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Just wondering if any aussies have seen old iron at Ilfracombe.

brucew

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Ilfracombe is a small town just outside Longreach in Central Western Qld. In 2010 my wife and I went in our caravan for a trip out to Longreach and, about 30 klms. before you get there, you pass through this little town with its old iron parked all along the northern side of the highway.As we drove along I just had to stop as I could see that there was some machines I had never seen in my life before.I just had no idea just how rare a couple of these were until I read some of stories on the plaques that had been put on these machines.Unfortunately although I have photographed nearly all of them they are all on video and I only have a still picture of this one dozer very simliar to the one I first learnt to drive on way back in the late sixties.
 

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Scrub Puller

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Yair . . . brucew. Bloody marvellous display isn't it?

Did you get a gander at the Holt with the exposed bevel gear and pinion . . . it tickled me the wear pattern, the pinion misshapen like the aluminium one on my old Lightburn cement mixer.

Cheers.
 
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RocksnRoses

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I was there last year, brucew, I couldn't believe my eyes, I had never seen so many graders in on place. We were just passing through, ended up spending a couple of hours there, I took a heap of photos, if anyone is interested.
It is a real credit to the local Community.

01 - Graders _ Rear.jpg02 Graders _ Front.jpg

RnR.
 

brucew

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Yes Scrub I did have a good gander at the Holt tractor but cant recall the exposed bevel gear but that would not surprise me as, even though I was there for a good 3 hours or more, I know I missed a whole heap of things, just to much to take in.Did you get a good look at, I think it is the very first machine you come to coming from the east, cant think of the name on it but it is a massive thing used to shovel out soil out of dams quarries etc. Apparently only one was ever built, which doesn't surprise me as you had to lay a length of railway iron down first then after the first past everything had to be shifted over including the length of railway iron and go again and that would have been no mean feat just because of the weight of the thing.
 

brucew

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The only way I could make sure I had a bit of decent time there was to stay overnight at the caravan park just over the road as my better half is not into boys toys as she calls them, but, would you believe it that afternoon I was crook with a wog so even then wasn't able to give it quite as good a look as I would have liked. Anyone who is travelling out that way in a van it is great little park nothing flash but neat clean and was not expensive.
 

RocksnRoses

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If no one else has photos of the Machinery Mile at Ilfracombe in Queensland, I will put some up.

These are a couple of photos of the steam driven excavating machine that brucew talks about. I can't find any more information about it and I am not even sure how it works.

RnR.
 

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RocksnRoses

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This is a Ruston crawler tractor, built under license from Holt. The plate explains it.

RnR.
 

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RocksnRoses

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Here is an example of Aussie ingenuity, after the war when money was scarce and army surplus equipment was cheap. A number of these were built for clearing scrub and opening up the country.

11 - Army Tank Dozer.jpg12 - Army Tank Dozer.jpg
 

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RocksnRoses

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Crawlers have been used in this country, virtually since their inception, my old man had a Holt 2 ton for breaking up new ground on our farm. This is an Allis Chalmers K, hooked to a scoop, which was used for dam sinking and road building.
 

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RocksnRoses

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This is the smaller Allis Chalmers M, also hooked to a scoop.
 

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brucew

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Great pics rocks and roses that Allis Chalmers k crawler would have been a big tractor back in 1936 also that scoop behind would have had to have been about the very first hydraulic scoop made if, as it stands now, was pretty much how it was bought.
 

RocksnRoses

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Great pics rocks and roses that Allis Chalmers k crawler would have been a big tractor back in 1936 also that scoop behind would have had to have been about the very first hydraulic scoop made if, as it stands now, was pretty much how it was bought.

Thanks Bruce, like you, I was blown away when we drove through there, it was the last thing I was expecting. The display is an absolute credit to the Community of Ilfracombe and hopefully this thread you started, might encourage more people to travel out there to see it, I think they would probably need all the help they can get at the moment, with the drought.

RnR.
 

rayman

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Hi guys, about 10 years ago when the local shire council took complete control of that collection they called for volunteers to help restore some of the articles.I went out and offered to revive that old Ruston Proctor. All I asked was that they let me use their workshops and give me a site in their yard for my caravan with power supplied. I was sent packing in very short order, did I think they were a benevolent society. I really thought my proposal, to get her running would have been a crowd puller. Most of the graders are runners, and I once posted that "Britstand" copy of the Cat 12 grader on ACMOC much to the surprise of some. The "Distington" grader has a sister over in Monto and another down in S.A. They were part of a fleet af 11 bought out by the Commonwealth Govt. for the "Radium Hill" uranium mine in the 1950's. I drove one of those in N.Z. but it had the "Carlisle" name badge on it. They were all "Galion 104" under the skin.
There were two of those Ruston proctors imported about 1913, it is believed one stayed in the Townsville area. ray
 

rayman

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The "Greenhills" dam sinking machine is missing a lot of parts. There was a tram track that ran down to the ground for the scoop to ride up on and then a team of horses pulled the scoop back out. On the opposite side was a plate shield for the dirt to slide down. The whole thing ran around in a great semi circle. ray
 

brucew

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Me and my wife and I was able to get out to Iflarcombe again this year to grab an hour or so and saw this added unit in the bulldozer section and it has me baffled as to what original manufacturer it really is and was wondering if anyone else here might know. It has no visible numbers etc on the machine as per photos but has stamped on the plate on it "Massey Ferguson" and I noticed on one of the parts on it "made in Italy" and looking at it I just assumed it was a Fiat Allis but I have gone on the net and checked out the history of Massey Ferguson and found that there is no mention of Massey having anything to do with Fiat but they definitely had a link to Hanomag in Germany and Landini and Same in Italy but I can't find a picture of any of their dozers that look exactly like the one I was looking at. The dozer I was looking was sold by Thiess Sales Pty. Ltd. which originated in Qld Aus.DSC00376.JPG DSC00377.JPG DSC00378.JPG
 

Tones

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MF 400. The same base machine was used for the MF 400 track loader. At that time all MF construction equipment was made in Italy.;)
 

Queenslander

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MF 500 perhaps?
With a V8 Perkins motor, it could have been a fun machine to operate.
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AC7AB0F7-5A9B-43E4-8B93-C0597150184F.jpeg
 
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