Yair . . . for the purposes of a novel I am writting I need to roughly know the cost of a Mack with a standard three axle trailer and gates in the late 'sixties . . . can any of you old(ish) Aussie truckies out there hazard an opinion or educated guess . . . or where I could go to get the info? Cheers.
I reckon a few blokes here would know, Scrub. http://www.hcvc.com.au/forum/YaBB.pl RnR.
Scrub Puller - In 1967, three axle trailers were almost unknown. Because of our stupid, petty and rail-promulgating road transport laws in place in that era, tandem trailers were the largest approved number of axles together. Tri-axle trailers were banned from use until some of the road transport laws were rescinded in the early 1970's, under pressure from transport operators and trailer manufacturers. Because of the large number of low capacity bridges and road pavements still in use, that had been constructed in the 1930's to the 1950's, it was deemed by nearly all State transport authorities that a tri-axle trailer would place excessively concentrated loadings on those bridges and pavements, that were never designed for tri-axle trailers and heavy total gross weights. These authorities used the basic and well-accepted "pavement-loading" engineering measuring technique - whereby the pavement or bridge loading pressure forms a pyramid under each loaded set of duals or single tyres. These pyramid areas of pressure overlap when axles are close together. In a set of tandems, there is an area of increased pavement or bridge loading at depth, where these pyramids overlap between the two axles. The engineers deem that the area where the pyramids overlap is a "high stress" area, which destroys pavement and damages bridges. The fact that this "high stress" area is deep in the pavement or bridge is the critical factor. With a set of three axles, there are TWO areas of pyramid overlap and therefore TWO sets of increased loadings at depth in the pavement or bridge. This was deemed unacceptable by the transport authorities of the era. It was only after all the State authorities went through their bridge and pavement structures and upgraded the majority of them to meet the demands and stresses of tri-axle trailer use, that tri-axle trailers were finally given approval for general use in the early 1970's. "Spread" tandem axles were an initial attempt by trailer manufacturers and transport operators to get higher axle loadings, as the load pyramids do not intersect with a "spread" tandem axle setup. Even after general tri-axle approval was given, there were still transport routes that were restricted to tandems - and tri-axle trailers were initially only given an 18 ton capacity, a mere 2 tonnes more than a tandem. I do have an Oct 1965 brochure that shows a Bell Bros Foden prime mover (truck-tractor) road-training, pulling a tri-axle tipper (dump body), and a four-axle tipping dog trailer. This rig had bragging rights as the largest haulage unit in Australia at that time. This rig would also have been limited by the Main Roads Board and Transport Board of W.A. to a specific haul route (more than likely the Woody-Woody to Port Hedland road) - where there were no bridges. In addition, there would have been a substantial annual overload permit paid by Bell Bros for the ability to use this rig on a public road. I'll do some research and see what info I have on the purchase cost of a B61 and a standard 38' tandem trailer in 1967. The 38' trailer was also the longest trailer length allowed at that time.
Yair . . . Thanks OzDozer . As always you are a bloody encyclopaedia mate. I was not much into 'normal' trucking but could have sworn that Western Transport were hauling three axle trailers into Bollon in the late 'sixties. As far as the heavy haul stuff went we had one of the first four axle 'spread' floats Drake ever made . . .I had the two door Falcon so it would have been about '66-67. It had some sort of rocker suspension that allowed the back two axles to be sucked over with the winch or pushed over with the blade to shorten the overall length if we ran empty south of the border. . .basically the back of the trailer was hinged. It replaced the two rows of eight air over oil Freighter shown here. As you will realise (in my world) knowlege of legality and axle load ratings was never a large consideration. LOL. Thanks RocksnRoses, I'll follow that up. Cheers.
Hi Scrub Puller I'm talking to the guys at Drake a fair bit, have you got any photos of their early stuff back then? I'm sure they'd be keen as hell to see it an even have some copies
Yair . . . rare ss Crikey mate I think I have a couple . . . somewhere. I'll have to dig the photo boxes out and get the old stuff scanned . . . or what's left of it, as I have mentioned on here before I lost most of my early stuff in the '74 floods in Brissie. I'll see what I can do if it's of interest. Cheers.
cheers mate, that'd be great if you could have a look.. mentioned before my old man HAD heaps of photos from back in the early 70's from him working round WA but he binned them all when they moved last year :Banghead I hope he kept some still need to go looking for em Adrian
Hey srub puller mate did u end up getting the answer? I would like to know myself.
Yair . . . JGS Parts . I've run out of data on my wireless plan . . . next month I'll chase it up. Cheers
Yeah mate good old aussie internet if you are out in the stick , wireless , slow , data limts (crazy low) super expensive , Good old telstra for ya
Just curious, I'm out in the sticks in the US, the only internet I can get is wireless, (cellular) or satellite (crazy expensive). I get 5 GB (never quite enough) for $50 USD, (about $47 AUD). How does that compare to what you can get?
well mate prices in aus went down after i left in 2008 back then 5gb would have been nearly 200USD but now i think u can get 8gb for around 70usd i think. but it is slow though. in china i got wireless at my house it works on hrs of use , well i got what they call the 7hr a day pack for the year it worked out to 80USD and the speeds are really good around 50m speed but you can only use it around the housing estate area. but at peak times it is basicly usless.
Yair . . . mitch504 They tell us we're in 'black hole' even the village was subsidised to get satellite TV. I had satallite broadband which was okay pricewise but not too reliable and I got sick of waiting on the phone for hours for technical assistance. Present set up is $29.95 for 5GB of data on a USB stick (with an antenae plugged into the stick) using one of the cellphone networks, but its slow. During the day you can't stream a YouTube link, it keeps stopping to buffer . . . after midnight not so bad when the load drops off the network...slows right down now I'm over my limit. Cheers.
Well scub puller mate i remember telstra ringing me up trying to pitch me there next G net work claiming it was the fastest in the world. well i guess it might be if u live in sydney or some where but i remember out at bourke it was not even usable like a mobile phone.
iinet is the go!
Well iinet cant offer anything out my way mate my folks are stuck with telstra wireless also.