October 1958. Early morning and a workshop yard in Perth's industrial suburb of Welshpool was the scene of considerable excitement. A crowd including workshop staff and truck drivers had gathered to watch the departure of a heavily laden truck bound for the Pilbara region of Western Australia's vastness. She certainly wasn't the first truck to undertake this journey, far from it, but this was no ordinary truck. As she left the yard, she was greeted by the rising sun. It could have been the dawn of a whole new era, but this was not to be.
After achieving her destination, along with a few site relocations, she was eventually allocated the role of a not-so-mobile powerhouse at the Woodie Woodie manganese mine. Subsequent removal of her engines and wheels ensured a permanence.
She remained that way, abandoned and derelict, until her retrieval. She was completely restored to her former glory four decades after that sunrise. Sixty years ago, she was the largest truck in the Southern Hemisphere, and today is still the only one of her kind in the world.
This is the Rhodes Ridley. This is her story.
