In Australia, the dingos will eat your babies and the trucks are all really, really long.
Image source: [Flickr-Zsolti/NYM]
Last Call- Road Train Edition
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Notice dual exhaust stacks and dual intake stacks mounted high to lessen dust being breathed in.
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Gotta love the 'Roo bars on both the big and little trucks…
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I'm really slipping. I can get past the Patrol, Landcruiser and Commodore wagon. I think that the next car might be a Forester, but I'm not sure. After that it's anyone's guess.
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Why is this photo so awesome? Is it the crispy whites? Whyever, I like it.
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That's a Nissan Patrol in the closest lane? Nice. I like the Roo Bars and desert dust on it. Yeah, an Aussie Road Train is about the most impressive truck possible. I like the way it proclaims ROAD TRAIN on the bumper for all to see. Both the driver of this rig and the people around him can't wait for him to get it out into the outback, where he doesn't have to worry about going around corners and smushing whatever gets in it's way. Notice, too, that the tractor is I think a badass Kenworth.
The K Mart over there suggests that this is not the outback. Yeah, even Australia has 'burbs, I guess. Talk about shattering one of my favorite stereotypes. Like seeing the Circle K here in Tombstone. -
B-Model Triples! They're legal here in the U.S., but only on some roads in northern Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming (I think), and even then they're the shorter 28' pup-trailers, not the longer tandem-axle 45-48 footers that this guys pulling. I pulled B-Model Doubles (wiggle-wagons) for years, and one of the best pieces of advice I ever got from one of the old hands was, "Turn your mirrors in, so you can only see the front trailer, you don't want to know what that back trailer is doing." When I first saw those guys pulling triples, I'd ask them what they were like in the snow and they'd laugh saying they only had to pull doubles when the weather was bad. No kidding, I thought, you could get yourself all wrapped up in a fart-knuckle were you rear-ended yourself. Even with doubles a jack-knife was called "…circling the wagons", but with triples you could probably really do it.
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I hope for the driver's sake that the longer trailers are much more stable than the shorter pups.
Also, I thought B-doubles indicated a fifth wheel for the second trailer over the axles of the first, like I've seen in Canada.
Also, rear-ending myself: I have a new goal in life. -
Yeah, I've seen those triples in Utah. I've seen how those trailers wag back and forth.
When Utah tore the hell out of I-15 and rebuilt it before the Olympics, it was known as the Luge Run because it was down to two narrow lanes with Jersey barriers on both sides. You haven't lived until you've tried passing one of those triples, pedal to the metal and the concrete barrier within arms reach, hoping it doesn't start flopping around.-
Try it in a rainstorm, in Houston. That took years off my life.
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I've seen the triples in Idaho and the doubles in Oregon and Washington before legislation changed things. I always scooted past those things as quickly as possible.
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It's a nice picture, but I would hardly call that a 'train'. More like a road caravan.
This is a train:
http://outbacktowing.tripod.com/sitebuilderconten…-
That's completely insane!
<img src = "http://outbacktowing.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/29_rt2.jpg">-
Slow to go, slow to stop…
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Who knew that the Road Warrior shopped at K-Mart? Not I.
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After a long day of fighting post-apocalyptic biker gangs, there's nothing more comforting than a set of Martha Stewart bed linens.
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"You want coffee? There's a K-Mart snack bar about 20 miles up the road! Much as you want! Refinin' it, they are! Ka-junka junka junk!"
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If it's all the same to you… I'll drive that tanker.
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I remember seeing some show on History about these behemoths… and their Insanely boosted tractors…
![http://outbacktowing.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/29_rt2.jpg">](http://outbacktowing.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/29_rt2.jpg">){kind=link}
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