The Incredible Story of the First Road Train in Australia ▶ 1934 AEC Road Train 8x8
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ก.ค. 2024
- The Incredible Story of the First Road Train in Australia ▶ 1934 AEC Road Train 8x8
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In addition to enjoying immense popularity, Australian road trains have been a fundamental part of the country's road transport industry. While, in theory, they take advantage of the super-flat geography, their origin story is rather peculiar, as it dates back to a truck model designed for transporting large loads in challenging terrains, which was developed by the British government just after World War I. Stay tuned and discover the impressive history of the AEC 8x8 Government Roadtrain, the truck considered one of the predecessors of road trains.
The content of our videos is for entertainment and the information contained is for you to know what is happening on the screen and has some educational value.
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Email: yeeicontacto@gmail.com
Timeline
00:00 Intro
00:57 The Need for a Road Train
01:44 AEC 8x8
03:11 Manufactured Models
03:39 Australia in 1930
04:40 The Definitive Test
05:57 Feat History
06:50 Conclusion
07:34 Outro - ยานยนต์และพาหนะ
Correct me if I'm wrong, - BUT, I'm pretty certain this WAS NOT the FIRST 'Road Train' in Australia by a long way. These AEC's were originally produced for the British 'War Department' as 'experimental vehicles' hence they were sent to different Continents to see how they 'performed' under different conditions. - Also as a 'commercial vehicle' preservationist I was told some years ago about a '1909 Daimler Road Train' which languished in 'The Bush' for a very long time. - Living in the UK, (And with a young family to support), - unfortunately my finances wouldn't stretch to going out their to rescue it. - Alas vandals got at it before it could be saved and it has now been 'lost' forever, - (So I'm told). - Their is an article on these AEC's in a Magazine called 'Old Motor/Vintage Commercial' produced in the '70's in Britain, - I did read it but that was 50 years ago, and I'm afraid at 77 my mind is a bit 'hazy' about the 'Full' article. - I'm so pleased to see one has been preserved. - On the plus side I did manage to get hold, - (again from the 'bush'), - of ALL of a 1902/04 "Canterbury" car, (albeit in pieces), which I restored, - however due to a very 'messy' divorce some years later I had to part with it. I believe it now languishes in a 'semi' private collection in Canterbury, Kent. Near where it was built. - not many were produced.
By 1934 there was a road to Darwin,, very rough dirt for the most part and probably no bridges where required in the wet. BUT there was a road. The road went from Adelaide thru Pt Pirie to Pt Augusta [with other routes as well] thru Hawker. Lyndhurst to Maree. Then the Oodnadata track to Marla, then Kulgera and Alice Springs. Often following the [old] rail line. And the telegraph line. The same in the NT, the train stopped at Tennant Creek but the road went to Darwin. This in the 1870s.
Historic Trucks and routes,, the Birdsville Track and Tom Kruses fleet of trucks starting with the Leyland Badger/ Thornycroft which after having a holiday in the bush for decades was dragged out, went to Adelaide and restored,, with a LOT of help from Tom himself. And I mean hard physical work from a big old bloke. It was his 'hotrod' and he knew what bits went where! That truck is in the National Motor Museum at Birdwood SA.
There is clips on You Tube about the trucks as well as a Shell film from the mid 50s
I just came into comments to see if anyone had mentioned Tom Kruse and his thornycroft/badger hybrid!
The train never reached T.C. from the north heading south .
Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't the Yanks bitumen the road from ALICE SPRINGS to DARWIN in WORLD WAR 2 ?
@@mark-ni5fv Sorry mate but you are wrong, it was the early 1970s before it was completely sealed!
@@paulorchard7960 I can remember travelling to Darwin in 1980 and noticing the W.W.2 bitumen airstrips along the highway and thought the yanks had done the highway too . I know Highway ONE was still dirt between HALLS CREEK and FITZROY CROSSING in 1981 because I travelled over it doing a around Australia trip towing a 21ft. Caravan and the towbar welding joints failed and it separated from the vehicle because of the corrugations ! 🤬😂
The steam loco shown at 3.55 is NM25, a narrow gauge loco. It is still working pulling tourist trains for the Pichi Richi Historical Railway at Quorn in South Australia. In fact, I painted this loco several years ago as a member of Pichi Richi Historical Railway
this is well over two decades later than other tractor trailer units, Australia had Big Lizzie circa 1916.
This was a lot more successful though.
Tom Kruse, "The Outback Mailman" and his 1936 Leyland Badger
The 1st australian road trains where horse drawn drays used in South Australia to haul copper from mines in Kapunda to Port Adelaide on the coast .
Good old A E C. 😀👍👍
Just goes to show you who really built this nation,hard working, hands on people,
And I thought is was Lidia Thorpe single-handedly.
Mostly Aboriginal stockmen and Afghan cameleers.
Racist people !
Having stolen it from the real owners
Dean, who “stole” it from those before them, who “stole” it from those before. This is human history the countries we have today wouldn’t exist without conquest. The land is far better off under the current management than if the British never colonized the land.
This was restored at the NT Government's 2 1/2 mile workshops (long gone now) on Hudson Fysh Ave in Ludmilla Darwin back in the 90's. As an apprentice mechanic I had the pleasure of working on it with the workshop foreman Tom Bertenshaw (spelling might not be right) occasionally. Watched him drive it out of the shop to the transport truck that took it away.
Some awesome vehicle to of worked on.
Roadtrains is my tip top favorite pieces of australian culture due to my giant passion for big rigs
Yes I know, the AEC 0853 Colonial Tractor was the answer to a UK government specification drawn up in 1931-32 for a petrol powered multi trailer road train to improve transport links in the Colonies, like Australia, South Africa, and Rhodesia. Two companies submitted designs, Leyland Motors Preston Lancashire, The Associated Equipment Company AEC Southall Middlesex , Leyland,s proposal more advanced with all wheel independent suspension but overly complex in view of reliability maintenance and repair with a 9 speed 3x3 transmission. AEC,s proposal on account of its simpler design put forward by John Rackham and Henri Nyberg was accepted . In 1933 the first 0853 Colonial Tractor rolled out of Southall,s Special Vehicle experimental shop to romp around AEC,s purpose built test track. In the video you can plainly see the AEC 0853 resembles an overgrown SupaCat Swamp buggy with an extra pair of wheels. John,s clever use of standard off the shelf AEC Lorry and Bus parts in its construction made the design highly suitable for servicing maintenance and repair at isolated garages or depots.
This is genesis. Truly a piece of equipment that the world owes more than most people realise.
Truck on.
🤟😎👍🚛🚛🚛
remarkable for it s time
This should be the forerunner of the modern roadtrain! Pictures with it pulling 4 trailers: great!
No the oldest road train is a1908 Daimler Renard truck that is in Liz Martin's museum in Port Pirie South Australia
After the war friends of mine were approached to build steam traction engines to replace the machines featured in the down load. They were capable but did not have the capital. The problem was they were hauling ore to the waterfront in the Pilbara region. The roads , or what they called roads, were there one day and buried in dust the next. They wanted big traction engines not effected by dust and able to traverse over any kind of land. They could do it but did not have the capital. However because their ancestors were actually there when the "ROCKET" was run their interest in steam never died. Ted, the son designed and built a steam unit suitable for motor vehicles. I went to America to the E.P.A. with Ted and his was the lowest emission engine in the world. Suddenly there was no interest in pollution. Imagine. Later the Labor govt. gave him $300K to build three engines . One for spares, one on a dynamometer and one on the road. When the next govt. got in they took $200K off him.
Tell me if I'm wrong , but at that time the govt. was giving G.M. and Ford $750K and $500K. Did they take it off them. You won't need three guesses about that. So the steamer failed and a lot of shareholders were hurt. Otherwise all the heavy vehicles in Aust. would be powered by steam, burning high flashpoint fuel, not premium and keeping many people in jobs. When he worked at the GOVT. aircraft Factory his friend designed and built the first flight recorder. The govt would not continue funding it and sold it overseas for peanuts. When I see a politician laying in the gutter drunk I AM NOT SURPRISED. When young people ask me about their future I tell them to get out of this country pronto. We are just so stupid.
Thank you Jack. You have said it all. I have no family but I adore this country for everything I have and I cannot see the same opportunities for the younger generation. No gutsy guys coming up. They are not hungry enough. The most wonderful country in the world and they don't know they'r alive.I was always told "When you think you have the game beat, that's when it has you beat." Maybe that is their problem. Politicians too.
Just imagine when our current visionary government decrees the road trains go electric 🤣🤣🤣
You'd need a trailer just for the batteries. 😂
Coal powered generator on the 3rd trailer, 4th trailer for carrying boxes of tissues.
No 1 just for the generator
And another for trailer fire fighting equipment.
Remember the howls of rage changing from leaded petrol to Diesel.
The road trains are very cool. Seeing the original trucks, it reminds me of the Tatra trucks.
I am so happy to see the tuck was not scrapped and if Alice sprigs wasn’t such a danger zone I would love to visit the museum
And see it
Alice Springs.
Yeah I'm born and bred in Australia,these country towns and full of unruly thugs,we all know who they are
Hi David, I visited Alice and the museum 10 years ago, it was NOT a danger zone then, in fact a high point of our 4 week holiday, what has gone wrong?
@user-yh5mp7ky6o boozed up people with rights, but zero responsibility.
"City of Tennant Creek" Ha Ha Ha!
When did it become a city? 😂
Howdyyawl from the land down under. Australia. The land of diversity& ingenuity. The need to get stuff from one end to the other & top to bottom. Necessity is the mother of inventions, this is proven true in OZ. We are a land of inventors & inavators. Enuf sed. Keeping it real 😊
Oz thinking way outside the box with twin engine road trains, a mining company regularly run six trailer road trains another company runs twin engine road trains, they are soo cool!!!.
Unfortunately our country is not the country I grew up in…😢
COOL !!!
old mail trucks, through the old bush tracks of the Australian Center, these were old Forden and Ford and even an early Mack truck as I served with a few units in the Australian Army, Transport Corps, and Ordnance Corps, seen old pictures and old newsreels, which maybe in the film library here in Australia? Cheers everyone.
فعلا تفكير مدهش مع التطوير والتحديث القادم وقوة محركات هزة السيارات والثبات العجلات لسحب هذة القطارات الخلفية 1:38 ❤😂😂🎉😢😮😅😊😊😊😊
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That was good mate.
You should see if you can get some info on a bloke named Johanson.
He built self steering trailers and done mail and collection of 44Gallon drums in tough outback conditions.
Hope you find something.
Thanks.
Taking that number of wool bales to Alice Springs is the load I fail to understand.
The Central Australian Railway connected Alice Springs to Port Augusta in 1929. In 1930 the South Australian Government introduced restrictions on beef and wool transport to effectively mandate the use of rail where a rail corridor was available. I'll bet that referenced load of wool was pulled from the Barkly Tablelands to Alice Springs to then go down to Port Augusta by rail.
As cool as this thing is... It was at LEAST two decades AFTER there were multiple "road trains" already in service in Australia ;) Being 8x8 and limited to 50kph I would also argue that it was less of a "road" train and more of an off-road vehicle, but that is fitting for the condition of the tracks in Australia back then, if there was a track where you were going.
That's gold
Great video guys very informative.
Spectacular job Brother thank you for sharing your knowledge and expertise and for taking us on your adventure through the outback and hello from Detroit Michigan USA Great video Brother thank you again
Read how with the radiator behind mounted behind the cab the airflow for it was through the cab, very noisy but a primitive air con.
there are a couple of predecessors in australia. big lizzie and one of her trailers still survives. and in the 1850's, there was a road steam engine sent from uk to geraldton, western australia, to drag lead ore from inland to the geraldton port. it was not very successful. some components of this engine have been found.
A funny postscript to this is what happened to all of the freshly unemployed cargo camels. They were released into the wild, and being native to a desert environment & having no predators they quickly colonized the inland deserts, becoming a curiosity and a nuisance to this day.
Hence why Australia has the largest population of feral camels on earth.
Amazing ❤❤❤❤❤ grat show thank you so much
Great thanks
Its at The Transport Museum at Alice Springs(Ularu).....Wonderful to visit and The Diamond T....!!!!!Positively Loin stirring!!!!
Alice springs is not Uluru (Ayers Rock) they are 450 kilometres apart by road
Or 10 days by the AEC road train! 🙂
Sorry...I was so happy with my road trip I confused the two places.Wonderful memories though.!!
I am just an old simple""Pom"".who is flabbergasted at the distances each time I visit this wonderful country.!!....As an Old School lorry driver(UK /Europe).My holidays always include Australian Highways ..Especially the Stuart Highway. 4:17 !!! Many Road Trains from Darwin.!!!
Sorry to p-ss on your parade, it is not AEC that pioneered this concept of multiple trailer road trains, but Daimler Motors of Coventry,. Before World War One the company built a tractor multi trailer road train with a Knight pattern sleeve valve engine, its unique feature is each trailer is powered from the tractor via prop shafts and differentials ,like a car. A simple four wheel tractor coupled to three three axle trailers ,each with the centre axle driven. During World War One German motor company Otto built for the Kaiser,s army a big four wheel drive artillery tractor, using this tractor the company took this concept one step further by building a road train , with all wheel drive and driven trailer axles. In 1932-33 Motor engineer John Rackham working closely with Herni Nyberg boss of AEC special vehicle division ,took the Otto Concept and modernised with off the shelf standard AEC lorry parts, result is the model 853'Colonial Tractor' 8x8 drive 120mm bore petrol engine 4x3 12 speed transmission ,with an optional winch. Later 853,s were fitted with AEC,s A180 Series Diesel partly developed by Harry Ricardo, a six cylinder 8,8 litre unit, as used in London Buses with Harry,s patented 'swirl' cylinder head. Roger Dysons of Liverpool built a train of self tracking eight wheel bogie trailers, a flat ,side tipper ,and a tanker .
yeah thats cool and all but in the first 30 seconds of the video he mentioned the first australian road train, not first in the world.
@@spud2063 and the O.P. haven't done much study .
as basiltaylor mentioned the Daimler/Muller train train , the Renaud train and Big Lizzie was 1916 .
But Yudanamuntana road trains in South Australia operated between 1863 - 65 .
The video is flawed .
Please note the Red bus shown is NOT the iconic London bus, all generations of the AEC [and other manufacturers] of London buses of that era, through to the introduction of the Route Master had Single Cabs, with a hood over the engine on the nearside. In 1947 we had just finished a war but we were facing one in the decade before.
True, I used go to school in johannesburg South Africa, on the AE red buses. They were a single cab drivers compartment, with a hood over the other side. The seats just behind the hood, were very much prized by everyone!
Great videos, keep'em coming...!!!
❤i've been waiting for this
Your wrong . Google THE MULLER - FALKINER PETROL ELECTRIC ROAD TRAIN 1914 . They imported a petrol/electric prime mover from Germany in the early 1914 to the CONARGO / DENILIQUIN area of NSW, Australia that hauled wooden wagons loaded with bales of wool . It was subsequently destroyed years later in a warehouse fire in Melbourne or Sydney i think. Notice i wrote petrol/electric , they were way ahead of their time .
The British had road trains hauled by steam teaction engines during the Boer War , circa 1900
Tom Cruise drove a truck for years through the deserts of Australia
Thank you, l hadn't heard of this vehicle.
I never knew AEC made such a truck but very interesting if i go to Australia I will definitely go looking for this beast of a truck, I don't know if this is what inspired the Australian road train but I'm sure it helped and got the engineering brains thinking, as for the one that went to South Africa that would of been the start of there road trains plus the fact South Africa liked all sorts of British truck's and chopped and changed thing's to suit themselves sometimes good sometimes very bad idea's I worked on a few and My god I would never of driven some of the bad stuff and I'm up for most thing's when it come's to driven truck's.
Has anyone been to the roadside museum at Ilfracombe just east of Longreach Qld where you will find a purpose built road train to haul wool
Yes -- quite a quirky collection of vehicles used in the area. Called in riding through to Longreach not so long ago.
Renaud trailer
Mechanical drive centre axle , self tracking
👍👍👍👍👍👍
The story of Tom Kruse & his outback mail truck is well worth telling.
Have to say multi trailer wagons pre date the internal combustion engine, whilst not powered by coal or oil , occurred in most countries of the world. As roads improved this type of transport was able to increase in size and most certainly laid the foundation for the development of the later road trains. Further more I have seen photographs of other types of road train hobbled together in the outback by Australian hauliers dating to the end of the first world war, they might not have been quite so impressive but certainly had a shambolic charm of their own. Check with museums with transport history pictorial collections.
I saw this vehicle at the Museum in 2022, while I was in Alice Springs.
I guess the roadtrains are the result of the rough and down to earth Aussie spirit.
How do we transport all this stuff 1000 kilometers through the wilderness to sell it.
The roadtrains was a huge upgrade compared to sixty camels.
I think from memory the Transport Workers Union paid for the restoration of this beast before it went into the museum.
True or not .and i believe it is ,this is a great story in and of it's self .And had wondered about .most of my life .and more so than most as I was a long haul trucker for 45 years doing oversize and heavy haul and drove almost 5 million miles in my career in the U.S. and Canada.
good vid.
My uncle in Clare South Australia salvaged the "Farina (far north SA town) Road Train". He researched its history and corresponded with the present day company that had built it.
It had several trailers with axles that were driven from the engine by drive shafts.
Unfortunately he passed away and I don't know what became of his records or the road train or whether it was related to the AEC.
Amazing, very unforgiving terrain for man and machine (and beast if you include the camels). The wild camels are now vermin, their numbers in the outback have been totally out of control for years.
👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽
Good to see the Scammell road train, I mean camel 👍🇦🇺
Is very curious the history of this pioneer in the transport of the road in Australia, is nornal that this truck have all wheel drive because in this years don´t exist roads and all the transport is in the enorm desert.
Sorry for my english, because isn´t perfect.
Saludos desde España.
Gracias por comentar, Saludos hasta España!
Well having been on the road from Alice Springs to Adelaide, I would be amazed if someone can drive to Tennant Creek in 23 hours...
One absolutely could -- roos permitting! I imagine semis, B-doubles and roadtrains do it all the time.
Happy days Camels
Now the only camels you find on the road are the ones you try not to hit with your roadtrain. 😂
The AEC 0853 by early 130,s automotive standards was not primitive at all but advanced, direct acting Westinghouse compressed air brakes fitted to axles 2 and 3, its 8 wheels arranged in two high articulation bogies whose design was partly copied by Russian engineers working on Lunokhod in the early 1960,s . Lunokhod was the first remotely driven rover designed to explore another world I, E the moons surface. About the size of an 850cc BMC Mini, this Russian rover resembling a Victorian Tin Bath ran on 8 independently sprung ,driven wheels with suspension partly derived from AEC,s O853 Colonial Tractor.
The man who instigated the Alice Springs Camel Cup Noel Fulerton had a hand in helping with locating and restoration for the museum.
At 1:28 you speak of "the iconic red London bus" but you show a photo of a Devon bus, a different animal, albeit an AEC product.
Yes an AEC Regent Five of Devon General, the Iconic Red London Bus is in fact an AEC Regent 3RT with Park Royal bodywork.
After watching this video and seeing the camels I can appreciate were the term camel toe came from.
The term 'camel toe' originated from the tiny purile minds of sexually repressed but sexually obsessed teens in puritanical USA.
Only if Only we had stayed with this type of concept
How we have 750hp pulling 30 tons of packing material which we then transport to a land fill !!!
great stuff, oh check out the land trains made by, LeTournea USA.
th-cam.com/video/Xe8cmnmCDNI/w-d-xo.htmlsi=0c-Mf9BcDS7XiQEV
Ron Dingwel had a prime mover with gun carriage war surplus road train.
Noel buntine cobber.
He is the master of road trains in Australia.....
I think you may be confused between miles & kilometers.
Over here we have prime movers pulling roadtrains not tractors.
I’m amazed that at least B-Doubles aren’t allowed on the US Federal Highway Network.
They should have invested in railways
But this is way cooler! 😉
big lizzie was Australias first road train, 1916
🚛🚛🚛🚛🚛🚛👍👍👍👍👍👍💪💪💪💪💪
And another viewer mentioned
Not the first road train in Australia nor the world .
Neither was the Daimler Muller
Neither was the Renaud
Yudanamuntana road trains ran from copper mines in Blinman to Port Augusta South Australia
1863->1865
Now dont argue about the energy being used .
Be it coal wood petrol or diesel .
Road train definition
Doesn't run on rails , but will run on from unformed tracks in the outback to the black ribbon ( longest National highway on the planet ) and every type of road in between.
multi trailer ,
One prime mover but may have a powered trailer
Native habitat : Terra Australis
Species : Biggus truckus
That goes to John Fowler of Leeds, for in 1896-97 the UK war department gave engineers at John Fowlers a spec for a steam powered armoured road train to transport troops and supplies in the Boer War. The Steam Plough Works took a standard Fowler Traction Engine cladded in armour resembling boilerplate, coupled it to three boxy armoured wagons with gun slits, the third wagon having a rearward firing 25 pounder field gun. Shipped out to South Africa, this unique road train kept British army outposts supplied with food ammunition water, and medicines, driving on deep rutted dirt goat tracks you have second thought taking a modern SUV .
@@basiltaylor8910
What goes to Fowler ?
@@machinerydoctor They built the first mechanically powered road train that worked even though it used steam as petrol engines were in their infancy.
@@basiltaylor8910 Yudanamuntana in South Australia , their traction engine road trains operated between 1863-65.
@@machinerydoctor Wow thanks, every day is a school day and what make were the traction engines used to power these pioneering road trains?.
Tennant Creek has never been a city, at its peak about 5,000 souls, at the time of the film about 1,700.
The Volvo trucks featured in the video are not really road trains. B triple trucks. And should display the Long Vehicle sign, instead of Road Train.
Amazing video about the precursor of the Road Train. The actual “proper/modern” road train was inspired by the AEC road train and was created by Kurt Johannsenl
The former Soviet Union in 1934?
What a load of codswhallop, go back and have another go.
Not the first (although the earlier one probably qualified as an “off-road train” (because it made the road as it went)).
wow a 6 Cylinder 8.9L engine how many meters per gallon did it get haha
This is not the fist road train do a video on big Lizzy from Victoria it resides in Redcliffe now that was Australia’s first road train from before there were roads
No info about gearing, axles? Motor torque output?
pity the Brits went off course, the LEYLAND OCTOPUS, was a beaut truck, from 50 through 60s, I stand corrected but they never used the Cummins NH like ERF did, Foden was another, using Gardner and Cummins NHs, which were streets ahead of ACE as they and leyland had dry liiners
this is totally off subject but hey, I don't care🤣
Kurt Johannsen liked to promote himself as the inventor of the Australian road train. A cursory examination of the evidence within Australia demonstrates that it is not true. Note: Not talking about the even earlier developments elsewhere in the world.
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Can you please stop using that "zoom in quickly" transition? It's very annoying.
A very incomplete history.
tractor is not a bloody truck
Not familiar with the English language, are you?
In the USA and elsewhere the outfits which we Australians refer to as "Semis" are called "tractor - trailer" combinations.
As well as that, what we now call "truck" was called a "lorry" with "truck" being a word for the axle configurations under a "Trolley".
Language does evolve, but it is quite helpful to be cogniscent of its origins when criticising other folks' use of it.
@@DrakeN-ow1im americans don't know the difference between a tractor and a truck tractors use in paddock truck /semis is to use on road to pull hevavey cargo and freight live stock long distence thats the diffrence im australian its ainsult to call a tractor a truck
I think I detected a rog
robot voice so I can't subscribe
They will be coming back full of people.
These places now suck. Crime and violence. Tourism is dead.
Thanks Labor/ Greens. And Liberals.
Very poor information