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Some of the passengers on the Safaris Overland trip that left London for Kabul, on 14 November 1971. The photograph was taken on Christmas Day, 1971 at Persepolis whilst on an excursion from the main route at Tehran. About half the passengers requested to be able to go south and see Isfahan, Persepolis and Shiraz. I charged them enough to pay for the diesel for the 1,200 mile round trip, which took us five days.
This cost them each very little — in those days you could buy about 15 gallons of diesel for £1 (GBP) in Iran – so this side-trip was good value for money. The remainder of the passengers stayed in Tehran until we got back, probably recovering from the gruelling trip so far – just to get this far through the most extreme winter in this region for many, many years. At Isfahan there had been some, not much, snow on the ground, but here at Persepolis there was a welcome trace of warmth in the sun – at last.
On the left is David, Patrick is in the brown coat, and Isabel is smiling because she's spotted the camera.
This trip was unable to get to India due to the war-like political situation between Pakistan and India at the time, so it terminated in Kabul, Afghanistan. All the passengers on this trip were travelling further on, so they did this by taking local buses to Pakistan, or flights direct to India.
X48 and S308 bring The Overland into Melbourne's Spencer Street station, having traveled overnight from Adelaide. 19-9-1986
Turkey: December 1971
This photo, taken by John H, shows the AEC bus somewhere between Maras and Elazig, in central Turkey: the shivering passengers are reboarding the bus after they had had to walk for two kilometers in a snowstorm. It had been so bad that I'd been unable to see where the road was so they walked ahead a few metres in front of the bus, and I followed them, as there was steep drop to one side. Also, if the bus had begun to slide off the road then they wouldn't have gone with it – I'd kept the front door open so that if the bus had started sliding over the edge, I hoped to be able to leap out of it. It took five days to drive over 600 miles from the Mediterranean coast to Erzurum, which is on the main trunk road across Turkey to the Iranian border – part of the so-called Eurasian Highway, and in those days still made up of long distances of gravel. I had bought snow chains for the rear wheels in Adana; without them we would never had got anywhere; they were needed until we got to Agri, having finally got over the Tahir Pass, once it had been re-opened after the colossal snowfalls. One section of that trip, from Malatya to Elazig, took a whole day to drive just seventy-odd miles.
Local Accession Number: 2012.AAP.123
Title: Overland, July
Creator/Contributor: Dixon, Maynard, 1875-1946 (artist)
Date issued: 1895 (inferred)
Physical description: 1 print (poster) : color ; 49 x 38 cm.
Summary: An advertising poster featuring a large black bird.
Genre: Book & magazine posters; Prints
Subjects: Birds
Notes: Title from item.
Date note: Date from: American Posters of the Nineties.
Statement of responsibility: L M D
Collection: American Art Posters 1890-1920
Location: Boston Public Library, Print Department
Rights: No known restrictions.
With V/Line locomotive N471, the then daily Overland passenger service from Adelaide to Melbourne was only 15 minutes into its overnight journey when photographed at the start of the climb through the Adelaide Hills at Lynton - 14 January 1993.
Persepolis, Iran: 25 December 1971
It is the morning of Christmas Day 1971: the 37-seater AEC Reliance bus I was driving from London to India is seen here parked beneath the forty-odd feet high Grand Terrace at Persepolis. That's not an item of seasonal traditional decoration behind the windscreen — it's an inflated condom.
Eventually we had arrived in Tehran, running about two weeks late. Once we entered Iran the weather slowly began to improve, so that when a diesel injector pipe split on the engine I was able to replace it, even though the temperature had warmed up to about minus 15°C. At the time we were on the almost deserted main trunk road from the Turkish frontier to Tabriz; the absence of traffic was because the road was a continuous sheet of ice – and no-one else was daft enough to drive on it. While I fixed the engine the passengers were enjoying themselves sliding down the road – and then the bus slowly began to move. With the bus side panels opened up to access the underslung engine, I squatted in the road and wondered why the injection pump was moving away from my hand that held the spanner – the bus was very slowly sliding on the ice, with the parking brake on, and nobody in it . Someone heard me shouting, saw what was happening and jammed a couple of the large wooden chocks under the tyres and luckily the thing finally stopped moving.
We stayed in Tabriz that night and drove on to Tehran the following day and booked into the usual place – the Amir Kabir Hotel. This establishment was the halfway-house on the overland trail to India, and a favourite haunt for travellers; but this time, one night there was enough – it was far too cold in the unheated rooms, which were on open balconies. Most of us moved to the nearby Armstrong Hotel; it was more expensive but the rooms had heating. Another plus-point of the Armstrong was that it sold alcohol in the basement restaurant. The local beer came from the Shams brewery in Tehran; of course, all that went with the overthrow of the Shah at the end of the 1970s.
Future New Overland Park Fire Station 45 and Police Sub-Station at 16279 Antioch Road.
Fire bays are on the right side with police on the left side
Picture ID# 1763, 1764, 1765
HDR - High Dynamic Range
A comparison a century and a half apart.
The one photo I wanted of the eastbound Spike150 celebratory train starting back on the first day of their eastbound journey over the famed UP mainline for which they were built.
Compare my image to the one in this link by A.J. Russell or possibly William Henry Jackson in 1869, courtesy of the Library of Congress:
www.loc.gov/resource/cph.3a19082/
The mainline has been double tracked, the truss bridge is steel instead of wood, and the steam engine has gotten slightly bigger! But other than that little has changed in a century in a half along the Union Pacific Railroad mainline, route of the first transcontinental.
This is Taggarts Tunnel or Tunnel 8 at MP 963.2 on the modern Evanston Sub at the crossing of the Weber River.
Big Boy 4014 and 844 lead the special east toward Evanston on the first leg of their journey back east to Cheyenne, WY.
It just doesn't get more iconic than this and what a site to behold!
#4014returns
Sunday May 12, 2019
My old-old trainset from my apartment that I did move to our first house. This was shot with a softbox on an Alienbees flash head.
Afghanistan: August 1971
The eastbound Safaris Overland AEC bus on the road from the Iranian frontier at Islam Qala, to Herat in Afghanistan; we had stopped to look at the two derelict windmills in a small walled village by the side of the road – this may have been Rahzanak, but I'm not really sure. It was very windy, so much so that driving was tiring because you had to constantly pull the steering wheel about half a turn to the left, to prevent the strong northerly wind pushing the bus off the road. I had a job to hold the camera steady to take the photo. The tarpaulin sheet on the roof-rack had ballooned out in the wind.
After all these years I can remember the first names of half the passengers in the photo, they were a good collection of people of all ages. The youngest was Terry, who was just 19 years old; the eldest two were travelling together – the youngest was Dorothy, at 66, and she was heading for the Himalayas to go climbing – her friend was a 76 year old Countess, who was travelling overland to see her daughter in Australia.
The first train I bothered photographing on the Overland Route after following it on US30 from Ames, IA was the IG2OA, the same damn Oakland stack train I shot in my California days. After a detailed briefing with Pinky the possibility was discussed of chasing this to California. By the time I arrived in North Platte 18 hours later he was only 100 miles ahead of me in Sidney, NE. About 23 hours after this shot when I arrived in Cheyenne I was ahead and he was in Emergency east of town. I laid over in Green River and he was wayyyy behind with an engine failure to boot! By the time I cleared the Salt Lake City area I had overtaken the IG2OA from the day PREVIOUS to this one.
Photographed October 7, 2016 at the Antique Automobile Club of America Regional Fall Meet in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
All of my classic car photos can be found here: Car Collections
Press "L" for a larger image on black.
Two of the passengers on the Safaris Overland trip to India, that left London in July 1971. This photo was taken in Turkey, of Sylvia and Hillary (looking at camera).
The Overland Track is one of Australia's most famous bush treks, situated in the Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park, Tasmania. More than 8000 walkers each year complete the track. Officially, the track runs for 65 km from Cradle Mountain to Lake St Clair. However, many choose to add the hike along Lake St Clair as a natural extension, bringing the length to 82 km. The track winds through terrain ranging from sheer mountains, temperate rainforest, wild rivers and alpine plains all in the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area.
Aside from the main track there are also several alternative side tracks, including to the summits of Cradle Mountain and Mount Ossa, the tallest mountain in Tasmania. Also within reach are a group of tarns called The Labyrinth and Lake St Clair (the deepest lake in Australia). Walkers complete the trail in 5–6 days. This is normally done from north to south, which is the mandatory direction between 1 October and 31 May.
The landscape was all carved by glaciers during the last ice age, and the prominent mountains are composed of dolerite columns. The climate is generally unstable, with temperatures ranging from hot (35+°C) in summer to below zero in winter. Snow can fall at anytime and is common during the winter, especially on the Cradle Mountain Plateau and around Mount Ossa. Rain is very common, sometimes torrential though often settling to days of drizzle.
The most common fauna are Tasmanian Pademelons (native), possums and small rodents most of which are native. Also decidedly present, but not necessarily seen, are quolls, echidnas, tasmanian devils and wombats. There are also the famous Tasmanian leeches. The trail traverses areas of many types of vegetation, including Myrtle Beech forest, Eucalypts forest, Button Grass plains (swamps), alpine herb fields and shrubs and mosses.
(Wikipedia)
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I walked the Overland Track - solo - in May, which means autumn period in Tasmania. And got it all: sunshine, rain, lots of snow, and sunshine again. It was a mysterious adventure on the opposite side of the Earth.
For those who are interested, the itinerary was as follows: Ronny Creek -> Waterfall Valley -> Old Pelion -> Du Cane Hut -> Pine Valley (two nights) -> Echo Point -> Lake St. Clair.
During the fifth day on the trail, I explored the Pine Valley and ventured high up to the Labyrinth; in a deep snow and strong wind, it was a bit risky to be there alone, however the effort was really very worth it.
We were so lucky to see these lionesses with their young cubs.We had to remain very still and quiet in the truck,so as to not frighten them away.Please see my set Africa Overland for more information.
Nepal: October 1975
The Dutch 45-seater Van Hool, left-hand-drive bus I had driven from Istanbul to Delhi with a full load of passengers. Now empty, it is photographed on the road from Pokhara to Kathmandu, in Nepal. On arrival in Delhi, enough new passengers were found to fund a two-day round trip down to Agra and the Taj Mahal. This bus was not returning to Europe so I drove it empty across northern India and up into, and across Nepal so it could be sold in Kathmandu. There was no hurry so I took my time; it was strange to drive the thing with no passengers to think about. I'd been tempted to buy the bus myself and run it for two or three or trips between Istanbul and Kabul, and back. I'm glad now that I didn't buy it because not every trip could've run as smoothly as that particular one.
Although it was a superb bus to drive, it was too large for most of the Nepalese roads, with their narrow mountain passes and hairpin bends – it had already proved to be almost too long to negotiate the very tight left turn required to access the roadway deck of the old Attock Bridge across the River Indus in Pakistan.
In early 1977 I drove this Bedford SB8 bus (UDL 137) on a trip to India – it had a Duple C41F body and a Leyland 350 engine with a 4-speed gearbox.
The body code C41F means that it was a single-deck, 41-seater with the passenger door at the front. The Bedford model type SB had the suffix '8' which was for those chassis fitted with Leyland 350 engines.
The bus was first registered in May 1960 and operated by Shotters Ltd. on the Isle of Wight, until they sold it in 1971; I've no idea where it spent the next six years before I drove it.
This bus was operated by Tour East, a sister company of Budget Bus. The photo was taken somewhere in Austria by its then owner, John H, who ran Tour East.
Future New Overland Park Fire Station 45 and Police Sub-Station at 16279 Antioch Road.
Picture ID# 1775, 1776, 1777
HDR - High Dynamic Range
Lahore, Pakistan: October 1975
This is a left-hand drive Van Hool bus that I drove from Istanbul to Delhi with a full load of passengers. It was one of two buses owned and operated by a Dutch sub-contractor of the North London based overland firm, Budget Bus. The bus had an underslung 9.2 litre Fiat engine and five-speed gearbox. This vehicle was a great improvement on the others I'd driven to India previously; for a start, it was in superb condition and never broke down – it didn't even have a puncture, which would've been easier to deal with as it had Tri-lex wheels. Another thing it had was an effective (engine) exhaust brake.
The photo shows the large overhang at the rear of the bus; in fact, 17 passengers sat behind the rear axle centreline.
The 45-seater bus was photographed while parked in the cheap-hotel district of Lahore, not far from the main railway station. The windscreen had been shattered by a stone on a dirt road in north-east Iran, so we'd driven from there with the front of the bus open to whatever came in – luckily, the dirt roads finished soon after the screen went, the main road through Afghanistan is sealed, as is the Grand Trunk Road through Pakistan and India. Every night, at least two people slept in the bus to look after the vehicle; there was never any shortage of volunteers for this as many passengers preferred to save money by doing so. A replacement windscreen was made by hand from perspex sheet in a Delhi workshop; about a dozen men and boys were involved in making a cardboard template for the shape of the screen, cutting it out in two halves from a large sheet of clear perspex, and hot-forming the (single) curvature with the careful use of paraffin blowlamps. This operation took a whole morning; the end result was a perfect fitting two-piece, or split windscreen, with an aluminium strip down the centre of it. Perhaps fortunately, I never had to use the windscreen wipers from Delhi to Kathmandu, where the bus was going to be sold – any use of the windscreen wipers would have soon scratched the perspex, reducing visibilty through it.
In December 1971 we were travelling along the eastern end of the Mediterranean coast road, heading towards Syria, when we saw this wrecked Turkish bus that had been abandoned, so I stopped and the passengers swarmed over the remains of the bus. There was very little traffic on that road in the winter, and mile after mile of the coast was still unspoilt by developers and builders.
Photo by John H.
#140: Grasslands and bushes of Western Victoria blowing past windows of The Overland, as I started my jouney to the Australian Red Centre with a 10-hour train ride into Adelaide. Seats were large and comfortable with generous reclines, definitely airline-first-class standards despite being on a regular-fare Red Service cabin.
The first clear sunset we saw,was by this lake in Tanzania,on the way to the Serengeti. Please see my set Africa Overland for more information.