Howard Pettigrew has fired this classic Aussie battler over to me and says: "Brian, on my way a job one wet morning and came across these two old girls working away cleaning the weeds out of a small river."
Howard adds: "Sorry couldn't get closer to get a decent shot of the Ruston and didn't have time to move the trees! The Kenworth is a 1973 (actually registered on Jan 1st 1973!) 923R surprisingly with only 560,000 kms on the clock. It only averages around 3,500kms a year so it must sit around on jobs a fair bit of the time. Hope it is of interest, cheers H." Nice shot Howard and here's a question (well two actually). Was Ruston a local manufacturer... Or an import? And is it a 'walking dragline'... Or have I got my construction kit mixed up?
You might have got your construction equipment mixed up a little, Brian. Ruston were a Lincoln based manufacturer and Ruston Bucyrus cranes were the British version of the American Bucyrus Erie range. Howard's photo looks like a little 22RB and it's not a walking dragline. Walking draglines literally walk along on massive mechanical feet rather than crawl on caterpillar tracks.