Ilfracombe is a small town just outside Longreach in Central Western Qld. In 2010 my wife and I went in our caravan for a trip out to Longreach and, about 30 klms. before you get there, you pass through this little town with its old iron parked all along the northern side of the highway.As we drove along I just had to stop as I could see that there was some machines I had never seen in my life before.I just had no idea just how rare a couple of these were until I read some of stories on the plaques that had been put on these machines.Unfortunately although I have photographed nearly all of them they are all on video and I only have a still picture of this one dozer very simliar to the one I first learnt to drive on way back in the late sixties.
Yair . . . brucew . Bloody marvellous display isn't it? Did you get a gander at the Holt with the exposed bevel gear and pinion . . . it tickled me the wear pattern, the pinion misshapen like the aluminium one on my old Lightburn cement mixer. Cheers.
I was there last year, brucew, I couldn't believe my eyes, I had never seen so many graders in on place. We were just passing through, ended up spending a couple of hours there, I took a heap of photos, if anyone is interested. It is a real credit to the local Community. RnR.
Yes Scrub I did have a good gander at the Holt tractor but cant recall the exposed bevel gear but that would not surprise me as, even though I was there for a good 3 hours or more, I know I missed a whole heap of things, just to much to take in.Did you get a good look at, I think it is the very first machine you come to coming from the east, cant think of the name on it but it is a massive thing used to shovel out soil out of dams quarries etc. Apparently only one was ever built, which doesn't surprise me as you had to lay a length of railway iron down first then after the first past everything had to be shifted over including the length of railway iron and go again and that would have been no mean feat just because of the weight of the thing.
The only way I could make sure I had a bit of decent time there was to stay overnight at the caravan park just over the road as my better half is not into boys toys as she calls them, but, would you believe it that afternoon I was crook with a wog so even then wasn't able to give it quite as good a look as I would have liked. Anyone who is travelling out that way in a van it is great little park nothing flash but neat clean and was not expensive.
Really great pictures. I found a bit of a web site that shows smaller pics of the old equipment. Would love to see bigger pictures. http://www.ilfracombe.com.au/Ilfracombe-Machinery-Mile.html
If no one else has photos of the Machinery Mile at Ilfracombe in Queensland, I will put some up. These are a couple of photos of the steam driven excavating machine that brucew talks about. I can't find any more information about it and I am not even sure how it works. RnR.
This is a Ruston crawler tractor, built under license from Holt. The plate explains it. RnR.
Here is an example of Aussie ingenuity, after the war when money was scarce and army surplus equipment was cheap. A number of these were built for clearing scrub and opening up the country.
Crawlers have been used in this country, virtually since their inception, my old man had a Holt 2 ton for breaking up new ground on our farm. This is an Allis Chalmers K, hooked to a scoop, which was used for dam sinking and road building.
This is the smaller Allis Chalmers M, also hooked to a scoop.
Great pics rocks and roses that Allis Chalmers k crawler would have been a big tractor back in 1936 also that scoop behind would have had to have been about the very first hydraulic scoop made if, as it stands now, was pretty much how it was bought.
Thanks Bruce, like you, I was blown away when we drove through there, it was the last thing I was expecting. The display is an absolute credit to the Community of Ilfracombe and hopefully this thread you started, might encourage more people to travel out there to see it, I think they would probably need all the help they can get at the moment, with the drought. RnR.
Hi guys, about 10 years ago when the local shire council took complete control of that collection they called for volunteers to help restore some of the articles.I went out and offered to revive that old Ruston Proctor. All I asked was that they let me use their workshops and give me a site in their yard for my caravan with power supplied. I was sent packing in very short order, did I think they were a benevolent society. I really thought my proposal, to get her running would have been a crowd puller. Most of the graders are runners, and I once posted that "Britstand" copy of the Cat 12 grader on ACMOC much to the surprise of some. The "Distington" grader has a sister over in Monto and another down in S.A. They were part of a fleet ** 11 bought out by the Commonwealth Govt. for the "Radium Hill" uranium mine in the 1950's. I drove one of those in N.Z. but it had the "Carlisle" name badge on it. They were all "Galion 104" under the skin. There were two of those Ruston proctors imported about 1913, it is believed one stayed in the Townsville area. ray
The "Greenhills" dam sinking machine is missing a lot of parts. There was a tram track that ran down to the ground for the scoop to ride up on and then a team of horses pulled the scoop back out. On the opposite side was a plate shield for the dirt to slide down. The whole thing ran around in a great semi circle. ray
Me and my wife and I was able to get out to Iflarcombe again this year to grab an hour or so and saw this added unit in the bulldozer section and it has me baffled as to what original manufacturer it really is and was wondering if anyone else here might know. It has no visible numbers etc on the machine as per photos but has stamped on the plate on it "Massey Ferguson" and I noticed on one of the parts on it "made in Italy" and looking at it I just assumed it was a Fiat Allis but I have gone on the net and checked out the history of Massey Ferguson and found that there is no mention of Massey having anything to do with Fiat but they definitely had a link to Hanomag in Germany and Landini and Same in Italy but I can't find a picture of any of their dozers that look exactly like the one I was looking at. The dozer I was looking was sold by Thiess Sales Pty. Ltd. which originated in Qld Aus.
** 400. The same base machine was used for the ** 400 track loader. At that time all ** construction equipment was made in Italy.
Thanks for showing us the great old iron.
The Ilfracombe tractor seems to have a different track frame to all the pics on the net.
** 500 perhaps? With a V8 Perkins motor, it could have been a fun machine to operate.
Yes it could be a D500b definitely not the 400 pictured above as the final drive on the machine that I took the pic of if you look at it the pivot shaft is part of the final drive exactly like the old D8 in the background where as the 400 has the pivot shaft just in front of the sprocket. Yes it did look like a fair dinkum machine would have loved to have taken it for a spin. Does anyone know what company actualy made it. Both Landini and Same pics I have seen don't appear to have the pivot point part of the final drive plus a couple of other things aren't quite the same either. It is not a small machine either as can be seen by the old D8 in the background.
That D8 ain't so old, I think its a 13A and isn't the M-F. pedal steer after Hanomag?? I have been planning a trip back out there too. I have researched the old "Waugh" steam ditcher, it was first used for excavating the site of the railway workshops at Redfern, Sydney. It worked o.k in the heavy clay soil there but was no good when brought out to Wellshot Station.
This is the D8 yes it is 13A series I believe came out in the 50's or thereabout's if my memory serves me correctly the massey dozer is a much later machine I would think from mid 70's possibly 80's
M F also made a 600 I think which became the Hanomag D 600, think they all got swallowed up in the IBH conglomerate going a way back.
They are pedal steer, did some time on Hanomags back in NZ, some MFs were also, they have that knee cap busting bar where the steering levers would normally be. I know of one owner operator on a ** 400 who did just that to his knees when the brakes came on going down a steep hill, brakes came on when trans oil pressure dropped due to the steepness of the hill. Hanomag had a recommended over fill for the brake compartment to prevent it happening.
Bruce, how long has the D8 been there? there does appear to be a few more entry's, or would you say landings. I notice the D8 has electric start fitted on the pony. Is the old Auto Patrol still housed there? she was kept in a cage and taken out every year to clear fire-breaks around town and clean up the race track and sports ground. That "Britstand" grader is a genuine Aussie made knock-off of a Cat 12. And the "Stuart" tank conversion is not really rare, Vickers did that at the end of the war and the result was the dreadfull" VR180 or Vickers Vigor" dozer . There is a station out that way (Longreach) that has a Brisbane built "Tutt-Bryant" maintainer grader. I have had a drive at one of those M-F 400 with a Drott 3 in ! bucket, not a bad little rig but too fast over the ground after a Cat 933G. That collection brings back memories both good and bad. I started in 1950 on a diet of ex-WW2 war surplus, mostly U.S.Built but some from Pomgolia
Rayman I was only there for less than an hour and as I had been there before but the last time did not get many photos of the gear there so was determined to get at least some pics of the dozers at least when I saw this Massey Ferguson dozer which I had never seen before and it seems it is quite a rare machine but a machine that in theory should work really well. Whether it actually did or not is another story but I would think that backup service in Qld would have been an issue by it's self as I associated Thiess with civil construction and mining etc. not selling earthmoving machines. Here is some of the other gear I got photos of.
To get back to the Massey Ferguson dozer that I first saw there I thought I knew what it was I thought it was either a D600 or D 700 as was in an old Power Farming book I have here but it is definitely not the one of those as I believe they are Hanomags as they have the pivot shafts in front of the sprocket not as part of the final drive also Hanomags were made in Germany as far as I am aware. I believe it is a D500B as Queenslander has described and if so should have been a really nice machine to operate as the tracks on a tight turn one track turns in the opposite direction also looking at it it had two identical levers where the power shift lever normally is so maybe each track had its own forward and reverse action and the foot pedals were just for normal turns.It must have a wet backend too as it has cooling fins at the back as per photo.To me it would have been a machine a bit before it's time.
Would be like a Case in that it would have to have two transmissions, one for each so that it could be counter rotated.
nice!
Just been looking through the pics I have from our last visit to Ilfracombe and found these of the tractor that Scrub mentioned at the top of the thread.
Yes R.D. that is what I think it would probably be pretty much like the Case dozers although I have never drove one myself I know of a couple workmates over the years who have and they have each said what magic machines the Case dozers were to operate.There were two things about this Massey dozer there was no plaque or anything to explain what the story behind the dozer was maybe it has only just came in, the thing is that a proper repaint job and repair the seat and it would look just about immaculate in a machinery yard.
Yes Queenslander there is just so much gear there that is just so rare or the stories behind them make them just so special I thought maybe the number of machines there seemed to be not as many as i remembered it and I hope that people haven't pulled some the stuff out of it maybe because the shire was amalgamated with the Longreach shire maybe this pic might tell a story I just don't know. This sign was in among the machines.Shame if this is the what has happened.
Best we don’t get started on that topic Bruce, we’ll both end up banned!
This is another rare machine although the actual steering wheel on the machine is not complete it is a Fiat dozer.
Hey guys, if you look closely at the pics of the old "Ruston" tractor you will see that the tracks are on back-to-front. This was done on purpose to stop her jumping the tracks, the pins and bushes are so worn in the forward drive, this way she holds together. I was told this by a grandson of the previous owner.