youtube.com/watch?v=9KhPcDMGRxw
never complain about an auto box again! 
I havnt seen one of them for ages, used to see the Iranians running them old Mackās through Turkey, juggling the twin sticks. Proper driving, just think that now you cant use a mobile whilst driving!! what would Mr Traffic Plod charge the driver of one of those with??
It looks like Ernie Samuels driving his old Twin Stickā¦
GS
Well what a coincidence, Iāve just posted a diagram of that box in Gnasty Gnomeās āYou donāt see that very oftenā thread. Here it is again:
I should have mentioned there that this is from John Maddockās book āA History of Road Trains in The Northern Territory 1934-1988ā and that I have permission from the publishers to quote as long as I attribute, So I have. 
Similarly I have permission to quote the operational description, which so closely followed my own experience that I quoted it verbatim in my own memoirs (unpublished). I couldnāt have done it better, so I didnāt.
Iāll try and dig them out when I get a moment.
The video brings back even more memories than Gnastyās picture, the fact that mine was a right ā ā ā ā ā ā made it no less vivid, but as I was driving over dirt roads there was very real danger of a broken wrist on the arm that constantly reached through the steering wheel. 
Here it is then. My own memories of my introduction to The Territory and Noel Buntine, together with Johnās graphic description of the Quad Box.
Spardo:
I didnāt know it then, but the man I was working for was to become a legend in the Top End. Starting out in the fifties, first in partnership and then on his own with one truck, he had built up to a fleet of some fifty road trains by the end of the seventies before selling out and then buying back the business a couple of years later. Renamed as Road Trains of Australia it is still in existence although he was soon to retire, but the Buntine name lives on with his son Denis, who founded Victoria River Transport in the hiatus between Buntine Roadways and RTA.The first trip with āsemi and dogsā ā an artic and two forty foot trailers ā was as offsider to a young driver of about my own age, then 24, who taught me the intricacies of the āquad boxā in the Mack B61 Thermodyne, the glamour wagon of the sixties in the Territory. Quoting from John Maddockās excellent book āA History of Road Trains in the Northern Territory 1934-1988ā I realise how much of an experience of a lifetime I had been offered. ā(the B61)ā¦had power and complexity ā sufficient of the latter to set a Mack driver apart from the rest of the mob. The blokes who could two-stick a quad box ā that is, could manipulate the two gear levers simultaneously without making gear grating noises or selecting the wrong compound ratio ā were accorded grudging respect by their road colleagues who were trundling along in less technically advanced examples of the automotive engineerās efforts.ā He then goes on to describe in detail the complex method of starting off and changing up through the gears which, whenever I read it, brings a thrill of nostalgia to me. It is almost word for word how I have been describing it in the intervening years and is almost like confirmation of an apocryphal story told and retold. Almost as if I had begun to doubt the truth myself and here at last was the eradication of that doubt. I reproduce the passage here with apologies to those not interested in such detail but in the certain knowledge that the real trucking enthusiasts will be fascinated. John included a diagram of the layout but I will content myself with a word picture. Imagine three large aitches on the page. One, on its own to the left, and the other two joined so they share a common vertical centre line. The left hand aitch represents the compound, or splitter, box. The double aitch is the main box. The neutrals in each case are in the centre of the horizontals. They, reading from left to right at the top, the gear positions are lo-lo, hi-split, reverse, 2nd, and 4th, and at the bottom ā lo-split, direct, 1st, 3rd, and 5th. Iāll now let John take up the story.
āDisregard the lo-lo position in the compound box. Itās rarely needed.
Select lo-split with the left hand lever and 1st with the right.
Once the vehicle is mobile move the lever across to direct, gain speed and then move it up to hi-split.
Next, using both hands, move the left stick back to lo-split and the right stick up to 2nd. Leave the main box in 2nd and move the left stick to direct and hi-split, as speed dictates. Using one hand this time, move both levers back towards the seat so that lo-split and 3rd are brought into action.
Then do the next two changes with the left hand lever.
Return the left hand lever to lo-split and simultaneously push the main box stick up towards the dash to 4th, where it remains while the compound is put through the next two stages (direct and hi-split) to bring everything together in 0.84:1 overdrive.
If a bit more speed is needed bring the right hand (main box) lever back towards the seat to 5th position and the B61 should be moving along in 0.70:1 overdrive at 100km/hour (62mph) with about 2100 rpm on the engine tachometer.
The procedure was reversed for changing down on hills. It wasnāt necessary to use every ratio; some of them were fairly close and didnāt contribute a great deal to momentum. Thus drivers quickly learned how to skip shift and it took quite a long time for even the best of them to get to the stage where they could two stick a quad box and talk to a passenger at the same timeā.Perhaps I should add that double de-clutching and hitting precisely the correct engine revs were essential every time, which is bad enough, but when you think that some of these shifts were a combination of a down change in one box (hi-split to lo-split compound) and an up change (1st to 2nd main) and required different revs, then you will see that it gets even more interesting! Both levers would be neutralised at the same time but the throttle blipped as the lo-split was engaged seconds before the revs were allowed to die for the main up shift to be made.
All this bouncing about on potholed dirt roads for much of the time in clouds of bulldust which often obscured from the driverās view of the rearmost trailer which he was trying hard not to flip by any untoward movement of the steering wheel. One reason why all road trains had hefty bull bars was because the policy was to stop or swerve for nothing lest the whip effect was started which would travel to the rear of the train with disastrous consequences.
watchin the video was confusingā¦reading the procedureā¦nah,ill keep 1 stick thanks! 
Thanks for that, Whooshwhoosh and Spardo; wish Iād had chance to read it before I found that truck, might have been able to blag a test drive!
Still think the old 1960ās Macks were one of the most handsome trucks ever built. They had a certain āpresenceā, donāt you think?
Incidentally, we have a driver at my workplace, 30-odd years experience, who refuses to drive my personal favourite ERF ECS (fitted with 16-speed ZF) because itās ātoo complicatedā. My own guess is that he canāt count above ten without taking his boots off! 
gnasty gnome:
Thanks for that, Whooshwhoosh and Spardo; wish Iād had chance to read it before I found that truck, might have been able to blag a test drive!:
That would have been fun, though as I said before, if he was on single trailer tipper work I expect he would have had the Duplex Box which had just 2 compound gears giving 10 in all. Much simpler to operate.
Still think the old 1960ās Macks were one of the most handsome trucks ever built. They had a certain āpresenceā, donāt you think?
I certainly do, the cabs always reminded me of American cars of the late 30s, of which I have owned a couple in my time (Packard 8 and a Pontiac). However would have been nice to have a sleeper version instead of being down under the trailer in the bulldust with the scorpions. They always used to tell us not to wear thongs (Ozzian for flip-flops) because of the scorpions in the dust and to keep the sleeping bag tight around the neck. Didnāt stop me waking up one morning to find a snake crawling out to meet the dawn with me. 
Iād obviously ālockedā him in, but he wasnāt bothered, he was nice and warm .
On the subject of sleeper cabs, the first one I saw at Buntines was when an OD who was an ex Buntine man drove in with his brand new cabover Mack. All of us were swarming all over it in wonder at the luxury. They were a rarity in the Territory in those days though I did see some incredible extensions on Fodens.
For sleeping on the move when double manning we had a metal catwalk across the back of the chassis with a low rail round it to stop you falling into the whirling propshaft. They werenāt much used though after a driver on the Shell tar contract out of Darwin to Alice Springs had to brake harshly and molten tar slurped out of the first (unlocked in error) manhole to land all over the ābedā. Fortunately the second driver was in the cab with his mate at the time.
youve done well to live this long,havnt you? er,at what point exactly would u convince yourself to lie across a whirlin prop for a kipā ā ?
i get a cob on when a fridge trlr parks nearbyā¦and they ALWAYS do 
Never knew 40ft trailers were called ādogsā. Here in the US short doubles /triples trailers are 26ft and are called āpupsā.Did they have them in Oz?
Incidently a combination of pup trailers is known as a āwiggle wagonā for obvious reasons. 
whooshwhoosh:
:shock: youve done well to live this long,havnt you?
Err, never, actually, it was only the Shell drivers that had to keep going, something to do with keeping the sticky stuff sticky I think.
On the cows we kept going too but slept when waiting to load (arr. noon, sleep 'till dusk then load, cows (all semi-wild, buffalo crosses etc.) a bit dozy and easier to handle then. Then we slept again back at base for a bit.
Longwayround:
Never knew 40ft trailers were called ādogsā. Here in the US short doubles /triples trailers are 26ft and are called āpupsā.Did they have them in Oz?
Yes, pups were the little ones, dogs are bigger. . Pups were most often used by removal firms I think, tagged onto a line of dogs pulled by a general haulier.