Stuart Highway Route

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el cid again
Posts: 16980
Joined: Mon Oct 10, 2005 4:40 pm

Stuart Highway Route

Post by el cid again »

More or less the road connecting South Australia with Northern Territory

https://www.engineersaustralia.org.au/p ... ighway.pdf
el cid again
Posts: 16980
Joined: Mon Oct 10, 2005 4:40 pm

RE: Stuart Highway

Post by el cid again »

The review of the Stuart Highway revealed that some of it had collapsed
under heavy traffic in 1941. We need to modify the game start map.

The Bitumen

The bombing of Darwin and the increasingly savage war in the Pacific resulted in greater usage of the North South Road. The extreme weather conditions of the Territory took their toll and the only solution was to seal the road.

The 1940 specifications allowed for a continuous daily maximum of 200 tons of traffic per day, in each direction. However, by December 1941, the maximum had increased to 2 500 tons of traffic passing over sections daily. Military regulations controlling speed, loading and use of roads were introduced but the unsealed road could not carry the increased heavy traffic during the wet season. Late in 1941, following 60 inches of rain in five weeks, the road collapsed in many places and as many as 100 vehicles were bogged at any one time.

Reconstruction and tarring of the road between Larrimah and Alice Springs was carried out between April 1942 and December 1943. An advance party of 40 Victorian road workers arrived at Tennant Creek on 25 March 1942. By the end of August, personnel strength had increased to 300, which was then supplemented by gangs of men enrolled in the Civil Construction Corps.

The Civil Construction Corps (CCC) was formed in March 1942 to provide a civilian workforce for war-related construction projects. Most of the recruits were over 35 and were employed as labourers, carpenters and truck drivers. The CCC constructed docks, aerodromes, roads, gun emplacements, hospitals, fuel storage depots, pipelines and factories. Over 1800 Civil Construction Corps volunteers were involved in the maintenance of the North-South Road during the later war years.

Early in 1943, a well-equipped workshop was established by the Country Roads Board of Victoria at Tennant Creek. The workshop consisted of a three span structure 100ft long and 56ft wide, half of which was occupied by machine and welding shops.

The maintenance of the Stuart and Barkly Highways was the responsibility of the Allied Works Council who set up road patrol gangs and camps and established a bitumen-sealing organisation in the Northern Territory.


Truck bogged during the construction of the Stuart Highway.
Lewis-Brown Collection, Northern Territory Library

Labour and Supply Camp at Alice Springs.
World War II Collection, Northern Territory Library

el cid again
Posts: 16980
Joined: Mon Oct 10, 2005 4:40 pm

RE: Stuart Highway Route

Post by el cid again »

Stuart Highway: The Road from Alice Springs to the railhead at Birdum, North Australia is the Stuart Highway. [Larrimah is in the same hex and, in WW2, was technically the railhead]. Six hexes of the Northern section of this road (76/131 to 76/136 as defined below) are treated as trail in the 1941 Winter and 1942 Spring Seasons. [60 inches of rain in 5 weeks combined with more than 1,000 trucks per day to collapse the road foundation]. The entire Northern section to Tennant Creek (76/128 SE, 76/129 NW/SW, 76/130 NE/SE, 76/131 NW/SW, 76/132 NE/SE, 76/133 NW/SW, 76/134 NE/SE, 76/135 NW/SW, 76/136 NE/SE, 76/137 NW) becomes Primary Road in Spring, 1943. The Southern section from Tennant Creek to Alice Springs (76/137 SW, 75/138 NE/SW, 75/139 NE/SW, 75/140 SW/NE, 74/141 NE/SE, 75/142 NW/SW, 74/143 NE) becomes Primary Road in Spring, 1944.

Barkley Highway: The road from Tennant Creek to Mt Isa, Queensland (76/137 E, 77/137 W/E, 78/137 W/SE, 79/138 NW/E, 80/138 W/SE, 80/139 NW/E, 81/139 W/SE, 82/140 NW/SE, 83/142 NW) becomes Primary Road in Spring 1944.

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