It’s amazing the good things that turn up when you’re poking around the internet, that turn out to be produced by someone who just happens to live just a rock throw away. ‘Roadtrains‘ is a great example. The ‘Roadtrains’ website is run by Townsville resident Howard Shanks and it’s full of information and photographs of roadtrains – current and historical. Plus stories regarding some of the characters who drive roadtrains.
Being on the main north-south coastal highway between Cairns and the capital cities of Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, plus being situated on the east coast end of the only northern bitumen road running east-west, across the top of Australia, Townsville is visited by a lot of roadtrains.
Apart from the usual freight carriers (tucker, cars and all manner of consumer goods), these visiting trucks include stock roadtrains carting cattle to the Townsville meatworks, from as far away as the Kimberley region of northern Western Australia, and cattle from the Gulf to live export ships parked at the port; to mining roadtrains carting lead ingots, phosphate and other minerals to ships, and heavy mining equipment & machinery back out to mines; trucks carting export sugar to bulk carriers at the port, and trucks carting bananas from the Tully region to southern cities.
Just as Townsville is a great spot for anyone interested in aviation, it is an ideal spot for anyone who is particularly interested in roadtrains.