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It was more likely the increased speed of trucks with pneumatic tyres that created the corrugations, not the move from solids to pneumatics. Pneumatic tyres on trucks started to appear in 1920 and by about 1925, virtually all trucks were on pneumatics, only the big heavy haul low loaders still used solid wheels and they only travelled at low speeds. People forget about the early low motoring speeds and the low speed limits. In the 1920's to even after WW2, the speed limit for "heavy" trucks in Australia was 15mph (25kmh). "Heavy" was 3 tons or more. Truckies fought for higher speed limits and were often fined for driving "at dangerous speed" - like 25mph (40kmh). During WW2, military convoys ran at 30mph (50kmh) maximum speed to save on tyre wear and preserve road surfaces. Trucks were geared to be flat out at low speeds. Ford V8's were the fastest trucks around, they could do 40-45mph, but that was well over official truck speed limits. WW2 trucks were all geared to about 35 mph maximum speed. The big Military Federals and Reos were flat out at 28mph, they had 10:1 diff ratios for heavy haulage. Bedfords were happiest at about 30mph, they start to scream their guts out at 35mph, and if you could get them to 40mph, that was their absolute limit. Roads were simply poor in the pre-WW2 era and it took a while after WW2 for roads to be upgraded. The 1950's saw a lot of road improvements, widening and sealing. When the first post-war Kenworths and Macks arrived here in the late 1950's, they could do 100kmh (62mph) - but the official maximum truck speed limit was still only 80kmh. So you risked serious fines for doing more than 80kmh. When I bought my first Mack F-700 (cabover) in 1975, the Mack did over 100kmh, but the truck speed limit was still 80kmh. It took until about 1978 to raise the truck speed limit to 100kmh, and that was only after a lot of arguments against raising it. And when you see this (video below), you start to understand that a lot of roads and drivers are still not up to their trucks capabilities. https://www.facebook.com/share/v/18cqZRTEaz/

Pete, I guess also as truck design advanced, the extra weight would play a part as well.

It shakes bolts out of trailers which is the biggest cause of flat tyres on those roads. Frustrating for the truckies blowing $500 tyres.

Good point. Normally I'd spend most of the day in air con, but for some people they'd be on their feet on the hot ground all day. I hope they had better boots than the Mack ones.

I read a book once about trucking. It said corrugations and bull dust only appeared with pneumatic tyres. When trucks had solids, up to the 1920s, it wasn’t a problem.

Ditto, looks great, you deserve it.

I think that may be a better outcome than sticking with it. Short term cost to save a lot more in the long term.

That looks like a nice spot, Octave. I trust you have an enjoyable stay.

So, I wonder how they would've performed walking on hot ground during Summer? Bitumen can get up to 70°C in Summer, and ordinary rocky clayey ground generally isn't far behind, temperature-wise.

Couldn't hear the people next to me at the Shed speaking, due to the racket of rain on the perspex skylights.

Correct.

Grading after rain works in some areas where they get rain, but you'd be waiting a long time between grades in a lot of this country Nev. A lot of the country has a six to eight inch annual rainfall if you're lucky. That's where water trucks come into the equation.

I don't see the Clunkers analogy, We have had to extend our Collins class subs service life. The Yanks have trouble building enough New Nuclear ones for themselves. Who signed up to AUKUS in the First Place? Now we are stuck with it.. Pull out and we may lose the Lot as it would then be Australia Breaking the deal. Nev

It wouldn't be a bad job grading those roads if you liked a bit of solitude. I've seen quite a few setups where they have two graders and a joint camp. I ran into one bloke once who worked on his own. He had a donga with everything in it, sleeping quarters, kitchen and bathroom. The 40' trailer also had the spare space for a fuel tank and genset. He had a satellite dish as well. He would estimate the distance of a day's work and tow the donga trailer and Toyota behind the grader to where he was going to make camp for the night, then set up camp and do a grade down to the start point and back. You'd need a compact, self contained camp like that if you were moving camp daily otherwise it would drive you mad. He worked equal time job sharing with another bloke. I can't remember what hitch they'd do, it might have been two weeks on/two weeks off.

You have to grade them AFTER rain, not just scrape the top few inches. Nev

Geez it's cold and wet here at 1500 feet alt. The ground is saturated. , Wet until Sunday. Celebrating because rain is good and it's a long while since we got soaking steady rain It's not the Kind that Causes Flooding. Nev

A big problem with them is they reappear fairly quickly. The grader only knocks the tops off them. I can remember grader drivers telling me how deep the corrugations go below the surface as they found out at times when they've had to cut the surface right back. They can extend a foot or two below the surface like hard ants nest.

I once bought a pair of Mack branded lace ups. I don't know if they still make them, but at the time Mack and Cat branded boots were getting about. They had the gel implant in the heel for cushioning like a lot of modern workboots have. At the time we had a yard at Moomba and we left our gear there to go home for the Christmas break. I thought I'd be clever and leave some personal gear in one of the dongas to save carting it back and forth on the plane. When I got back early in January, the heels on the boots had exploded and blown the guts out of the heels where the gel bags would have been. Too much heat I figured; it would have been up in the 60's most likely inside the donga without the aircon on. They were expensive boots and nearly new but you couldn't wear them; it was like trying to drive with flat tyres.

Nice. Sit by the fire sipping a nice drop, looking out at the rain. Happy days to you both

It is Mrs Octave's birthday so we are spending a couple of nights in this shabby place. Yes we are going to drink wine in the enormous bath.

So, essentially, Marles and his mates went to Washington to buy several new Holden Calais, but the Americans convinced them they'd be better off taking 3 knackered Captivas to fill in, while they wait 30 years for the Calais' to be built? Sounds like the deal of the century to me - for the U.S. They're probably still clinking champagne glasses over unloading three well-used Virginia subs onto a pile of hicks and suckers from Down Under, that are going to need huge levels of maintenance in the near future - that we'll have to pay for, and which can only be done by U.S. shipyards, seeing as they contain secret-squirrel power plant technology?

I bought 3 pairs of Dunlop steel-toe workboots in the mid-1990's, because they were going out cheap. I didn't need them immediately, but I thought I'd "stock up" for when I did need them. I never even got to wear them. Within about 18 mths, the rubberised soles had turned into a gooey globby mess, that just fell off the uppers. So I ended up with a set of 3 perfect leather uppers with no soles. I kept those new uppers for ages, thinking I might be able to organise new soles of some type for them. No bootmaker would even look at them, so the uppers laid around my workshop for years, until I was evicted from it, ahead of workshop demolition, in early 2024. So they went in the bin, in the huge cleanup associated with the move out of the workshop. What a bloody waste. I know now, why they were going out cheap. Dunlop carried out some disastrous product moves in that era, and it still dogs them today. No Dunlop tyre I have ever bought, or acquired, has reached its full life without carcass separation, or just blowing out. I just disposed of the last of 4 Dunlops I acquired on 4 wheels I bought to fit my Hilux about 3 years ago. They were almost new when I acquired them. One separated within about 3 mths, another separated about 6 mths later, and the third separated about 6 mths after that. They just went completely out of round, developing huge carcass distortion. The last one nearly wore out, but the tread started coming off on the inside, and that scared me a bit, because it was on a front wheel. So I ditched it for a new Bridgestone A/T697 Dueler. I haven't actually bought any new Dunlops for about 40 years, I refuse to buy them. But I keep "inheriting" the darn things when they come on vehicles or wheels that I buy. They are total rubbish.

There's rough roads and Corrugated roads, They are not really the same. A corrugated road may still have a sound Base and just require a grader at the right time. Nev

Hopefully they'll have the money to fix it. Our council is flat broke to the tune of one billion dollars in the red. They've been spending money like drunken sailors trying to imitate the Gold Coast and now the shite has hit the fan. I'm a bit cynical I suppose, but my guess is higher rates and more potholes before any of the more than 1,000 bludgers sitting behind desks lose their jobs. They have way more sitting on their arse in the offices than they do out in the world doing some work. More than half the rates income goes to paying council staff.

There is a type of soft rubbery material that reverts to black crude oil over time and blackens your hand. I threw out a set of screwdrivers like that. Yesterday I spent a few hours replacing the foam surrounds around the speaker cones in my 30-year-old stereo, which had turned to black grease. And I have a pair of binoculars that have gone like that, I am reluctant to throw them out but they are black and sticky.