Thread: Rescuer, rescuee and other strange happenings on the road.

Originally Posted by JDNSW

I don't know about panel work, the big money spinner in those days was windscreens. The main road to Brisbane was through Condamine, and it was generally known as "The Crystal Highway" because of the amount of broken windscreens lining the single strip of bitumen. On one occasion we had a truck going to Brisbane, turned back twice to get a new windscreen before getting to the roadhouse at the Surat turnoff 27miles out, the third time he got beyond Condamine before breaking the windscreen and drove the rest of the way to Brisbane without a windscreen.

And those F600 screens were some of the biggest and most expensive in existence.

Even on the old Hume there was a windscreen shop on most street corner....

Rescuing a 5.5m plate boat from extremely bad seas on Western Beach of Mulgumpin (Moreton) Island. To quantify that this fits the thread topic, the beach here is classed as a road.
IMG_2795_resized_1.jpg

Re-recovering the bloody thing when the weather and seas had settled. Luckily, there were a few big, burly footy players to give a hand.
IMG_6441.jpg

Then there was the ambulance, Steve. I'll let you tell that tale.

Originally Posted by scarry

Relatives of ours were changing a tyre somewhere in the NT.
They had the GU jacked up and a large wild pig came over for a look,and wouldnt go away.

So they got back in the car and waited until it wandered off.
Once they thought it was gone,they continued on with the wheel change,and it reappeared and came very close again.
So they got back in the car.

This happened 4 times before they eventually had the wheel changed and were on their way.

They could have driven off the Jack & continued on their way. Oh wait, I see a flaw in my plan.

Not specifically on the road but as I was turning off the road it should just squeeze in. Now for the sordid details.
I turned into a farmyard and had to stop. There was a Hiace van parked horizontally blocking my way to the back of the yard. As I could not see anyone about I blew the horn. Someone came out of the house, saw the problem and jumped into the Hiace to shift it. Unfortunately unseen by me or the man now shifting the Hiace was the rope attached to the tow bar on the hiace. This rope was attached to a ladder on the far side of a shed roof. There was someone unseen by us on the ladder painting the aforementioned shed roof. Anyway the Hiace shifted, the rope tightened and followed the Hiace.
Next I heard a shout then saw a ladder coming over the ridge of the shed. The man painting the shed roof came briefly into view then managed to exit the ladder and slide down the far slope of the roof, which had been freshly painted. Then there was the bucket of red oxide paint that he had let go of.....

I have mentioned several times that I worked in the Simpson for a couple of years in the mid sixties. With the company based in Brisbane, and finishing up shortly before Christmas 1966, the limited number of employees still on the payroll headed for Brisbane with all the light vehicles (that is another story - I ended up having Christmas Day on the road).

After Christmas we returned to Alice by air to pick up all the heavy vehicles. Being in charge, I took the pick, and drove an IH R192 with a drilling rig mounted on it. And took the tail end Charlie role, together with the mechanic in a IH 164 with all his gear. There were innumerable problems with tyres, but apart from that there were no issues until somewhere NW of Winton. All of us were travelling well separated to keep out of the dust, and I came up to several of our trucks stopped by the roadside, and in the middle of the road, was our explosives magazine. This did not have any explosives in it, but had been filled with camp gear. It was a large, single axle closed steel body trailer, designed for a load of about three tonnes, with double doors at the back. It was now sitting in the middle of the road, upside down, facing the wrong way, and the doors had burst open and distributed the contents over about 50m of road. And the towing vehicle, an IH 164 water tanker, plus the towbar, were missing. I sent one of our trucks to chase him and send him back.

He was hard to catch, as the reduced load gave him some extra performance. And the dust made it hard for him to see the truck trying to get him to stop. But eventually he stopped with engine trouble. This was due to the vacuum tank on the towbar having finally shaken off with the towbar bouncing along, and the vacuum line was sucking air.

They lifted the towbar onto the tanker, plugged the vacuum line, picked up the tank, and headed back. Just as they came in sight, the chase vehicle suddenly dived off the road and came to a stop. RH stub axle had broken*. Left another truck with him to go into the nearest town and phone Brisbane for parts, and fix it, and catch up (which they did).

Meanwhile, all hands to work, righted the trailer, and the mechanic started his welder and reattached the towbar. All the stuff was loaded into the trailer again, and the doors welded shut.

My memory says that the trailer did not have brakes from there to Brisbane, but gave no further trouble.

*This was the second case I knew of a stub axle breaking on this model. First time was in 1964 at Iffley station (I think I am remembering the name right), south of Normanton. Fortunately at very low speed, right at the homestead.

Originally Posted by spudfan

Not specifically on the road but as I was turning off the road it should just squeeze in. Now for the sordid details.
I turned into a farmyard and had to stop. There was a Hiace van parked horizontally blocking my way to the back of the yard. As I could not see anyone about I blew the horn. Someone came out of the house, saw the problem and jumped into the Hiace to shift it. Unfortunately unseen by me or the man now shifting the Hiace was the rope attached to the tow bar on the hiace. This rope was attached to a ladder on the far side of a shed roof. There was someone unseen by us on the ladder painting the aforementioned shed roof. Anyway the Hiace shifted, the rope tightened and followed the Hiace.
Next I heard a shout then saw a ladder coming over the ridge of the shed. The man painting the shed roof came briefly into view then managed to exit the ladder and slide down the far slope of the roof, which had been freshly painted. Then there was the bucket of red oxide paint that he had let go of.....

Bet you didn't get invited back. The painter has to accept much of the responsibility, for not having the keys on him and failing to tag the van.

Originally Posted by 4bee

They could have driven off the Jack & continued on their way. Oh wait, I see a flaw in my plan.

Nothing like a flawplan.