Saturday, Jul 21, 2007 at 00:10
Hi Marilyn,
Gosh now that was a long time ago. I worked on the southern section of the road (Hawksbury River to Berowra).
By now the good folks here have given you the opening date of the northern section (Hawksbury to Mt White). The memory is cloudy now but 1970 may have been the date of the opening of the toll booth at Berowra.
Little things I do remember..
Abigano was the main earth moving contractor, he had only just started out in business then. If it rained too much ( a cigarette paper held up..if it got wet the work stopped) the company would stop work so the tyres on the CAT and WABCO scapers didn't get damaged. (WABCO scrapers had no steering wheel..all done by butons.
And yes, I remember the accident of the Valiant. Just north of the
bridge a D9 was stacking rocks and one slipped over the edge, hit the "hall road" and then bounced down onto the Pacific hwy below.A grandfather and two kids didn't know what happened, the only thing left was a case of oranges in the back
seat.
I had a couple of jobs there. One hanging off the side of a cutting (near the railway tunnel south of the
bridge) on a rope knocking loose rocks off. The other as a "Tallyman". Each scraper had a number which was ticked off according to their number and so paid by the load. Nightshift was great ..cash in the pocket for a
young guy for a tick :)
That particular tunnel was so close to the road that they would stop trains when blasting went on due to cracks being made.
The last job I worked on was with the landscape crew. Every plant from the
bridge to the tollbooth was grown at Mt White nursery and planted by hand.
Young fellows from Milson Island were sent over to drive walk behind lawnmowers. Our boss told us to wear green so we could hide behind the newly installed guard-rails LOL
The toll was 20 cents each way.
Way back at the beginning of the plan for a road north, an American company, forget who now, tendered but it went to Abigano and someone else umm, as the Americans wanted to build the whole thing with their equipment and labour and collect the toll. The government of the time decided that Australians could do the job cheaper and better. How they figured that out I don't know, we had never built such a roadway before. $1 million per mile it cost.
Oh yes..that's why the road is designed in two different ways. The northern section didn't "stack" rocks to hold the fill. and surveyors screwed up on some of the corners making them only 90 kph :)
Let me know if you need any further information
Peterll
AnswerID:
253654