35 should weigh, with a tri axle, you could just get away with carting one of these on an overload permit, but, this thing now required a quad axled low loader.

Oops, better ring the boss and explain all this, he say's no one else is available and it's me, or, ——— don't let the door hit me bum on the way out, —— OK then, I can see which way this hand is being played, so, ———— who's going to pay the overload fines if I get grabbed, a couple of minutes later I'm told they will pay, BUT, just don't get caught, PLEASE.

Needed a pilot vehicle as well, because it was a tad wide and the law down in Cockroach County said I needed one, so we eventually get going about 11 AM, a bit late, but that's OK, no great rush to get this thing down there to the dam site.

First night is spent at the Glencoe Pub, left there the next morning and get down to Willow Tree Road House for lunch and I am informed that the 'scalies' have arrived at the weigh-bridge south of town and it looks like they are going to settle in for the week.

Oh boy, this is going to be very boring waiting to sit them out.

Onto the phone back to Brisbane and I'm told to' just sit tight', if I'm not out on the road, they can't book me. OK, I had it parked of to the side at the Road House parking area.

So Tuesday goes by, Wednesday comes and goes by, Thursday comes along and I ring Brisbane again, this time I'm told to go check out some of the local roads, to see if I can detour around these ‘turkeys’.

Any roads to the east of the highway are useless and then in the afternoon, we check out the road to Merriwa, things are starting to look promising about now, so we decide to depart this village of Willow Tree at about 1 am Friday morning.

Now the 'scalies' have the weigh-bridge open 24 Hrs, so that means there are two crew's who man the weigh-bridge, nobody knew exactly where this second crew was hanging out at, they used to use one of the pubs in town, that is until a few truckies heard about it and decided to burn their car, now, nobody knew just where this second crew was located.

So we sneak of out of town and head for the hills, literally, for after a while you run into a rather steep range of hills, it’s an all gravel road and now getting decidedly skinny, like one lane only. Start going up the hill and the pilot tells me that there's a very sharp right hand corner up ahead of me, so stay well left, and try and remove my L/H mirror on the left hand clay bank as I go round this sharp corner.

I do as I'm informed and this corner isn't just sharp, it turns right back on itself, in a very short distance.

I'm starting to think about now," I'm in trouble again", when I'm only half way around this corner, so, I turn on my rear loading lights to see what's going on out the back.

Boy-oh-boy, wish I'd never turned those lights on now, the side of the low loader is way out in fresh air, and I'm dragging it around with the right hand chassis rail rubbing on the ground, keeping it from tipping over and going down the hill sideways, the wheels on the right side are not turning at all, their just hanging out in fresh air, the white posts on that side of the road are just getting popped out of the ground with the side of the Low Loader.

Turned the lights out real fast, and started 'praying' that this thing, will get around that corner without falling over.

Managed to get around that sharp corner and kept climbing this range, got to the top of the range about 2 AM and started to get rolling along again, as it was pointing down hill and I get up a good comfortable pace, the road did a few twists and turns as you rolled along with a few slight rises and dips just to keep you on your toes.

Got a bit more comfortable than I should have as I shot across a Grid, now this thing was real noisy, as the railway lines it was made from, were all welded together and only just placed into the concrete form work, in other words this framework of steel was only loosely fitted in, they were not cemented in place at all.

At a bit after 2 AM, this noise was like a stick of dynamite had been let off, even made me jump, it was that loud.

Keep going downhill with lots of twists and weaves and in the high beam of the headlights, all the gum trees growing down each side of the road had a sort of square cut-out shape about them, right down the middle of the road, from where cattle trailers had done a bit of pruning, it looked rather neat the way it was all trimmed up so nicely.

About ten minutes after the grid, a set of headlights comes up real fast from behind me, he's sitting on my arse end as though he'd used super glue, followed like this for about a half a kay, when he does this sharp left turn and heads into the bush, eh, what's going on back there. Tell the pilot what's happening back there and he say’s, ——————— "maybe it's a drunk coming home late".

Car comes up real close again and not long after following closely, does the turn again, this time to the right, this keeps going on like this for about 5 kays, up real close, then he would hit the skids and do a sharp turn, either left or right, he must have got sick of doing all this stopping and turning, so he drops back and realizes that he just can't get passed me on this skinny gravel road.

Eventually the road comes out from the timber line and now there are open wheat paddocks on each side of the road, the road now widens out to two lanes of dirt and NO big trees down each side of the road.

Car following me whips up along side me and then he turns on those horrible purple flashing lights, oh $hite, ——— I’m in deep doo-doo now, so pull up and then the turkey driving gets out and he's absolutely livid, he's screaming at the top of his lungs at me, whilst the older fella in the passenger seat asks him to quite down.

I'm ordered to follow them into Merriwa and we stop directly outside the 'Mr Plod shop', I know where I'm going, if I decide to burr up and not co-operate with these two turkeys.

So they get out the weigh pads and start weighing me, my front axle goes for 8 ton, oops, should only be 6 on an overload permit, the drive goes 21 ton, oops, only allowed 18 in Cockroach County on a permit, the tri down the back goes for 27 ton, oops, max allowed on the tri, even on an overload permit is 24 down here, they got me cold on this lot and there's no way out of this.

When this overloading happens when your using an overload permit, then your going to get a ticket that shows what your max weight is, against what a legal load should be. Me, I'm sitting here with about 56 ton all up, against a legal loading of only 38 ton, so the fine will generally be about a grand a ton, — eh, —————— this ticket is sure going to be a Lu-Lu.

They finish weighing me about 3-30 AM and the "angry turkey", snarls at me for my log book, licence and permits, grabs them and then stomps of down the street.

Now I'm left with the 'older sensible turkey' and ask him where the angry one has gone too, he informs me he's gone around the corner to the local phone box to ring “THE boss” in Sydney, what at 3-30 AM, ah well, I'm in it pretty deep now, so might as well start talking to this older dude.

For the first time I have a real good close up look at this dude and then I notice he's wearing slippers, his pyjamas are poking out of his trouser legs and his shirt is actually his pyjama top. I then ask him what in the Hell were they were playing at, with all that running of the road back there in the timber.

He really sparked up with that question, so he ask me how tall I am, about 5ft 10in I reply, -- no you idiot, the bloody load, I tells him -- about 4.9 metres tall, why.

His eyes get all big and white as he's telling me about all the timber I was cutting down, and dropping it on the road in front of their car, each time they went bush, a BIG branch lobbed on the road right in front of them.
He reckoned that I should go back and clean up the mess that I left all over that road.

A quick scramble up to look into the bowl and he's right, I had about a years worth of firewood stacked up in that bowl, wow, never collected a load like that before.

What had happened, was that I had the Euclid loaded on in reverse, so the back of the bowl was sticking up and leading into all these trees, the sides of the rear of the bowl were just cutting any and all branches that they came in contact with, no wonder branches were raining down on them.

Had a dig at him about his dress code, and asked him - how in the Hell did he know I was out there. He starts to tell me, that as they were the other crew for the weigh bridge, they were staying at this 'DUDE RIDING RANCH', that is close to that loose grid. As I hit it and made that load bang, he woke up and stuck his head out the window and there I was, his offsider asks, what is it, he reply's, " I dunno, but it's effin huge ".

So they decide to set sail and grab me, all they threw on were their pants and a jumper, still, with the PJ's underneath and no time for shoes, slippers will just have to do.

After about 10 mins or so, the 'angry one' comes back, and he ain't just angry now, he's about to blow a gasket, he's fuming, so he walks up to the 'older wiser one' and starts talking to him.
I can't quite hear what is being said, but the 'older wiser one' is now laying down the law to the 'angry one'. The 'angry one' marches back to me, tosses my paperwork on the ground at my feet, doesn't say a word to me AT ALL, just glares at me.

Now if looks could kill, I would have been dead ten times over, then he turns and marches of back to the car and gets in it.

The 'older wiser one' comes up and explains that the phone call to Sydney, did not go down too well at all, the boss told the angry one, to go and get stuffed, to never ever ring him at home at that ungodly hour, ever again, or, he'll be looking for another job.

The boss orders them to let me go, as I was only using my initiative, by driving along these empty back country roads, instead of using the busy highway.

PHEW, what a relief, no slammer for me today, so let’s go.

Delivered that machine and never said a word to the blokes at the dam site, about all that extra timber on board, figured they could use it to keep warm`.

Head on into Newcastle and waited until the next day for the bit of gear I had to P/U would be finished, it was a brand new JOY Coal Shuttle Car, you little beauty, a legal load for once, not wide, not high, not long, nor heavy at all. An easy load to go all the way up to the central Qld Coal Fields, ——————— ooooooh bliss.

Head North up the highway, towards Willow Tree and that pesky weigh bridge is still open, ah well, all's legal with this one, so I slide right in onto the bridge. Look out the window at the two blokes working the bridge and blow me down, if it aint the 'angry one' and the 'older wiser one' in there.

A quick toot on the horn and I give them a big smiley and I wave at them, - ya' know, - just being friendly and saying g'day, well the 'angry one' looks up and just went berserk, he starts waving his fists at me and was swearing at me as hard as he could, 'older wiser one' stuck his head out the door and told me to -- " just eff orf', -- before the 'angry one' has a heart attack ", so, I did just that, laughing all the way into Willow Tree for tea.

Had a bit of an audience in the cafe that evening, I started to tell the bloke who ran the joint about my little escapade with these two clowns, he stops me about halfway through and informs all the other drivers to listen in to this lot, now, I got some of them laughing so much, I thought they might have downloaded into their britches, they thought that little effort was a 'wee ripper'.


Here's a photo of the Euclid 35 that did the damage to the trees on that dirt track

 

[Greenie]

Now for a bit of humour, totally unintentional, it just happened ---------------------


Here's something that was rather funny at the time, it was absolutely and TOTALLY unintentional, ———————— but what a spectacular result.

Northbound from Moree and the highway used to have a lot of causeways/floodways instead of all the bridges that are there now. Building a causeway was a heck of a lot cheaper than building bridges, so you just got used to these concrete slabs scattered all down the highway.
A large band of clouds had deposited a heck of a lot of rain around that area, and these causeways were loaded with water, some a tad deep, others not so deep.

The old "rule of the road" back then, was, if it's bigger than you, you back off, the big 'un's get right of way ALWAYS, all the locals and regular users of the highways, understood the reasons for this unwritten rule.

Just up near the halfway point between Moree and Goondiwindi, just Sth of Croppa Crk, was a series of these causeways and they were all loaded with water.

Anyway, coming up towards the last causeway, I see a Southbound Mercedes car approaching this causeway and he started to slow down, good, he's giving me the go on this lot and I never even lifted my right toe, just kept it flat and headed on towards this lot of shallow water.

This south bound Mercedes had slowed down a tad, but, now he was going to try to beat me across this large puddle, well his timing was WAY OUT.

It's now far too late for me to back off, so he's about to get his car washed real quick.

He'd driven straight into the water and was not even a quarter of the way across this puddle, when I hit it at full noise.

I noticed that it was an 'old codger' driving this Mercedes and it had a Canberra rego plate on it, his missus had one of those ‘up in air’ beehive hairdo's, think about the TV show The Simpsons, 'Marge' has a blue beehive hairdo.

Anyway I notice all these little things as I head into the water, I now got this BIG wave coming of my front tyres, it's about 4 feet high and being thrown sideways about 10 feet, rather 'kool' looking at this wave in the mirror, l Iook back up front and see this 'old codger' is frantically trying to wind his door window up.

Well, he was just a tad 'too late', as we passed in this big puddle I reckon about 20 gallons of water went straight into that open window from the wave I was making, look in the mirror and he's now vanished in this wave of water.

As I come out the other side, I can now see the car in the mirror, he's stationary in that large puddle, I must have swamped his motor with that bleedin' great wave I was making, as well as, ---------- dumping all that water into his open window.

I take a quick look at his 'missus', and that big beehive hairdo just ain't no more, it's now looking like wet string, hanging straight down from her scalp and down to her shoulders, not only did the 'old codger' got a bath, his 'missus' got one too, boy-oh-boy, that wave must have been like a fire hose aimed at that open window.

I couldn't stop laughing at what had just happened and I thought to myself, that bloke will definitely give way to anybody and everybody from now on.

 

[Greenie]

Air starter on the Road Boss -------------

The three Road Boss trucks's in the yard at Hendra all had an Ingersoll Rand Air starters fitted to the Cat 3306 motors, the boss figured you always had spare air pressure in all the tyres, but, you wouldn't have a spare battery hiding behind a gum tree, ——————— if you broke down out bush.

These air start motors were of the shortened variety, “without” the exhaust filter, or muffler, that was normally fitted to these very loud little gizmo's. When you hit that big button on the dash, you could be heard for about a kilometer away on a still morning, up close, was like a stick of dynamite had gone off, yep, you get the picture, eh.

Pulled up one night at a servo up north at a place called Marlborough, north of Rockhampton, you could pull in near the fuel point, but if any other truck came in for fuel, then you would get covered in dust. So I pulled up in front of the ablution blocks ( dunnies & showers, for the uninitiated ) for the attached caravan park to this servo, went and had a meal and came out to the truck after dark.

Hopped in and started to fill out my log book, still had a couple of hours to go, so put all this away and proceeded to turn the key and hit the big button, as well as turning on the headlights.

Now the noise of this starter alongside a brick building was real loud, even to me, but it was these “other noises” and these “other sites” that had me laughing.

There just happened to be two women right alongside the left hand side of the truck, from all the clothing that was rainy down from above, I came to the instant conclusion that they had been walking past the truck, to go the showers, when I fired up the motor.

After this extremely load noise and all this sudden light, these two women are now going faster than any racehorse, away from the truck and leaving a trailing scream as they went, you could hear all this screaming above the noise of the motor.

Whoops, think I better depart the scenery real fast eh, before some 'big hubbies' appear on the scene, to do me some damage, eh.