Back on track, before I get a smack.
Star down under.:
Back on track, before I get a smack.
Worth the weight/wait, SDU. 
DIG, Spardo and Star down under - thanks for your posts about Australia - and the wildlife Something we don’t have to face too often.
That YouTube video from Star down under is quite something,. Thanks for sharing it here.
TRUCKING OVERSIZE LOADS - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uRanVwRW7w
Star down under.:
I’m hearing you Dig, when it goes silent you wake up wondering what broke.
Just east of Georgetown there used to be a convenient patch of ground, on top of a raise, that could fit three or four r/t s. Being about six kays from town and with enough breeze to keep the mozzies at bay, it was an ideal spot for those who slept with their doors open, to catch a few zeds.
I pulled in there, just after midnight, one night, with three trailers of fuel. There was already a regular Gulf runner (Black Tony) asleep there, with a single trailer, so I crept in with the headlights off and went to bed with both doors open.
The other truck woke me, when he left at sun up, so I arose and drove into the Ampol roadhouse for breakfast. I placed my order an sat down at Tony’s table. He asked why I didn’t crank my Icepack up, “Courtesy mate, you were there first.” I explained.
“Wouldn’t’ve bothered me, you woke me up coming in,” he replied “no point both of us sweating.”
Another time I was on the way to Karumba and pulled into The Blue Healer at 2.00am, to get my head down for a couple of hours.
On the southern side of the pub was a large area to park cars, caravans and smaller trucks. On the northern side, a road train area. Road trains always entered at the northwest corner, hugged the boundary to the eastern fence, then drove south to the southern end before turning right to park, facing the road. It was customary to park as close to the pub as possible, the bay was deep enough to turn from the back and have the trailers nice and straight by the time the bullbar was on the western edge.
On this particular morning, I followed the usual procedure but as I was turning to head back to the road, I noticed a car and caravan parked, slap, bang in the middle, facing south. I got the two front frigdes, running as dry vans, past it but the third van was headed to the left side of the car. I suppose I could’ve backed up and taken a deeper bite, but why bother.
The back trailer was operating as a freezer and ran at about 3,000 rpm, it wasn’t one of the flash new ones that seem to just hum, it was full on, sounding like the pistons were trying to escape the confines of the cylinders and the big ends had a tenuous grip of the crank. I stopped a couple of feet, short of running across the bonnet.
I went to sleep, just before my head touched the pillow. When I woke at four o’clock the caravan was gone.
jsutherland:
Star down under.:
I’m hearing you Dig, when it goes silent you wake up wondering what broke.
Just east of Georgetown there used to be a convenient patch of ground, on top of a raise, that could fit three or four r/t s. Being about six kays from town and with enough breeze to keep the mozzies at bay, it was an ideal spot for those who slept with their doors open, to catch a few zeds.
I pulled in there, just after midnight, one night, with three trailers of fuel. There was already a regular Gulf runner (Black Tony) asleep there, with a single trailer, so I crept in with the headlights off and went to bed with both doors open.
The other truck woke me, when he left at sun up, so I arose and drove into the Ampol roadhouse for breakfast. I placed my order an sat down at Tony’s table. He asked why I didn’t crank my Icepack up, “Courtesy mate, you were there first.” I explained.
“Wouldn’t’ve bothered me, you woke me up coming in,” he replied “no point both of us sweating.”
Another time I was on the way to Karumba and pulled into The Blue Healer at 2.00am, to get my head down for a couple of hours.
On the southern side of the pub was a large area to park cars, caravans and smaller trucks. On the northern side, a road train area. Road trains always entered at the northwest corner, hugged the boundary to the eastern fence, then drove south to the southern end before turning right to park, facing the road. It was customary to park as close to the pub as possible, the bay was deep enough to turn from the back and have the trailers nice and straight by the time the bullbar was on the western edge.
On this particular morning, I followed the usual procedure but as I was turning to head back to the road, I noticed a car and caravan parked, slap, bang in the middle, facing south. I got the two front frigdes, running as dry vans, past it but the third van was headed to the left side of the car. I suppose I could’ve backed up and taken a deeper bite, but why bother.
The back trailer was operating as a freezer and ran at about 3,000 rpm, it wasn’t one of the flash new ones that seem to just hum, it was full on, sounding like the pistons were trying to escape the confines of the cylinders and the big ends had a tenuous grip of the crank. I stopped a couple of feet, short of running across the bonnet.
I went to sleep, just before my head touched the pillow. When I woke at four o’clock the caravan was gone.
Hi Johnny good to hear from you.
Freezers and their problems at times .
I had breakfast at the Billabong r/h about half way between Geraldton and Canavon a weekly ritual for me anyhow as I made to leave the proprietor said to me there is a combi type van one truck bay north on the south side with fan belt problems I don’t have one for that model but here’s a couple may do the job can you drop them off ,No problems i headed for the truck the the freezer was roaring away doing a defrost I fired up and away pulling up 15mins later at the breakdown ,as I stepped out the cab I realised it was awful quite from the fridge area anyhow a look at the combi van resulted in me borrowing a pair of tights from the lady owner and putting them on the vehicle starting up and sending her on her way to the roadhouse while I climb up to see why my fridge motor was awfully quite ,when I opened the acces panel on the side it was obvious what the problem was the harmonic balancer and the end of the crankshaft were laying in the drip tray underneath, hmm no easy fix here so on the sat phone to the boss and we decided I would keep going to Onslow 730ish kms say nothing and do my deliveries as normal the next morning ,all the freezer and chiller goods were still quite cold so obviously the insulation of the trailer panels etc were of top quality, and not one of our customers asked me why the freezer motor wasn’t running.And as far as i.m aware no one ever knew.
One thing in our favour it was winter time here top temp 30c.
Dig
Dig:
And as far as i.m aware no one ever knew.
Or were dead before they could complain. 
I had the opposite problem once. Picked up a trailer loaded by another driver, assumed the temp was set right but when I delivered all the fresh veg, they were frozen. 
jsutherland:
Star down under.:
I’m hearing you Dig, when it goes silent you wake up wondering what broke.
Just east of Georgetown there used to be a convenient patch of ground, on top of a raise, that could fit three or four r/t s. Being about six kays from town and with enough breeze to keep the mozzies at bay, it was an ideal spot for those who slept with their doors open, to catch a few zeds.
I pulled in there, just after midnight, one night, with three trailers of fuel. There was already a regular Gulf runner (Black Tony) asleep there, with a single trailer, so I crept in with the headlights off and went to bed with both doors open.
The other truck woke me, when he left at sun up, so I arose and drove into the Ampol roadhouse for breakfast. I placed my order an sat down at Tony’s table. He asked why I didn’t crank my Icepack up, “Courtesy mate, you were there first.” I explained.
“Wouldn’t’ve bothered me, you woke me up coming in,” he replied “no point both of us sweating.”
Another time I was on the way to Karumba and pulled into The Blue Healer at 2.00am, to get my head down for a couple of hours.
On the southern side of the pub was a large area to park cars, caravans and smaller trucks. On the northern side, a road train area. Road trains always entered at the northwest corner, hugged the boundary to the eastern fence, then drove south to the southern end before turning right to park, facing the road. It was customary to park as close to the pub as possible, the bay was deep enough to turn from the back and have the trailers nice and straight by the time the bullbar was on the western edge.
On this particular morning, I followed the usual procedure but as I was turning to head back to the road, I noticed a car and caravan parked, slap, bang in the middle, facing south. I got the two front frigdes, running as dry vans, past it but the third van was headed to the left side of the car. I suppose I could’ve backed up and taken a deeper bite, but why bother.
The back trailer was operating as a freezer and ran at about 3,000 rpm, it wasn’t one of the flash new ones that seem to just hum, it was full on, sounding like the pistons were trying to escape the confines of the cylinders and the big ends had a tenuous grip of the crank. I stopped a couple of feet, short of running across the bonnet.
I went to sleep, just before my head touched the pillow. When I woke at four o’clock the caravan was gone.
Must have been well insulated DIG.
Buzzer:
Buzzer hot Tuesday
Buzzer, you sure are on a roll. it seems you also have quite a shoebox collection!
Must have been well insulated DIG.
[/quote]
Johnny and Spardo just a point another time i took a 20foot refrigerated but no motor shipping container loaded for a mining camp some 40kms from Onslow we loaded it then around to the local BOC company and they sprayed the load with dry ice ,I had some misgivings about it but when we unloaded everything was still solid and cold plus i dont recommend not wearing gloves when hand balling the load off[6 tons].
Dig
Just a remark on the heat wave your experiencing at present, here in WA we experience these temperatures each summer ,last year we had over 20 days when the coolest it got was 31c degrees here at home in the northern hills of Perth 40plus each day, the only advice I can give is stick to the shade if working outside long sleeved shirts and long pants plus a broad brimmed hat ,in my early days in my driving career I followed the norm and shorts and singlets being the standard uniform my tan was almost dark brown the only problem was I now suffer with continual surgery and ointments that reduces my skin by a couple of layers this enables my doc to attack the skin cancers in their early formation with liquid nitrogen.
I have used the nitrogen for over 25 years now but its no where as painful as minus a layer or two of skin.
Just before christmass last year i lost one off best trucking mates to Skin cancer it was in his foot they surgically removed it but missed some and he was gone within a month so dress up when out in the sun remeber the temp is measured in the shade so 40c would be over 50c in the sun…
Dig
DIG:
Johnny and Spardo just a point another time i took a 20foot refrigerated but no motor shipping container loaded for a mining camp some 40kms from Onslow we loaded it then around to the local BOC company and they sprayed the load with dry ice ,I had some misgivings about it but when we unloaded everything was still solid and cold plus i dont recommend not wearing gloves when hand balling the load off[6 tons].Dig
I used to cart meat, that way, from various abattoir in NSW to Brisbane for export.
The boxes were well insulated and had two port holes in the front. The fridge unit was called a clip-on, pumping the cold through the port hole.
We would take the empty, cleaned and sealed container to the meatworks with the port holes closed. It would be loaded by a modified forklift that had the forks replaced with a stainless steel 4’x4’ platform. Mounted on the mast was another stainless plate that hydraulically pushed the cartons off the platform.
The meat was refrigerated to -40⁰C, called hard frozen as opposed to frozen which is only -4~-10⁰.
If the boxes were not going directly to the wharf, they were stored in our yard. During the storage phase, which could be two or more weeks, contractors would come in every day or two and “snow” the containers, which was the procedure described by Dig.
On one occasion there were seven (IIRC) containers in storage, with each holding $1,000,000 of prime Australian export beef, awaiting transhipment. There were also a number of import containers of the same type, stored in the same area. Yep, you guessed it, the wrong boxes got snowed. There were three second hand Mercedes and various other dry goods, in the boxes that were snowed.
Apparently the cars suffered no harm from the adverse temperatures, but the same can’t be said for the meat.
The million dollar figure, was 1990s dollars that would be at least two and a half times that today.
Good advice Dig:
40plus each day, the only advice I can give is stick to the shade if working outside long sleeved shirts and long pants plus a broad brimmed hat ,in my early days in my driving career I followed the norm and shorts and singlets being the standard uniform
I too ignored it for many years, though not always in such extreme heat, but nowadays, and since a long time, I do my best not to be in the sun at all. I have never been a sun worshipper or sunbather, all my exposure has been the briefest possible and almost entirely due to work needs.
