Richard Farrant

Oh yes, drag me in to it I expect the judges thought that AFS on the side of the Gypo, meant Army Fire Service :nono:

Here are some of the vehicles that were travelling on the train; The first one is Bay Kelly's sand painted Ford F60, before it was laoded at Sydney. Second photo is Peter Hart's ex-army Holden FB ute, also at Sydney. Another at Sydney, the Hedges' Ford F15. The fourth one is Dave Carmen's Austin K2 RAF tender resting in the shade at Alice Springs. The fifth and last for now, is Andy McFarland's Chevrolet cinema van, also at the Alice campsite.

To continue the story........... Our last stop on the train journey was an overnight at Coober Pedy, the opal mining town. We were taken back to the train, through the desert in an old coach. Off again on the train for our final day on it. The first stop was Marla, a little halt in the middle of nowhere. People had come from all around the area to meet the train, schoolchildren playing the national anthem and a large group from the Aboriginal community who put on a corroboree, with some of their ladies doing a dance. I got back on the train to grab my camera, to find an old man sitting in a seat, definitely not one of our group, so I went off to let the officials know, and it seems he was trying to hitch a lift. After the display was over and our extra passenger removed, we started to move again only to stop when the guard thought he had spotted someone on the freight wagons, seems it was a false alarm. Later in the day we stopped at the Finke River bridge, a photo is on an earlier post. This is a river that only flows at certain times of the year when the rains in the North East of the country create water that floods across the country along dry river beds. I was to encounter the Finke River in a Jeep, five years later, but that is another story. By now the train is running late, we had hoped to arrive in Alice Springs before dark, but it was not to be. The entrance to the town is through a gap in the hills, called Heavitree Gap and quite impressive, with the road running alongside. Lots of people were there to meet us. Some vehicles had made there own way to Alice. We disembarked with our luggage. The train was to be turned around that night, so immediatley the freight wagons were split up and shunted to various sidings for unloading........but where? The Australian Army had sent a support group to accompany our convoy, a couple of their guys with a 110 station wagon, offered to take a few of us to look for our vehicles, eventually we found the right siding, then found to our dismay, we would have to offload over the side......in the dark.There was plenty of help about and we all assisted each other. Once unloaded, we were escorted by the Army to the campsite. I was in charge of my friends Land Rover, he had flown to Alice and was nowhere to be seen! On arrival at the camp we sorted ourselves out, I had been booked into a caravan, others had tents or slept in there trucks. After this I was shattered and went off to bed. We had become quite attached to the train over the last ten days or so and it was sad to leave it. The next instalment is the start of the second phase of the journey.

Clive, I remember that lady from years back at other steam shows as well, Rushmoor comes to mind. Very sad to hear that. As to your "conking out on hills", this also happened to me this weekend, but it was a relativley easy fault to find, a whacking great flake of paint ( from the inside of a pesky jerrican ), had gone right up the suction pipe in the tank. Glad to hear so got it sorted out and hope it did not spoil the show too much for you.

Well done to Nigel, Last year at Trucks & Troops, Nigel took myself and friends in the Hippo, to a pub in the New Forest, the truck is a credit to him. Good to see Dick Sheppard in the photo as well. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

Don't keep us in suspense.............who ?

Many thanks Rick, It would be good to see photos from other participants to get a different angle, I think I took more video than photos. About to post some more instalments........so wake up at the back :-D

Neil, I left about the same time as you, but had spotted the traffic on the A299 towards M2, was stationary, so turned right out of the site and followed by instinct ( no sat navs here ! ) and got on to the A2 southbound to get home via Canterbury. Looked at Highways Agency website and saw the hold up was between 30 to 60 mins. According to news this morning, the accident was M2 Southbound and a person has since died in hospital. Oh and I got home in 1 hour :-D

Due to a fuel problem soon after leaving for the show today, I decided to return my lorry to its quarters and clean the tank out on another day. A bit dissapointed, I continued up to the show this afternoon. After meeting a good few friends and aquaintances there, I had an enjoyable time, sorry if I missed anyone. The show looks like it has got off to a flying start and I look forward to the next one. Talking about flying, I note that Catweazle was as far away from the helicopter as was possible :-D :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup: to the organisers !

Hi Kuno, These are all Austin K9 1 ton 4x4 trucks, introduced around 1952, they could have been left behind from when the British Army was in Libya.

Les, That would have been Brian Nunn, I think........not seen him for years now. That photo of my model Thornycroft Big Ben is uncanny, I tried to get a shot of it with my digital last night, but failed. Thanks :tup::

I appreciate what you are saying, CW, but hopefully people are reading and enjoying our posts I like to see the models of military vehices as well, so keep posting them, have been trying to get some shots of a few of mine from the past, but digi camera does not do real close ups, will have to have another go.

:-D:-D RAF one what ?????

The Saracen is towing a Green Archer trailer.........like this one we restored earlier.........about 1995, for the Royal Artillery Museum. I seem to recollect it was a mortar locating radar system.

Hi Nick, Hope Clive is behaving himself. Keep him away from the Can-Can girls.......he can can get a bit excited :-D Great pics, glad to see it is dry there, keep posting the photos

Relatively simple really, used the normal fixing at front on windscreen hinge points ( I think, long time ago now) and ladder at rear to body rear, another support at rear, to locate. The sides were the problems, in order to take the weight. Two folded plates per side were made up to sit over sides of body, and with step supports coming out below canvas sides, these had triangulated supports to the rack in order to stiffen it up and stop twist or swaying. Must have worked well any way.

Sorry.....trick question I was waiting for someone to say that you cannot fit a roofrack to a soft top. Well, we actually did fit a few on soft tops at request of the unit who supplied the racks, an Intelligence unit, no surprises there :-D. They arrived one afternoon and vehicles were to go next morning, so a bit of head scratching and bandying ideas between a few of us and we did it without touching the canvas. And on return from the Gulf, the racks were removed and they survived without fault. It is amazing the number of non standard additions on vehicles, if you turned up at a show with something like this, some wiseguy would tell you it was wrong :nono:

Had the parts book in front of me :-D

It is an early 1950's Ford 2E Stores, Binned 3 ton 4x4 truck.........or was

Les, It was ex-Forrests, but more than a few years ago, Bill restored it in early 1980's, it was at the Tenterden show, pre-Beltring.........time flies you know . He has another that had been dieseled, P6 I think.

Were Brownchurch full length roof racks ever fitted to Land Rover Series 3 LWB, with canvas tops, ......... possibly in the first Gulf War ? :???

Tony, So you do not remember the K2 GS truck owned by a young couple called Nick and Sarah on Jersey, in the 1980's ? They brought it over to the MVT D-Day shows at Southsea several times. I rode in it on a small Jersey tour back then, and was taken to see Denis's K3, then under restoration. I know Graham, and his K2 ambulance. Will have to find a photo of this K2 truck, as I suspect your memory is going :confused:

Radek, The K2 in my photos is a different one to your picture, that one is, I am certain, one that was on the island of Jersey ( you can see the Jersey reg number) and I recollect riding around the island in it back in 1987. The blue K2 had a information board in the window, and the photo of it before restoration shows that it would not have been in preservation before.

Tim, Would it not be possible to stitch the crack, using Metalok system or similar?

I had one once, his email address appeared to be Hong Kong judging by the time difference, he wanted the lorry shipped to New Zeeland (his spelling mistake not mine), and his grammar was atrocious as well. My reply to them is that I only sell to those that come and personally view..........and pay cash. They never reply after that, because it is not what they want to hear. The vehicle (or whatever) is of no interest ot them, it is the dodgy cheque scam that they are up to.