HISTORY
MINING HISTORY
MINING EQUIPMENT
MINING HISTORY
MINING EQUIPMENT
LAND ROVERS
by Dave Careless
Created October 2023
by Dave Careless
Created October 2023
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When I was living on Bell Island (1958-1965) and the mines were at full production, the company had quite a sizeable fleet of vehicles for the use of maintenance people and upper management personnel. Although I never really kept track of them all, I'm pretty sure there were at least ten Land Rover cars, all with the 'DOSCO' flames symbol painted on their doors and numbered from 2 to 11, with the numbers nicely sign-written in white paint on the door, above the 'DOSCO' symbol and below the line of the window.
On the right is the DOSCO logo, from the August 1959 issue of the Submarine Miner |
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They were predominantly standard 'Land Rover' pale blue with cream metal cover over the back behind the cab, with rectangular side windows and a hinged door with a window in it at the rear. There was the odd one in dark green, certainly the one that was allocated to the Chief Mechanic, Gerry Forshner, no. 4, was a dark green example. Sadly, I never photographed these vehicles, although the dark green no. 4 does actually feature by accident in the background of the Tom Careless photo below. This was likely March 1963 in front of the Company house occupied by Gerry Forshner, who had obligingly flooded his front yard to make a rink. On the left are brothers Tom and Ed Kent, then me and Gerald Jr. ‘Butch’ Forshner.
Incidentally, company vehicle no. 1, at least when I first arrived on the island in 1958, was a green Dodge station wagon, again complete with the 'Dosco' flames insignia on the door, and a '1' painted above it on both front doors in black paint. This vehicle seemed to be allocated to John Haslam, the General Superintendent of Mining, although I do recall him loaning it to my father on the odd occasion.
The Land Rovers numbered 2-10 were all standard short wheelbase examples. Plant Engineer, Jim Archibald, most certainly had exclusive use of one, as did, I think, General Service Manager, Paddy Murphy, who lived on Bennett Street next to Petrie's Hill. I'm not sure, but I think Tom Kent, Superintendent of Nos. 4 & 6 Mines, might well have had the use of a Land Rover as well. I think basically they were allocated to persons who, as noted, were senior engineering personnel, and who might be likely to be called out at any time, and in any weather, if there was something serious that needed to be attended to in order to maintain production.
My father, Tom Careless, had a desk-job that didn’t call for the use of a Company Land-Rover as his duties did not normally require him to leave his Bennett Street office. However, he did have an incident with a Company Land-Rover on one occasion. Australian Ron Bartlett had the title of Project Engineer and, as such, was in charge of the many Company houses. He was the person you would contact if redecorating was requested or you had a broken window or leaky roof, etc. Ron did quite a bit of running back and forth during the day, and was provided with a Land-Rover for his daily use, this being a nice standard light blue version with covered top and complete with ‘DOSCO’ flames logo on its doors; it was no. ‘2’ in the Company Land-Rover fleet. And true to form, in the same way he looked after his Volkswagen car, Ron kept his designated Land-Rover in impeccable condition. At this time, my mother worked as a volunteer one afternoon a week at the Wabana Boys’ Club. The club had a room fitted out as a library, with bookshelves and some reference books, and a couple of long tables and chairs, the idea being that it would provide a quiet space for children from big families around the town that might not have a quiet space at home in which to study or do their assigned homework. My mother, along with four other ladies, took it in turns to spend a couple of hours there one afternoon a week in order to maintain order in the room and attempt to help with homework, answer questions if possible, etc. So it was in this capacity that my mother spent two hours every Wednesday afternoon from 4-6 pm in the Homework Room at the Boys’ Club. On one particular Wednesday afternoon in perhaps January or thereabouts, a nasty snowstorm had started up, such that by mid-afternoon it was a raging blizzard. It was becoming obvious that father’s small Ford Zephyr was not going to be capable of taking my mother down to the Boys’ Club to fulfil her obligations in supervising the Homework Room. However, as she was still determined to go, apparently Ron Bartlett offered my father the use of his recently-assigned Land-Rover no. 2 in order to “run Jennie down to the Boys’ Club, Tom, no problem.” Confronted by the worsening conditions, my father took Ron up on his generous offer, despite the fact that it wasn’t exactly the done thing to loan a fellow employee your assigned Land-Rover, just as it wasn’t exactly good form to accept the use of one that wasn’t assigned to you, whatever the reason might be. Under normal circumstances, the quick run down to the Boys’ Club to drop my mother off would no doubt have gone totally unnoticed and nobody would have been any the wiser, and my father’s unauthorised use of the Land-Rover wouldn’t have been an issue at all, but as the old saying goes, “the best laid plans of mice and men...” At the northeast corner of Church Road and Main Street, there was an area of tall reedy grass that was more often than not flooded and boggy, an area that Gail Hussey-Weir and myself both distinctly remember and jokingly refer to as ‘the cesspool.’ On the day in question, this ‘cesspool’ area had become frozen over, and it was here that Land-Rover no. 2’s “quick trip down to the Boys’ Club” turned ugly. My father temporarily lost sight of just where the roadway was in the ensuing blizzard and, although his vision was only impaired for a few seconds, it was apparently long enough for Land-Rover no. 2 to slide off Church Road and embed itself in the ice on top of the cesspool. Embarrassing enough as this was, it was set to get even nastier not long afterwards when the Company grader sent to retrieve the Land-Rover attempted to do so from the Main Street side rather than drag the Land-Rover backwards up the slight embankment back on to Church Road again. Needless to say, the heavy grader broke through the ice and itself ended up mired in the cesspool, much to my father’s dismay!! I think it was later the following day that both Land-Rover no. 2 and the grader were recovered, both of which had suffered at least a degree of incidental damage! Gerry Forshner, whose mandate was to look after the company vehicles, was not best pleased with my father for a time. Nor was management very happy with Ron Bartlett for offering my father the use of his dedicated Land-Rover but, of course, it all blew over eventually, as these things do. From that day on, however, there were never any future offers of loaned Company vehicles to drive my mother to the Wabana Boys’ Club to supervise the Homework Room on a Wednesday afternoon, however bad the weather got!
The Land Rovers numbered 2-10 were all standard short wheelbase examples. Plant Engineer, Jim Archibald, most certainly had exclusive use of one, as did, I think, General Service Manager, Paddy Murphy, who lived on Bennett Street next to Petrie's Hill. I'm not sure, but I think Tom Kent, Superintendent of Nos. 4 & 6 Mines, might well have had the use of a Land Rover as well. I think basically they were allocated to persons who, as noted, were senior engineering personnel, and who might be likely to be called out at any time, and in any weather, if there was something serious that needed to be attended to in order to maintain production.
My father, Tom Careless, had a desk-job that didn’t call for the use of a Company Land-Rover as his duties did not normally require him to leave his Bennett Street office. However, he did have an incident with a Company Land-Rover on one occasion. Australian Ron Bartlett had the title of Project Engineer and, as such, was in charge of the many Company houses. He was the person you would contact if redecorating was requested or you had a broken window or leaky roof, etc. Ron did quite a bit of running back and forth during the day, and was provided with a Land-Rover for his daily use, this being a nice standard light blue version with covered top and complete with ‘DOSCO’ flames logo on its doors; it was no. ‘2’ in the Company Land-Rover fleet. And true to form, in the same way he looked after his Volkswagen car, Ron kept his designated Land-Rover in impeccable condition. At this time, my mother worked as a volunteer one afternoon a week at the Wabana Boys’ Club. The club had a room fitted out as a library, with bookshelves and some reference books, and a couple of long tables and chairs, the idea being that it would provide a quiet space for children from big families around the town that might not have a quiet space at home in which to study or do their assigned homework. My mother, along with four other ladies, took it in turns to spend a couple of hours there one afternoon a week in order to maintain order in the room and attempt to help with homework, answer questions if possible, etc. So it was in this capacity that my mother spent two hours every Wednesday afternoon from 4-6 pm in the Homework Room at the Boys’ Club. On one particular Wednesday afternoon in perhaps January or thereabouts, a nasty snowstorm had started up, such that by mid-afternoon it was a raging blizzard. It was becoming obvious that father’s small Ford Zephyr was not going to be capable of taking my mother down to the Boys’ Club to fulfil her obligations in supervising the Homework Room. However, as she was still determined to go, apparently Ron Bartlett offered my father the use of his recently-assigned Land-Rover no. 2 in order to “run Jennie down to the Boys’ Club, Tom, no problem.” Confronted by the worsening conditions, my father took Ron up on his generous offer, despite the fact that it wasn’t exactly the done thing to loan a fellow employee your assigned Land-Rover, just as it wasn’t exactly good form to accept the use of one that wasn’t assigned to you, whatever the reason might be. Under normal circumstances, the quick run down to the Boys’ Club to drop my mother off would no doubt have gone totally unnoticed and nobody would have been any the wiser, and my father’s unauthorised use of the Land-Rover wouldn’t have been an issue at all, but as the old saying goes, “the best laid plans of mice and men...” At the northeast corner of Church Road and Main Street, there was an area of tall reedy grass that was more often than not flooded and boggy, an area that Gail Hussey-Weir and myself both distinctly remember and jokingly refer to as ‘the cesspool.’ On the day in question, this ‘cesspool’ area had become frozen over, and it was here that Land-Rover no. 2’s “quick trip down to the Boys’ Club” turned ugly. My father temporarily lost sight of just where the roadway was in the ensuing blizzard and, although his vision was only impaired for a few seconds, it was apparently long enough for Land-Rover no. 2 to slide off Church Road and embed itself in the ice on top of the cesspool. Embarrassing enough as this was, it was set to get even nastier not long afterwards when the Company grader sent to retrieve the Land-Rover attempted to do so from the Main Street side rather than drag the Land-Rover backwards up the slight embankment back on to Church Road again. Needless to say, the heavy grader broke through the ice and itself ended up mired in the cesspool, much to my father’s dismay!! I think it was later the following day that both Land-Rover no. 2 and the grader were recovered, both of which had suffered at least a degree of incidental damage! Gerry Forshner, whose mandate was to look after the company vehicles, was not best pleased with my father for a time. Nor was management very happy with Ron Bartlett for offering my father the use of his dedicated Land-Rover but, of course, it all blew over eventually, as these things do. From that day on, however, there were never any future offers of loaned Company vehicles to drive my mother to the Wabana Boys’ Club to supervise the Homework Room on a Wednesday afternoon, however bad the weather got!
Land Rover No. 11
Land Rover no. 11 was by far the most interesting and the most used; this highest-numbered vehicle was a long wheelbase model, the only one of the ten I believe, and had an open back, pickup style, with a simple canvas cover. No. 11 spent its days patrolling up and down the Scotia 'ore road' immediately adjacent to the trans-island conveyor and, as such, was fitted out with heavy tools, wrenches, jacks, etc., plus a healthy assortment of buckets and drums full of grease and oil, in short, everything that might be needed to keep the conveyor running 24/7, from the Concentrator in No. 3 Yard to Scotia Pier. No. 11 was always completely filthy, never seemed to be washed, and was covered in ore dust and muck, as befitted its general usage! The conveyor was covered with a semi-circular metal cover in sections, but quite often pieces of this were missing, having been blown or torn off, and it was possible to see the ore moving along the conveyor at a fair clip, wherever the covers happened to be missing!
I am pretty sure that the Land Rover pictured below at the Ore-Reclaiming Conveyor at Scotia Pier is the hardworking No. 11, with its canvas-covered back end. It was probably still relatively new when this photo was taken as it looks quite clean, with the canvas in decent shape, not ripped and flapping in the breeze as I remember it. Photo by Tom Careless.
I am pretty sure that the Land Rover pictured below at the Ore-Reclaiming Conveyor at Scotia Pier is the hardworking No. 11, with its canvas-covered back end. It was probably still relatively new when this photo was taken as it looks quite clean, with the canvas in decent shape, not ripped and flapping in the breeze as I remember it. Photo by Tom Careless.
