Straya!

[Rum]

Wot?

Chill, man.

[pErvinalia]

Them's fightin' words!

[Rum]

Them's fightin' words!

Us 'poms' have to put up with a lot of flack. Least you can do is put up with being upside down..and being killed by all your fauna.

[laklak]

Wot?

Fake news. Australian trailers run on triaxles. This one is a US 18-wheeler so embarrassed that someone stuck a MAGA sticker to its bumper that it tries to disappear from the face of the earth by drilling itself through its surface.

You learn something new eery day. Are they usually longer and heavier? I know you guys run land trains and we don't, most you'll see here is a double trailer.

[Hermit]

Wot?

Fake news. Australian trailers run on triaxles. This one is a US 18-wheeler so embarrassed that someone stuck a MAGA sticker to its bumper that it tries to disappear from the face of the earth by drilling itself through its surface.

You learn something new eery day. Are they usually longer and heavier?

Since I am not familiar with the trucking industry, I don't know. In Australia the permissible weight of trucks is determined by the load each tyre is deemed to be able to safely bear. For the typical single steer - bogey axle prime mover with a triaxle trailer the max gross weight is 45.5 tonsand the max length is 19 metres. For B-doubles* max length is 26 metres and max weight 68 tons.

I know you guys run land trains and we don't, most you'll see here is a double trailer.

Trucks are severely restricted in regard to what roads they can use. You will never see a combination larger than a B-double in a major city, and even for them fines for being out of bounds are astronomical, and repeated infractions can lead to the offending combination being impounded for up to three months. 25 years ago I got pinged in a Tonka toy with a six ton payload. $400 fine. I made sure to stay off the weight restricted roads ever since then.

Doubles and triples using dollies between trailers only travel in the remote rural areas, though they do commonly pass through main thoroughfares of small country towns because bypasses are non-existent. Any larger combinations are basically bespoke arrangements between an operator, i.e. a major contractor/supplier to a mining and a state government**.

In short, not even Australians are likely to see any bigger truck combinations than a single tractor/trailer setup or a B-double.

*B-double:


** Quad mining tanker


Quad mining tippers

[Brian Peacock]

Outrage after woman with profound disabilities told to pay back NDIS funds

A supreme court judge has issued a stunning public condemnation of the National Disability Insurance Agency, finding it tried to recoup funds with “no proper basis” from a woman with profound disabilities, and then came dangerously close to contempt of court.

The criticisms, which are contested by the NDIA, relate to the treatment of Tegan Sharp, 25, a woman living with cerebral palsy.

Sharp is legally blind, deaf and has serious physical and mental disabilities that require ongoing and constant care, for which she received national disability insurance scheme (NDIS) funding last year.

The difficulties arose after an accident six years ago in which Sharp, who could not speak to communicate her pain, suffered third-degree burns while being showered by a paid carer.

She sought compensation from the care provider through the NSW supreme court, claiming the burns had caused new and lasting injuries along with significant psychological trauma, which required additional care. The compensation was to cover the additional care being provided by her family for free, including parental supervision during daily showers.

The parties agreed to settle in March, but the process was complicated by the NDIA’s insistence Sharp must use the compensation to pay back more than $100,000 of her NDIS funding.

“It’s been really bad. I’ve been stressed out ... not sleeping. I just can’t believe this is happening,” Tegan’s mother, Narelle, told Guardian Australia..

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-n ... _clipboard

[JimC]

Hermit wrote:

In short, not even Australians are likely to see any bigger truck combinations than a single tractor/trailer setup or a B-double.

On our trips into inland Oz, I've seen lots of triple and even quadruple road trains, not just on remote dirt roads near mining sites, but on major highways like the Sturt. Buggers to pass, they are...

[laklak]

I certainly don't want Billy Bob barreling a quadruple tractor trailer down I-95 Miami while blasted on meth with two hookers in the cab.

It's Florida, that isn't a stretch.

[Hermit]

Hermit wrote:

In short, not even Australians are likely to see any bigger truck combinations than a single tractor/trailer setup or a B-double.

On our trips into inland Oz, I've seen lots of triple and even quadruple road trains, not just on remote dirt roads near mining sites, but on major highways like the Sturt. Buggers to pass, they are...

Yes, well, I did say "You will never see a combination larger than a B-double in a major city". That's where 85% of Australians live. Also, "Doubles and triples using dollies between trailers only travel in the remote rural areas, though they do commonly pass through main thoroughfares of small country towns because bypasses are non-existent."

You may have seen the occasional quadruple B-combination. I can guarantee that you have not seen any quad road trains unless they had a bespoke agreement between some mining operation and a state government.

[JimC]

Yeah, the really long ones were clearly carrying mined material, on dirt roads near mines...

[Brian Peacock]

Don't listen to Hermit, he clearly has no idea what he's on about.

[Rum]

Trugo Jim. Are you responsible for this?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-45326460

Trugo: A bizarre sport unique to Melbourne

26 September 2018

Not many people have heard of trugo: a mix of croquet, golf, lawn bowls and the hammer. But, as James Bartlett writes, the unusual game that sprung from Melbourne's railway yards is trying to attract new fans.

I'm very much a part-time member of the Yarraville Trugo club, and I haven't played an official game for them yet. I probably never will, as I live nearly 13,000km (8,000 miles) from the ground.

Even so, I wear my canary-yellow team shirt with pride as I arrive.

Training has begun for the upcoming season, and there's a good turnout of players old and new.

Club captain John McMahon, 89, has already set up, and when I appear he asks "How ya going?" and offers me a cup of tea.

He's a former world (yes, world) champion at a sport that's also around 90 years old, yet it's unknown anywhere else in the world - and is even a secret to most Melburnians.

Players take a thick rubber ring, balance it upright, and then swing a rubber-tipped wooden mallet between their legs to try and hit the ring between two posts.

Oh, and you do all this facing backwards. For some reason.

Railway beginnings
Research says that trugo was invented in the late 1920s or early 1930s by Tom Grieves, a Yarraville railwayman and first president of the Victoria Trugo Association.

The story goes that he was bored one day, and started using his mallet to hit rubber rings that were used as shock absorbers inside railway buffers.

Other sources say this happened at the Newport Railway Workshops when workers were messing around during a lunch break, though The Melbourne Herald of 23 March 1950 quotes a councillor Aleck Beaton saying Mr Grieves alone took buffers into a local park and started hitting them with his croquet mallet.

Trugo is thought to have developed in Melbourne in the early 20th Century
Trugo only left the railway yards when retirees took it to their local parks, and Welco Rubber in Tullamarine still uses the same tooling to make the rings - just as they have been doing since the 1930s.

Mr McMahon's father was a signalman, and he joined him in playing when he retired early in 1991, as early rules said that players had to be 60 and older.

"A doctor told me trugo has added 10 years to my life," laughs Mr McMahon.

[JimC]

Yet one more reason why Melbourne is the sporting and cultural capital of the entire world!

[Scot Dutchy]

Only in the Australian mind.

[Hermit]

Yet one more reason why Melbourne is the sporting and cultural capital of the entire world!

Where's yer Luger now, cobber?