View allAll Photos Tagged overlanding
julie in the dining car of the overland, the interstate train that runs between tarndanya/adelaide, south australia, and naarm/melbourne, victoria
Portrait of moi taken by (Jt). You can visit his photostream here: www.flickr.com/photos/44290369@N08/
Ya gotta View On Black
www.americanroads.us/autotrails/dixieoverland.html
Dixie Overland Highway
US 80 Map
Dixie Overland Highway marker The Dixie Overland Highway was an early American auto trail. It connected Savannah, Georgia on the Atlantic with San Diego, California on the Pacific. The Dixie Overland Highway has a rare privelege among named auto trails. Most of the trails were ignored when numbered US highways were created in 1926. The Dixie Overland, in contrast, almost exactly corresponds to U.S. Highway 80.
Pates Bridge on Dixie Overland Highway The Dixie Overland Highway Association formed on July 17, 1914. The association formed after a pathfinding trip was made across the state of Georgia, from Savannah to Columbus, by the Automobile Club of Savannah. This was the first auto trail association formed that would follow any part of what would become US 80.
Dixie Overland Highway SignThe Dixie Overland Highway Association was officially incorporated in the state of Georgia on February 14, 1917. It's motto was "The Shortest and Only Year Round Ocean to Ocean Highway." Way ahead of the rest of the country, Colonel Ed Fletcher and the citizens of San Diego County decided they wanted all of their California section of transcontinental highway paved. The California section would eventually become part of the Southern National Highway, Lee Highway, Old Spanish Trail Highway and Bankhead Highway as well. By 1917, most of the California section was paved with a narrow roadway of either Portland cement or plank road from Yuma all the way to San Diego.
Mountain Springs Survey GroupIn May 1919, with encourgement from Ed Fletcher, the Dixie Overland Highway Association chose San Diego as its western terminus, and elected him as president of the association. One month before the final approval of the US Numbered Highway System in 1926, Colonel Ed Fletcher decided to head a single-car time-race along the Dixie Overland Highway from San Diego to Savannah in a Cadillac sedan. The team in the Cadillac made the run in 71 hours and 15 minutes across a distance of 2535 miles, a transcontinental record-shattering feat at the time and still impressive today. The group later traveled south to St. Augustine, Florida to begin the return journey via the Old Spanish Trail.
Dixie Overland Highway National Highways Association MapThe US Numbered Highway System was created in November 1926. Much of the Dixie Overland Highway became US Route 80. The only parts of the DOH that were not incorporated into US 80 were three sections in Georgia, two short sections in Alabama, and one across western Texas. The sections not included as part of US 80 were:
•Between Savannah and Stilson, Georgia
•Between Stateboro and Twin City, Georgia
•Between Haskins Crossing and Colombus, Georgia (State Route 26)
•Between Browns and Uniontown, Alabama (mostly State Route 12)
•Between Demopolis and Livingston, Alabama
•Between Roscoe and El Paso, Texas (US 84, 380, 70, and 54)
Dixie Overland Highway cities and towns by State
•Georgia
Savannah, Brooklet, Statesboro, Register, Metter, Twin City (Graymont), Swainsboro, Adrian, Scott, East Dublin, Dublin, Dudley, Cochran, Hawkinsville, Montezuma, Oglethorpe, Ellaville, Buena Vista, Columbus.
•Alabama
Phenix City, Crawford, Tuskegee, Shorter, Waugh, Mt. Meigs, Montgomery, Benton, West Selmont, Selma, Potter, Marion Junction, Uniontown, Faunsdale, Prairieville, Demopolis, Coatopa, Livingston, York, Cuba.
•Mississippi
Toomsuba, Russell, Meridian, Lost Gap, Graham, Meehan Junction, Chunky, Hickory, Newton, Lawrence, Lake, Forest, Raworth, Morton, Clarksburg, Pelahatchie, Guide, Rankin, Brandon, Jackson, Clinton, Bolton, Edwards, Bovina, Vicksburg.
•Louisiana
Delta, Mound, Tallulah, Delhi, Dunn, Holly Ridge, Rayville, Girard, Crew Lake, Monroe, Calhoun, Choudrant, Ruston, Grambling Corners, Simsboro, Arcadia, Gibsland, Ada, Minden, Shreveport, Greenwood.
•Texas
Marshall, Longview, Dallas, Fort Worth, Weatherford, Palo Pinto, Breckenridge, Albanay, Abilene, Greatwater, Snyder, Gail, Tahoka, Brownfield, Plains, (into New Mexico), El Paso.
•New Mexico
Roswell, Alamagordo, (El Paso, TX), Deming, Lordsburg.
•Arizona
Douglas, Lowell, Bisbee, Tombstone, Benson, Pantano, Vail, Tucson, Florence, Superior, Apache Junction, Mesa, Tempe, Phoenix, Tolleson, Avondale, Liberty, Buckeye, Palo Verde, Arlington, Gila Bend, Piedra, Sentinel, Stanwix, Aztec, Stoval, Mohawk, Colfred, Wellton, Dome, Yuma.
•California
Winterhaven, Holtville, El Centro, Seeley, Dixieland, Jacumba, Boulevard, Pine Valley, Guatay, Descanso Junction, Alpine, El Cajon, La Mesa, San Diego.
Dixie Overland Highway routes and directions by State
•Georgia
•Alabama
•Mississippi
•Louisiana
•Texas
•New Mexico
•Arizona
•California
Dixie Overland Highway Links
United States Route 80: The Dixie Overland Highway (Federal Highway Adminstration)
The Plank Road - Journal of San Diego History
Kyrgyzstan
It's all about moments like this.
Right after Tajikistan - Kyrgyzstan border crossing. It was dark already, around 7pm, and quite cold. The side road took us a bit away from main one, so we could stay a bit hidden from passing by headlights. We put our tents quickly and started to cook dinner. The first and only meal that day.
After having some pasta with canned meat, we spent around thirty minutes talking about the whole day and tried to figure out the way to get some fuel next day having only seven dollars in cash and around the same amount in Tajik currency. After while we went to sleep. Well. That night was bloody cold. Well below zero for sure.
Next morning we woke up to find out that we are in the middle of beautiful valley surrounded by gorgeous mountains and fresh brewed coffee just made that morning even better.
NR118 is seen at the Adelaide Parklands Terminal just before coupling to the Overland Service of 6AM8 for the 828 Kilometre journey from Adelaide to Melbourne.
The clouds changed every few seconds up here. We were very lucky to get a great view and photos before heavier/lower clouds settled in.
CLP14 works a 6 car Overland plus empty motorail up the Callington curve on a wintery morning on 10-8-1996
The last rays of the setting summer sun glint off the side of NR93 and The Overland as they pass through Ambleside on Dec 29, 1997. This shot was taken soon after PacNat took over the GSR hook and pull contract with NR class locomotives.
40 km from the Chinese border, Nepal: October 1975
One evening in Kathmandu, we were in the bar of one of the hotels when a local man asked if we'd be interested in taking some tourists, in one of the buses, for an early-morning trip to see a Himalayan sunrise. It turned out that there was a group of Europeans staying in Kathmandu that night only and he'd promised some of them a 'trip to remember', on the following day. Apparently, these people were on a Round-the-World-in-Seven-Days package deal – and, obviously the local man was a travel guide working on commission, and had done this before with tourists. Anyway, a time and price was agreed, on condition they paid, in cash, before we left at five o'clock the next morning. We were going to drive along the old road from Kathmandu up to the Chinese (Tibetan) border, there were several places on that road to witness the sunrise over the Himalayas.
At five o'clock sharp the next morning, the new passengers were waiting outside their hotel – all fifteen of them. A few seemed to be not fully awake yet, but they were there in body. The first few miles up the old dirt road was easy but gradually it deteriorated to not much more than a mountain track – it soon became clear why the large bus wouldn't have got far. We were climbing all the time, the road often running alongside the rapidly flowing Bhote Koshi River, which eventually joins the Ganges. This was the time of year following the monsoon season so there had been numerous landslide and rockfalls onto the road, sometimes we were able to get round them but there were occasions when we had to wait for an ancient bulldozer to clear a path through all the mud and rocks. When we got to the place our guide recommended for a sunrise viewpoint the cloud had come down and we didn't see the sun until a few hours later.
We continued up the road as far as we could go – that was the Friendship Bridge at Kodari. The bridge was the border crossing point from Nepal to Tibet, and it had been closed for many years, ever since the Chinese had invaded Tibet. We were forbidden from using cameras by Nepalese soldiers so I was unable to photograph the bridge – or all the Chinese soldiers on the other side of the Bhote Koshi River. I had originally co-driven this bus from Ostend to Istanbul, where the owner asked me to take over the larger, 45-seater bus for the remainder of the trip to India, and then Nepal.
Afghanistan: October 1971
The 37-seater AEC Reliance bus I was driving from Delhi back to London. In Afghanistan, I'd turned off the road from Kabul to Kandahar, to stop in a small town; I cannot remember the name of the place. The bus is shown parked outside a chaikhana (tea house) in the main street.
To fund the journey back to England I had needed to find as many passengers as possible to provide 'running money' for the bus; I was also behind schedule – and the next eastbound trip was scheduled to leave London for India on Sunday, 14 November 1971 – that was cutting it a bit fine. Finding passengers for the return journey to London was made easier by the daily deteriorating political situation between India and Pakistan; a state of war was expected to be declared at any moment, so there was no shortage of foreigners looking for a cheap means of transport to avoid being trapped in India. Some bought tickets only as far as Kabul but many paid to go as far as Europe. We put up notices in the New Delhi YMCA on Jai Singh Road, Connaught Place; and in a couple of other cheap hotels used by overland travellers, advertising the bus departure date and fares: Delhi to London was US$100 or £40 – payable in cash only – travellers cheques or any other currencies were not accepted. The fare to other destinations on that route was proportionately less. Every seat was filled – we could have filled the bus twice over.
On the Grand Trunk Road the main border crossing point into Pakistan had already been closed when we got there; however, an Indian Army officer told me that if I could drive down to Ferozepore that night, then that border would be open, only for a couple of hours, early the following morning, to allow foreign nationals to leave India. That turned out to be the quickest crossing between India and Pakistan.
Some people had got off in Kabul, but several more westbound passengers were booked at the Mustapha Hotel in Kabul – this was a popular and inexpensive establishment, not only to stay in, but to meet other travellers. Another attraction of the hotel was that the manager kept a discrete stock of bottled beer that had been brewed in Pakistan and smuggled into Afghanistan.
The weather was still comfortably warm in the part of Afghanistan where the photo was taken, but within a week I was driving through snow on dirt roads across northern Iran – I didn't know it then but this was a taste of what was to come on the following eastbound journey – the most extreme winter I've ever known.
A train that first ran 1887 as the Adelaide Express with wooden carriages has changed so much over the past 126 years. It ran on the broad gauge till the 1st of Marsh 1995 when the standard gauge took over and has stayed the same since.
Here the modern version of the Overland with upgraded steel carriages of the old Overland cars prepares to depart North Shore with 4AM8 on the final leg to Melbourne - 30/1/2013
Loco AN3 in red Ghan livery powers the Melbourne-bound Overland through Belair in the Adelaide Hills on the morning of 24 December 2005.
The use of an AN-class locomotive on this train was highly unusual, and was due to a major delay to the incoming train from Melbourne that day, causing a desperate rush at Keswick Terminal to assemble suitable rolling stock and motive power for the return Christmas Eve service.
AN3 operated only as far as Tailem Bend, where a more conventional NR-class loco was substituted.
The daily overnight Melbourne to Adelaide 'Overland' service (broad-gauge) - which I travelled on that night - awaits departure from Melbourne's Spencer Street station during August 1993. The service still continues today (on standard gauge), but is now a daylight run and only operates on two days per week.