Trucks in flood

Australia is awash at the moment (January 2011) with quite severe floods, especially in Queensland. Sadly, floods are nothing new, so here are some trucks in flood photographs.

This was taken by my uncle, Jim Rouse, at Cora Lynn, around October 1962. It was during the construction of the Cora Lynn spillway which was built to syphon flood waters from the Main Drain, or Bunyip River, to the Yallock Outfall drain, which went directly to Western Port Bay. Ironically, the opening of the spillway was delayed by a flood, and this is when this photo was taken. You can just see the goal posts of the Cora Lynn Football ground in the background.

These six photographs of the Murrumbidgee River, at the Olympic Way, at Wagga were taken by John in September 1974, the year of the disastrous Brisbane floods. John was towing for Vaughans at the time and had a K100 Kenworth. They were heading for Brisbane and had been told that the Highway was cut at Naranderra but was still open at Wagga, so they made the dash for Wagga. He was about to cross and, as he was entering the water, a police car pulled up behind him and the policeman started running towards him, waving madly, but John 'failed to notice him' and he was the last truck through. They pulled the 'road closed' barriers around the back of his truck.

Next to the truck, a car is being towed from the flood by a Council front-end loader.

Empty bus shelter on the right, obviously no buses running that day!

A Bedford on fire

In the last post, we had an Atkinson under water, so I thought I would continue with the disaster theme and show you a Bedford on fire. These photographs were taken in early February 1967. The J-Model Bedford was delivering fuel to Aub Goodman's farm on Pitt Road in Vervale (next to Cora Lynn) and it just caught on fire. There were two 44 gallon drums of petrol on the back, which went up first, then the two tanks of diesel caught fire. The driver escaped without injury.

The top two photographs were taken by my father, Frank Rouse and the bottom photograph was taken by my Uncle, Jim Rouse. It even made the front page of the local paper, The Koo-Wee-Rup Sun.

Koo-Wee-Rup Sun, Page 1, February 8, 1967.

An Atkinson under water

Truck & Bus Transportation, May 1974, page 12. (Click on picture to enlarge)

We borrowed some old Truck & Bus magazines from a friend and John came across this Atkinson advertisement (above). It shows a picture of Jim Forrest's Atkinson underwater in early 1974. Apparently Jim, and a group of others, were parked at the QTT Transport Terminal in Rocklea in Brisbane. It had been raining for five days and the creek flooded. Jim heard a bit of noise outside, swung his feet off the sleeper bunk and got wet feet! Atkinson towed his truck from the terminal, stripped it back and Jim was back in operation less than eight days after the event.

John drove this same truck, which had a 671 GM, during one of his leave periods from the Tri-Ellis. This picture was taken late 1974 on the Cunningham Highway, near Inglewood.

In my next post, we will continue on the disaster theme and show a Bedford on Fire.