The Road “Grain” Trains

12-17-08

I went out and was taking a picture of this truck when the driver came out and wanted to know if I wanted him to take the clothes off the front of the truck. We stood around and he answered lots of my questions about the trucks. He is over here from New Zealand as I guess a lot of people do when there is harvest to deal with. Actually he is over here for longer driving truck for a private trucking firm hauling ammonium nitrate (bomb grade explosive) from Perth to Koogarie the mining district. 

Here is the deal:

This truck is hauling a 60 ton payload

The truck weighs 93 tons total.

He can put on another trailer and his payload will be 90 ton

With trailer it will weigh 120 tons

The truck is rated for 130 tons total.

He has two steering axles with total 11 tons

He has two driving axles total 16 tons

Each set of three axles on the trailers are 20 tons.

(Hey Roger, you ought to get one of these for Mike Blum to drive. He would only have to make one trip a week with this.)

The driver was hanging around hoping for it to clear up and dry out. He said that usually most of the grain has been harvested by now but with the damp weather it was slow going. He did say that the harvest was fairly good around here.

This is just a normal little pickup around here. I think they must get a better tax or import deal if they get a cab and chassis and then add on the very nice and usable flat beds. Everyone has the protection on the front for hitting things. You will notice the road trains have massive protection of the front of them and the driver said they don’t even flinch when they hit something.  They also have a wire shield on the lower part of the windshield on all trucks.

Every thing was pretty much shut down until things dry out. They don’t use those big high elevator towers that are most common in Montana. Here they use three different types seen here. first is this big round one, then in the back is a long low one and then far in the back are the ones that are piled on the ground and covered with tarps. A lot of the outside ones are just now starting to be filled because the harvest has been delayed.

I think this must be a roadside beautician project as these flowers were just along a short stretch of road.

This farmer was having fun. His main gate he had an old Fordson tractor but for this little gate he made a high wheeler trike. Looks heavy enough made to travel the bush.

Way back someplace I though I saw a big truck like this with four layers of goats but it went by so fast I couldn’t be sure. Well, here is a four decker with a load of sheep. It would be interesting to know how many sheep he can haul.

I stopped at a little café and found these flowers just outside the door. A big old bee just crawled out of that yellow one.

These little meat, veggie and ?? pies and turn overs are quite common down here. I ate two of them as they are not that big. The woman said she had just made them but I see them all over and I think all she did was bake them.

These trees are sure remarkable. They are just now truning this golden color from the green state.

They do some round bale work here as well as I have seen a couple of farms where they are using big square bales.

The trees are getting bigger and straighter.

This one has some odd shaped fruit or flowers.

I am starting to see some eucalyptus tree farms now.

I found a YHA hostel here in Esperance. I hope to get a room for the night but will have to wait until they open the desk at 4:00 pm.