Old tanks in Australia

[AIF]

Such a shame to see them go to waste like that but what can you do about it? ...Some people are funny when It comes to things like this they would rather them just rust away to nothing instead of letting someone have or buy them and restore them to their former glory.

[ryan]

The hulk on its side is a Matilda.
Nope, this is not the place I was talking about. That's Murrayville in your pictures.
Went there some time back when I owned a Grant, looking for parts.
Nothing there is for sale. It's right next to the highway. The story I was told is that they have had many parts stolen over the years.

[Reg]

So there are more? ...... That's it, I'm emigrating !lol

[Danmark]

As you can see from the Matilda on it's side, these are a primary source for metal for farm needs ( see the oxy cut out sections ) and the reason so many tanks ended up in the Aussie outback. Some were left intact for hauling logs and dragging chains to clear the scrub and others were robbed of their engines for agricultural / irrigation needs and left as a source of metal for the farm - when you live in the bush the nearest steel supply store may be hundreds of kms away

Sad to see them like this but there you go....

[Lidman]

How cool is that!!
I gotta go...

Brad.

[sandgroper]

That is exactly right Dan, after the war there were plenty of tanks brought to Australia to clear land, in Western Australia they used to drag big lumps of railway line which were attached to the back of tanks with chains to drag all the scrub up into a heap before setting fire to it. Much of the natural bush is very shallow rooted in our wheatbelt areas and this was an extremely effective way of clearing the bush. I'm sure you won't have to google too much to find footage of this practice, it has been shown on Telly here in Oz thousands of times. I might have to ask a few cockies I know whether they know where any of the old tanks are, I've never really thought about looking for them before but there would have to be hundreds of them out there. The beauty is that we have very limited rainfall and no salt air out there, metal lasts a very long time, even things like tin cans are lying around out there that were dropped many many years ago.