[SEL] Ronaldson-Tippett Centenary

[jim bethell]

Good to catch up with some fellow list members at the Rally. Took my 6.5hp
Austral no. 875 down and ran for all the time we had water, we got ours at
1.30 pm sat. Hope Naracoorte don't forget to put on plenty of water carts,
we tend to pay the local fire brigade to attend the Junction Rally and they
gladly help with two fast fill trucks. Did two tyres on the way home,(two
out of six aint that bad I suppose on a triaxle trailer).
Jim Bethell
Mildura "Gateway to the outback"
bethell1 at iinet.net..au
http://community.webshots.com/user/jimsiron
----- Original Message -----
From: "Patrick M Livingstone" <pml1 at bigpond.net.au>
To: "Stationary Engine ATIS List" <sel at lists.stationary-engine.com>;
"Stationary Engine Mailing List" <stationary-engine at oldengine.org>
Sent: Monday, October 25, 2004 9:13 PM
Subject: [SEL] Ronaldson-Tippett Centenary


> Well I am finally home after covering some 2400km since last Thursday. The
> Ronaldson-Tippett Centenary Rally was a great success with an estimated
600
> engines of which I would guess about 200 were Austral Oil Engines. (For
our
> non-Aussie list members that means 200 side-shaft engines!). I arrived on
> Friday and set my Austral up next to Brock's as we were the only
> representatives of the Sydney and Canberra Clubs. From where my engine
stood
> I could see the remaining structure of the factory where my engine was
built
> and clearly on the wall could be read "Ronaldson Bros". (The "& Tippett
part
> of the building is gone).
> Friday night we headed out to Lyndsay's shed and had a look at his engines
> and then visited another local collectors shed to look at his engines. I
> think we finally got to bed about 1am.
> Saturday was a cold miserable day and it was not helped by the only real
> glitch in the rally organising. Quite a number of engines (mine and
Brock's
> included) did not get any water until well after lunchtime. The club
> officials were quite unapologetic about this lapse of organization.
> Once we had water the fun part was keeping the oil engines running as a
cool
> breeze and drizzly rain does not make for good weather to keep them
running.
> The Saturday night dinner was good and was held amongst an amazing
> collection of R-T memorabilia. There were factory ledgers, photos, casting
> patterns, parts books, catalogues, etc. Every time you looked around you
> found something else amazing too look at.
> The weather was a lot better on Sunday and I ended up with sore feet from
> walking around trying too see all the engines. There were some very nice
> rare examples including the early vertical and horizontal engines, all
> manner of Australs, Type D, G, N, Diesels, and even a twin cylinder Type
N!
> The 3pm shutdown came along amazingly fast and now the fun part was
getting
> 600 engines out of the place when, of course, everyone wanted to leave at
> once. Where they failed with the water they succeeded with organising the
> departure. Two cranes were working there way down the compounds as well as
> club members directing the vehicles loading the engines onto trailers. We
> even loaded my engine with the crane which turned a 15 minute job into a
30
> second one.
> It was a great weekend and I got to catch up with a lot of old (and new)
> engine friends. I took over 500 photos which I have to sort through but
> these three are pretty special.
> http://www.oldengine.org/members/pml/rtc04/0410240539.JPG
> http://www.oldengine.org/members/pml/rtc04/0410240540.JPG
> http://www.oldengine.org/members/pml/rtc04/0410240541.JPG
>
> They show my Austral in front of the factory where it was built for the
> first time since it was built in 1917 :)
>
> Patrick M Livingstone
> Leichhardt NSW
> http://www.oldengine.org/members/pml/Index.html
> http://www.users.bigpond.com/pml/
>
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