AN OLD GIANT TRACTOR

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30959, 15 January 1966, Page 8

AN OLD GIANT TRACTOR

People are always interested in a mechanical giant, and so Mr B. B. Given, of the Entomology Division of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research at Nelson, was fascinated by a monster old tractor lying mouldering in the western district of Victoria which he revisited in the course of a trip to Australia last year. “Biig. Liz,” shown in the photograph above, is but a

shadow today of her old glory. The local “Hamilton Spectator” has described Big Liz as perhaps the weirdest mechanical monster ever to grace the Australian countryside. t She was the brainchild of a blacksmith-engineer, Frank Botterill, and work began on her in 1908. She was to be a track-laying tractor—she had sort of paddle attachments which dropped down in front of her wheels. World War I interrupted progress on her and it was not until 1918 that she was operative. She tipped the scales at 45 tons and stood 18ft high. Her driver had to turn the steering wheel 82 times from one lock to the other and the big machine

travelled 150 yards to make the turn.

At a dignified one mile an hour she travelled across the countryside' with two 18-ton trucks behind her hauling 2000 sacks of wheat at a time, it is said without remotely straining her 75 horsepower Blackstone diesel engine. On top Big Liz had her own blacksmith’s shop with furnace and anvil. At the rear was a crane for loading cargo into the two trucks.

Nothing could stand in her way and, like a tank or bulldozer, she flattened trees and scrub. She is reputed to have simply driven through the Murray river at Mildura when officials declared she was too heavy to cross by bridge. According to the “Spectator” an order for “service and fuel” meant real wealth for the proprietor of the business concerned. She carried 1800 gallons of crude dieseline and the huge gearbox needed 200 gallons of oil. At one stage in her career Big Liz set out for Broken Hill to cart ore from the mines to smelting points, but when she reached Mildura the scheme was abandoned. The Victorian Government commissioned the giant to clear the land where Red Cliffs now stands, and in 1924 she came to her present resting place at Glendenning. taking more than 18 months to make the trip down country. She was then put to work clearing about 800 acres of virgin bush.

In 1939 Big Liz’s engine was sold to a Melbourne businessman, and the old giant is becoming increasingly weathered and forlorn looking as it whiles away the weary hours in silence near the Glendenning homestead. It has been suggested that Big Liz, as a pioneer mechanical development, deserves a better resting place and, properly housed, might well be a tourist attraction.