The late Kurt Johannsen of Alice Springs ran a trucking service through the Central Australian outback in the 1950s. It was a trucking service with a difference, and that difference was Big Bertha, a former Australian Army truck from Diamond T. International towing several “Self-Tracking” trailers on a narrow, winding road, loaded with 700 empty fuel drums and was truly a sight to see.
He was contracted by the Shell Company to collect all empty 44-gallon fuel drums at the outlying station properties and return them to Shell Depot in Alice. In those days (C1950), the station owners / managers would collect several cans of gasoline and diesel and then carry their rations on top for the following month. Despite the deposit of £ 2.00 (2 pounds) on each drum, the station rarely returned them to the warehouse, resulting in a shortage of drums.
The Diamond T was a bit different than the original International built unit, it had a Gardiner Diesel engine and a very extended chassis. Kurt’s development of the “Self Tracking” system is now used all over the world where road trains are used.
His other engineering feats include,
- Concentrating copper ore at Jervois Range using evaporation basins when he discovered that rail transportation of copper ore cost more than the price he was getting for the ore. The ore was dissolved in acid and the liquid was pumped into a wide, shallow tank, where the natural evaporation rate of up to 1 inch (25mm) per day did the work for it. The blue crystals of pure copper sulfate were packed into drums and shipped to Adelaide.
- He built a working gas producer who made his own charcoal from the wood from the side of the road, he always maintained that all he needed to travel was a saw or an ax, as there was always dead wood available near the roads. roads.
- The big American station sedan with the gas producer in the back was also altered with Kurt’s genius. Built a separate, folding, mosquito netting kitchen / living room / bedroom, which was hidden in the rear of the vehicle, then the large rear door with the gas producer was closed, without giving any indication of the true nature of the car .
- During the Lasseter Reef period, he took off from Alice Springs in his Tiger Moth to search for it himself, but upon landing in a pre-arranged fuel tank in a clay pot he struck an anthill and splintered the propeller. He removed the strut and trimmed the chipped end with an ax, then had to trim the other end until he had the strut balanced on a screwdriver. Realizing it would have less thrust, it took off at all revs, well above safe level, used the entire clay pot and just did it in midair, and a low-level return to the Alice.
Big Bertha and the Gas Producer & Station Sedan can be seen at the Transport Museum in Alice, and the Modified Propellor, along with a standard one, at the Air Museum, and you’ll marvel at the difference.