OzDozer
Senior Member
A big mineral explorer and mining contractor here, built his own road train hauling prime mover (truck tractor) in 1958 - using Twin 6-71's out of a General Grant (M3) tank!
This prime mover truck was the biggest truck ever produced in Australia - and it was totally "home-built", with not a single blueprint or engineering calculation ever made for it!
It was produced using chalk outline plans drawn on Masonite sheets on the workshop floor of D.F.D. Rhodes contracting.
Don Rhodes was a multi-millionaire mineral explorer, mining contractor and investor, and he owned a manganese mine way out in the boondocks of the North West of W.A.
This mine is called the Woodie Woodie mine, and the manganese ore needed to be hauled to the nearest port at Port Hedland so it could be shipped to overseas buyers.
www.google.com
It's around 350kms (217 miles) from the mine to the port, and in 1958, there was no decent road between the mine and the port, it was just a goat track over largely flat semi-desert.
So the idea was to haul 2 trailers and pull about 200 tons gross of manganese ore at a time with this rig.
The road today is a fully sealed major highway, and if you use Google Street View, you can probably pick up the 4-trailer road trains currently using it.
The truck was called the "Rhodes-Ridley", because Don Rhodes financed it, and his workshop supervisor, Harold Ridley was the "brains trust" who designed it, and oversaw its construction - from scratch!
Just about every single part of the truck was handbuilt, apart from the engines, transmission and diffs, which all came from the M3 tank!
Unfortunately, local traffic laws changed just as the truck was finished, and as the truck was 11 feet 8 inches wide, it was deemed too wide to allow it on any public road!
8 feet was the maximum vehicle width allowed in those days - so the truck never got to do any ore haulage, and so it was fitted with two large gensets on its back for mine site power, and it was used to move crushers around the minesite as required.
The Rhodes Ridley was effectively abandoned and left to decay, until a few guys got together and decided to save it and restore it in the mid-1990's.
The restoration was funded by the Rhodes family, and it took several years to restore it.
But now she's back to her original glory and she regularly entertains truck and machinery lovers at shows all over the S.W. of W.A.
www.agtrader.com.au
rhodesridley.com.au
This prime mover truck was the biggest truck ever produced in Australia - and it was totally "home-built", with not a single blueprint or engineering calculation ever made for it!
It was produced using chalk outline plans drawn on Masonite sheets on the workshop floor of D.F.D. Rhodes contracting.
Don Rhodes was a multi-millionaire mineral explorer, mining contractor and investor, and he owned a manganese mine way out in the boondocks of the North West of W.A.
This mine is called the Woodie Woodie mine, and the manganese ore needed to be hauled to the nearest port at Port Hedland so it could be shipped to overseas buyers.
Woodie Woodie Road to Port Hedland
It's around 350kms (217 miles) from the mine to the port, and in 1958, there was no decent road between the mine and the port, it was just a goat track over largely flat semi-desert.
So the idea was to haul 2 trailers and pull about 200 tons gross of manganese ore at a time with this rig.
The road today is a fully sealed major highway, and if you use Google Street View, you can probably pick up the 4-trailer road trains currently using it.
The truck was called the "Rhodes-Ridley", because Don Rhodes financed it, and his workshop supervisor, Harold Ridley was the "brains trust" who designed it, and oversaw its construction - from scratch!
Just about every single part of the truck was handbuilt, apart from the engines, transmission and diffs, which all came from the M3 tank!
Unfortunately, local traffic laws changed just as the truck was finished, and as the truck was 11 feet 8 inches wide, it was deemed too wide to allow it on any public road!
8 feet was the maximum vehicle width allowed in those days - so the truck never got to do any ore haulage, and so it was fitted with two large gensets on its back for mine site power, and it was used to move crushers around the minesite as required.
The Rhodes Ridley was effectively abandoned and left to decay, until a few guys got together and decided to save it and restore it in the mid-1990's.
The restoration was funded by the Rhodes family, and it took several years to restore it.
But now she's back to her original glory and she regularly entertains truck and machinery lovers at shows all over the S.W. of W.A.
Rhodes Ridley a tank of a truck
Trachmach member Perry Joyce, Boyup Brook, debuted the famed Rhodes Ridley truck at the recent Dowerin GWN7 Machinery Field Days.
The Rhodes Ridley - Discover the amazing story of The Rhodes Ridley
Discover the story of The Rhodes Ridley. Built in 1958, she was the largest truck in the southern hemisphere & was built by earthmoving company DFD Rhodes.
rhodesridley.com.au
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