Moving cattle in Australia.

Only in Australia will you see this. Road Trains This is a recent email sent regarding the cattle trains at Helen Springs Station. There are interesting statistics.   There are 17 trucks with 3 trailers and 2 decks per trailer; Therefore there are 102 decks of cattle and there would be approximately 28 cattle per deck; This totals 2,856 head of cattle The cattle will weigh approximately 500kg each (1102.3 lbs.) The sale price for cattle at Longreach is approx. 165c/kg (75c/lb.) Each animal will therefore be sold at $825. Total revenue from this analysis is $2,356,200 Another interesting fact: Each trailer has 24 tyres plus a dolly with 8 tyres The truck plus lead trailer have 12 tyres plus a dolly with 8 tyres and 10 tyres on the truck For the 72 truck/trailer combos there are 6,192 tyres on the road Road trains loading cattle at Helen Springs Station, north of Tennant Creek NT. Now That's A Road Train

Cattle Muster

I found this interesting and thought maybe some of my readers would like to see the scale of an Australian Cattle Station.
A recent muster saw 2452 cattle loaded into 17 double decker 3 trailer Road Trains at Helen Springs Station in the Northern Territory, this station covers some 5000 square Kms and carries up to 25,000 cattle.

Please click on photos to enbiggen

The 17 road trains lined up ready to come into the loading area.

As you can see its pretty wide open country up there.

The lead trucks are at the loading ramp here.

Still most of the mob are in the holding yards, each truck holds about 145 cattle and they reach the wharf at Darwin in about 6 hours.

Its just a dot on the map.... A Big Country!!!

Road Train world records.

A quick follow up on this post

Even these big boys can break down, there is one man who makes his living
salvaging them, now THAT'S a Tow Truck.

Road Train world records.

In 1999 the town of Merredin, Western Australia made it into the Guinness Book of Records, when Marleys Transport made a successful attempt on the record for the world's longest road train. The record was created when 45 trailers, driven by Greg Marley, weighing 603 metric tons and measuring 610 metres were pulled by a Kenworth truck for 8 km.

In 2003, the record was surpassed near Mungindi, New South Wales, by a road train consisting of 87 trailers and a single prime mover (measuring 1235 metres in length).

The next record was 1,442 metres, set by a driver in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia in a Kenworth owned by Doug Gould.

In 2006, a truck with 104 semi-trailers (at a length of 1,474.3 metres) claimed a new record at Clifton, Queensland.

Road Transport in Australia.

Having just completed a long road trip the many variations of trucks
we had seen, as well as a few we hadn't seen, seems appropriate....

Its my blog and I'm interested even if you're not!!!



This is the Truck or Prime Mover.

This is a Semi-trailer which connects to the prime movers turntable.

This is a "Dolly" which can have either 8 or 12 wheels on it, a second
semi trailer connects to the turntable on this "Dolly" to make a road train.

This is the configuration described above.

This is very common on our highways now, its known as a "B Double"

This is the normal configuration for a 3 trailer Road Train, often has triple wheel
assemblies at the front of each trailer to give greater load carrying capacity.

This is known as a "Dog Trailer" the front set of wheels can turn as the vehicle turns.

This one is known as a "Pig Trailer" all wheels are fixed straight ahead, I'm guessing
its a PIG to reverse thus the name??

Road Train; Fuel carrier with 4 trailers

Road Train; The daddy of 'em all, used in mining areas to move iron ore, set up
with 6 trailers, this monster has 110 wheels on the road.

A slightly more conventional fuel carrier with 3 trailers.

JACK Fitzpatrick laughs when told the Victorian Government is considering allowing B-triple trucks and trailers up to 36 metres long on the state's roads.

"They're pie carts … now this is a real truck," Mr Fitzpatrick says, waving his hand at a Kenworth hooked up to three massive two-storey trailers, the longest vehicle allowed on Australia's roads. (Except for those 6 trailer ore carriers) "These monsters are 53 metres long and have a carrying capacity of 140 tonnes."

Mr Fitzpatrick is loading cattle at the Road Trains of Australia depot at Noonamah, south of Darwin. "Nobody turns a head when they see a B-triple up here … we don't regard them as real road trains, nowhere near it."

Note; for effect there is a prime mover parked alongside the rear trailer in this photo.

This is the B triple referred to above.

Some of the variations that have been used at Foster's Farm; a Semi-trailer tipper.

A rigid chassis tipper.

The current monster; A road train with 2 tipping trailers.

Different examples seen at Esperance WA; triple tipping trailers.

Same carrying capacity but with the short trailer in the centre instead of at the
front as in the photo above.