Bridgebuilding in Australia! Tales of pioneering Dodges, old dozers and Slim Dusty. Only on Biglorryblog!

AtKi Pete Lynch has sent me this selecetion of pioneering times in Oz."G'day Brian,
 here are some more Aussie Dodges sent to me by Peter Murray of Townsville, who has just come across BLB. There is a connection here to a rather famous hotel but best I let Peter tell the story."

So over to Peter M then: "In 1973/74 a new railway line was being built from Townsville to Greenvale (220klms) (Queensland Australia). This is one of the many many bridge girders required to span some 7 or 8 major rivers along the route. The construction project and the 'rivers' were made famous by the Stan Coster/Slim Dusty song - 'Three Rivers Hotel'. Stan Coster (dec) was a dozer driver on the job - and wrote many of Slim Dusty's songs - outback and trucking ones. He was also an acclaimed country singer in his own right. The Three Rivers hotel was the wet canteen in the construction Camp (Camp No3) - set up on the bank of the Star River - and housing the workers doing the earth works in that area and the bridge gangs doing the Star, Burdekin & Running River bridges (the 3 rivers)."
 
"This old 185 V8 Cummins powered Dodge with gun driver Barry Turner in the chair, and its sister ship an R200 International operated by North Queensland Road Freighters (NQRF) carted most of the girders for the job.  The bloke in the white overalls is one Lance Talbot - the proprietor of NQRF. That was his standard uniform - and you will see him again in following photos. I believe this particular one weighed 30Ton and the photo (from the Ron Aitken Collection) was taken at the Burdekin River - C1973. Note the single wheel ex steer axle as the lead axle on the jinker - and NO air hoses apparent between the prime mover and jinker. In those times nothing ever went fast enough to need a lot of brakes. Also note - no long load signs or flashing lights as we have today. The jinker probably didn't even have tail lights or blinkers either. And the D9 Cat Dozer just in the left side of the photo. The girders were taken down into the river bed via rough and steep construction tracks. So it was usual practice to attach a D9 to the rear of the load as a safety anchor."