CMP buses in Australia

motto (RIP) · #1 12-01-13, 14:33

I went over to Fraser Is and with Ross Prince some years ago not that long after the logging was stopped. He showed me the remains of some Studebaker US6s that had been used by a tour operator and were going the same way as the Blitzs in the photos. In one area there was a line up of trucks abandoned by the loggers that included a couple of International 2-1/2 ton 6x6s also showing the ravages of their job and the environment.

We had a look around the commando training area but there wasn't a lot to see.There was a large cylindrical object that may have been a boiler down on the shore line that they had been attaching explosive charges to as part of their training.

Another leftover was a V8 side valve engine laying on the ground with the heads off. Taking a close look at it I noticed what appeared to be some poly-rope in the water jacket - And then it moved! A snake had taken up residence and I bet the b*****d was of the poisonous variety as well. We didn't contest ownership.

David

Tony Smith · #2 12-01-13, 14:52

"Tuit's Tours" - Geez, they get around, don't they?

Mike Cecil · #3 12-01-13, 21:40

I don't have an image (it was many years ago), but on the approach to Omeo, Victoria, on the Hotham Road heading into Omeo, there was a Blitz-based bus on blocks being used as an extension to a house or building. It was in pretty poor shape.

I seem to remember the locals telling me it was THE bus between Omeo and Bairnsdale for many years, before it got pensioned off.

I assume it is no longer there. It was a grey or light blue colour, I think. The front was pretty original, with the bus body grafted onto the cab frame, windows along the sides, and so on.

Mike C

lynx42 · #4 12-01-13, 23:48

Mike, it is still there. Now painted Mission Brown. A Ford F60L,it belongs to the father-in-law of a mate of mine. Originally it was constructed to carry people to the Victorian snow fields at Mt. Hotham. Not as the Omeo to Bairnsdale bus. The last time I looked at it, it still had the Ford drivers book on the dashboard. My mate keeps saying that we should bring it here and get stuck into it. (I keep putting him off.)

The first photo in this thread looks to me like the bus is based on an MW Bedford.

Regards Rick.

Mike Cecil · #5 13-01-13, 01:39

Well, B****r me! Still there? Must be a real croc by now.

Yes, Rick, your post prompted the memory cells to work a little better: it was the Omeo-Hotham run as you said.

Talking of buses, the Australian Defence Force runs a pretty swish fleet of buses. On an EX I observed in the Northern Territory, we all, filthy from several days in the red dusty scrub, boarded these nice, clean buses for the 200 od miles trip into Palmerston. There was red dust everywhere by the time we got off.

The military has had a fleet of buses ever since WW2: small numbers then. There were even a few sent to SVN, plus more hired from the US Army. Not blitzes, though, so off thread, as they say....

Mike C
Collection:
*just lots of piles of paper these days...

Keith Webb · #6 22-01-13, 11:58

Quote:

Based on a CMP chassis, B-14047, was an emergency bus, used just post war in the village of Steggerda, in the south east of the Netherlands province of Friesland.

Link to original on Flikr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nichola...n/photostream/

Hanno Spoelstra · #7 22-01-13, 22:35

Another Dutch bus, travelling all the way down to Africa!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hanno Spoelstra

Here's a picture of a rebodied CMP truck, I think it is a HUP. Sorry for the bad quality picture, it was printed in a newspaper as a mirror image.

It was used in the 1970s by a Dutch travel company called Baobab for overland trips into Africa.

From HUPs IN STRANGE PLACES