We were mucking around in a hire car from S.A in 1986 somewhere around Gosford, came screaming down a random dirt road & almost drove straight off the top of one of those cuttings!
It is VERY possible that somewhere in your video driving a grader or a dozzer is my father who worked on that project for years. He has passed away now. So thankyou for posting this.
Your father probably knew my pop and my dad who both worked on it, on dozers and scrapers mostly. I used to go with dad on Saturdays when they were doing the morisset section and jump on different machines all day to ride along. Great times.
@@Lardcaster I hope so, that is excellent, I may have even met him (you dad), he had a lot of friends from his work there we used to go visit. (I did the same thing as well, go to work, probably not allowed today). And how fun was that!!!! could it get any better for a little kid? Thanks for your reply, my dad was my hero, I'm sure it is the same for most people.
Yeah same for me. It's definitely different these days on projects like that, I serviced earthmoving plant for many years on all different sites (like the Hunter expressway) and its definitely a different atmosphere. I snuck my oldest son to work a few times on subdivision jobs after hours when the bosses weren't there to show them the machines and take them for little rides in them. It's good to have the memory's from those time.
Nowaday users of this section of the former F3 would not realise how mush innovation went into these roadworks without vision such as this. The section covered here plus the newer bridge over the Hawkesbury and the remarkable works at Jolls Bridge on the north side were absolutely specacular during construction.
Watching these videos about the F3 shows how far ahead the people were in putting this together and just what they had to go through to achieve what we have now.
@@ohasis8331 after the original bits were bit Mooney Mooney to Calga (Peats Ridge Rd), Berowra to Brooklyn and the Hawkesbury River bridge. All this finished around 1972. Whitlam decided the main highway was New England Highway. Peats Ridge Road was to join up to Singleton that was part of the plan. This is why so much inaction happened for decades and only small bits done. Debate happened on which was to be the National Highway but during the 1980's two upgrades happened with Peats Ridge Road consigned to a white elephant with the Mooney Mooney Creek Bridge and the upgrade from Berowra to Wahronga. Things came to a head in 1989 with the dual tragedies and than further inaction, delays and some medical reasons given too. Eventually again began to happen slowly. Way too slowly.
@@peejay1981 Peats Ridge Road was the original Gosford by-pass. It was a largely poorly designed road. But all the inaction after the Hawkesbury River Bridge was really the politics of the National Highway direction as Whitlam wanted it to be New England. Even when the Mooney Creek Bridge was upgraded finished 1986 the Pacific Highway wasn't the Nationally funded Sydney to Brisbane highway despite being more popular. It all came to a head in 1989 with the dual bus crashes. I don't have a great memory of the upgrades past Somersby except Ourimbah bypass happened after 1997-98, the Minmi bypass happened around the same time maybe a year later and the Wahronga to Berowra was around 1989. The state government didn't have the federal funds this is why so often we hear Sydney to Newcastle F3 freeway as that was the plan just to link the two biggest NSW cities.
This brings back some memories. I was an apprentice carpenter and joiner at the DMR workshops at Rosehill from 1980 to 1984. One of my jobs as a 3rd year apprentice was to build the 4 sided display hut, (it displayed coloured maps and details of the construction of the bridge) for the public lookout over the Mooney Mooney bridge. An impressive feat of engineering, I mean the bridge not the display hut. Thanks for posting this video.
They can’t even build roads like that today . Nice one Australia . We have problems fixing pot holes today , and it usually takes a team of 12 to do one hole .
I remember hearing the rock blasts in the distance when I was at school at Mt Kuring-gai. This was an amazing change to the area. The old road was forever backed up.
I can remember as a five year old in Thornleigh being woken up at 2.30 am to start on our seventeen hour pilgrimage to Brisbane for Christmas. My memory is of bumper to bumper traffic snaking it's way through the dark toward the Hawkesbury on the narrow old Pacific Highway. The completion of those early sections was a marvel of modernity. I remember being jealous of a friend who was boasting of their drive on this new wonder at sixty five mph all the way.
It was! If you read the history of crossing the Hawkesbury, you'll find it took them over a century to do it direct like this (W/O going around via the Great North Road and w/o a vehicle ferry). It was a major project over very rugged terrain. The freeway still looks pretty modern today, I think.
As a kid in the early 70's, I used to work with my father during the summer holidays on high rise construction. The good old days when 14yo kids could run around a building site and nobody would care... I would work all day, working on the very top of the buildings - no shade, no hats, no sunscreen. I don't know how I did it - and I don't remember being too bothered by it. (although I do remember drinking litres of water and falling asleep every day on the way home)
When I was a teenager the 'missing links' of this freeway were done. The Wahroonga to Berowra & Mooney Mooney Bridge sections (mid 1980's). I see in this doco they breeze over the pre splitting of the batter walls by illustration. Often it's some of the first work that's done. Rustic drill rigs that drill 20m depth at a time to create the pre split holes. I never understood how old rough drill rigs could dril such accurate holes 1/2 m apart. The batter lines on all this feeway are works of art. The batter line cuttings approaching the Mooney Mooney bridge are huge.
The reason I watched this was to learn more about the drilling and blasting through those hills, I'm a bit disappointed there wasn't a bit more detail!
Yes a very artful job, i was a mechanic with the Cat dealer in the 80,s so repaired many machines through those sections you mention and further north also and got away as fast as we could on Fridays to go see the Spys or Angels or Oils whenever they were in town!! Awesome memories
NSW had magnificent roads compared to up here in Queensland. Just think, this marvel of engineering, which I've driven so many times over the years, was completed basically in the year i was born, 1968. 55 years ago. And had 3 lanes each way to allow for future development and expansion and here we are in Qld still playing catch-up 55 years later with the pathetic state of the Bruce Highway north of Curra via Gympie responsible for so many serious accidents over the years and still only a single lane each way, which winds through towns and around hills that should’ve been upgraded 50years ago! Good on you NSW! HERE'S to the hard working men who gave their all to build this and other important roads in NSW!
I've always like this bit of road. It's impressive with the big cuttings and the sweeping approaches to the bridge. Edit: 4:10 so that's how they do that. You see that kind of cutting everywhere but I've always wondered what the procedure is because they don't do it that way anymore.
Growing up in Sydney with rellies in Maitland and Brisbane meant various trips up north a few times a year . I would have been around 5 during this construction and remember the coin baskets at the toll booth. Also remember the pacific hwy and my sister and I in the back of the Simca wagon, waving at the truckies behind us on all those bends.
its cool seeing howmuch this freeway has cahnged. USed to be tolled. use to have MPH and now has KPH. renamed 3 times. all since 1969 - 2023. Also the lane markers have changed.
Not seen this one before, great stuff, thanks for sharing. I don't think people these days appreciate the dividends we've gotten, and continue to get, from things like this. Today's "leaders" will never leave a legacy like those of the past.
19:04 Interesting there were originally street lights here on the southern approach to the Hawkesbury River, but those lights haven't been there for a long time now.
Awesome thankyou great original coverage ..much prefer that ..i ofen wondered as a kid and even now as a old bag how did they move that much rock between mountains ..well now i know 👍..great insite to a very necessary road ....❤ Much respect and thanks..
The construction of this portion of road way epic. I lived in Berowra during this time and was overwhelmed (at the time) of what they had achieved. I did not see many large semi trailer on the old pacific highway during construction. So where did they go? I enjoyed the opportunity to go back a couple of years and apricate what was.
As the boomers say, back in the 50s and 60s we did projects like the F3 here. Also the snowy mtns scheme, the opera house, warragamba dam, the nat. gallery of victoria and Fisher Library. Sure, we almost turned the QVB into a carpark, but we dont really do much nowadays except basing our economy on cashed up immigration (without integrating them) and building cheap mcmansions and mega malls 🤷
That's how we done it back then, no OHS, hi viz and jumped up university grads telling us how to do our jobs. Oh, and no cabs on the machinery! (wasn't so keen about that). Didn't work on that job, but plenty like it all over the country, good times.
Alas there was also far too many fatalities in construction due to no hi vis, no OHS etc. Half of those guys on site in this video would probably have had serious melanoma issues later in life. Work safety wasn't introduced to be a pain in the arse, it was introduced to save lives.
We lived in Sydney and in around 1971 when I was 11 we took a trip to Forster. I can't recall whether mum or dad was driving but we were in the RH lane and one said to the other, having never driven on a road like this before, "I can't help thinking a car will come around the bend and we'll have a head-on". It may have been impressive in its day but like the railway of 100 years before, I dare say so no thought was given to it ever reaching the capital city to the north, Brisbane. It reached somewhere near Gosford a few years later and then very slowly made its way to Black Hill near Newcastle. After the two bus crashes near Kempsey in 1989, the government committed to extending it to the QLD border and in 2024, it's still not finished and won't be for another couple of years. I now live very near one of the two still-missing sections. Adolf Hitler may have had some negative character traits but he initiated Germany's autobahn system during the 1930s and the Americans began their incredible interstate highway system in the 1950s and had 78,500 kms done in the 1990s. In Australia, we can't travel on a road like that from the VIC-NSW border to the NSW-QLD border in 2024 and west of the Hume-Pacific Motorway, no such road like that exists at all in NSW at least. I know the US has 13 times our population but we're talking about taking almost 40 years (by the time it's finished) to build around 650 kms of road.
"I know the US has 13 times our population". Yeah, same for Germany. Aussies need a lot more km of road per person which makes it hard to pay for good freeways, no matter the timeframe. Plus I think the freeways are boring to drive on. A trip from Sydney to Brisbane puts you to sleep now.
@@Mark_Bridges True, there are not enough tax-payers here to pay for stuff. I don't say we need a 4-lane freeway connecting Lightning Ridge to Tennent Creek but along the east coast where 75% of the population lives, yes. Also true that freeways are boring to drive on. I ride motorbikes and prefer the back roads anyday. Going from Raymond Terrace (on of the two missing sections) to Melbourne in October and won't be going on the Pacific-Hume. That said, trucks need roads like that. In some countries, they have two sets of roads and two sets of railways. Roads - Back roads for people who want to take the scenic route or think freeways are boring and freeways for trucks and people who want to get there in a hurry. Railways - Regular track for freight and high speed track for passengers. Australia has very little of one and none of the other.
Can you imagine trying to build this today. Every tribe from here to Newcastle will suddenly find a until now unknown sacred site where after extensive negotiations and money it isn’t so sacred anymore, 10 years of environmental studies, and they’d build it with two lanes each way requiring an upgrade within 5 years at triple the cost so we can keep the CMFEu in a job.
Hey there, I would love to use a little bit of this footage in a music video I am editing at the moment. Was wondering what the deal was with the copyrights to this, or if it I owned by you if you would be ok with me using a touch of the footage (about 20 seconds) Of course you will be fully credited for it in the description. Would look great in a montage. Let me know
@@And0199 I’ve been in the game 30 years mate, much preferred working back then vs now. Wouldn’t go near a civil/commercial site these days. I like to work in trainers and take my shirt off when it’s hot.
It would literally take 10 times longer and cost 10 times as much today, in 1969 dollars, after the constructor completed their Statement of Environmental Effects, Bushfire Assessment Reports Biodiversity Test of Significance, Biodiversity Assessment Reports, Flood Reports , Acoustic Reports, Heritage Impact Statements and Aboriginal Cultural Heritage assessment
100% correct. Every tribe form Sydney to Newcastle would suddenly and conveniently find a multitude of sacred sites. That coincidentally after much negotiation and exchange of money miraculously become less sacred.
Soon (?) the Coffs Harbour bypass will be ready, saw some of the works when going up to the Gold Coast 6 weeks ago. A lot has changed up there compared to last time I did that drive 25 years ago.
If this was built today, it would've been done by a private company and tolled to charge $100. Going from Hornsby to Campbeltown on the motorways costs $25 one way right now!!!
Great Video , but you may want to rename the title to "Berowra to Hawksbury River", the F3/M1 was not extended to Newcastle Interchange until the 1980/90's
Amazing that over 50 years later Victoria still can’t build roads this good…they’re so bad here they’re dropping highway speed limits to 80kmh, it’s appalling
love how it seems to be 1/10th the workforce 50 years ago yet the roads are opened sooner taken 2 years to add 1 lane to the m7 at eastern creek in 2024
As someone who lives on the Central Coast, I'm very grateful to the generation of bronzed Aussies who worked hard ,without a helmet, hi-viz shirt, or any shirt at all sometimes, with a cigarette in their hands at the same time! Of course, most of them have since died from lung cancer or skin cancer, but they got the job done! Also, kudos to a time when the Government actually built the roads, and the toll was just 20 cents! As kids we used to fight over who would throw the coin in the basket!
Back when they made a good road, not like the crap asphalt they do now! My street got redone & it was smoother before! I said something to them about asphalt being bad now & they replied it’s better now, it’s a multi million dollar gps guided machine! Well it is crap
Yeah, because most of the blokes who worked that project (my dad included) were riddled with skin cancers and lung issues from the dust as a result. Some people are too stupid to know better. That's why they need to be told.
Back when roadworkers actually did their job, instead of today, where they just stand around and do nothing all day. They can’t even adequately patch a pothole anymore
@@lamontcranston5414mate. I’m gay and if anyone asked my pronoun I’ll laugh at them. I don’t believe in all that rubbish and most don’t. Like all groups a small bunch of loud activists think they speak for everyone.
![1920s - A Trip Through Australia in Color [60fps, Remastered] w/sound design added](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/y4PoV8peoQA/mqdefault.jpg)
We were mucking around in a hire car from S.A in 1986 somewhere around Gosford, came screaming down a random dirt road & almost drove straight off the top of one of those cuttings!
It is VERY possible that somewhere in your video driving a grader or a dozzer is my father who worked on that project for years. He has passed away now. So thankyou for posting this.
That would be very cool for you and the family seeing this and knowing that he helped build this 🙂
Your father probably knew my pop and my dad who both worked on it, on dozers and scrapers mostly. I used to go with dad on Saturdays when they were doing the morisset section and jump on different machines all day to ride along. Great times.
@@Lardcaster I hope so, that is excellent, I may have even met him (you dad), he had a lot of friends from his work there we used to go visit.
(I did the same thing as well, go to work, probably not allowed today). And how fun was that!!!! could it get any better for a little kid?
Thanks for your reply, my dad was my hero, I'm sure it is the same for most people.
Yeah same for me. It's definitely different these days on projects like that, I serviced earthmoving plant for many years on all different sites (like the Hunter expressway) and its definitely a different atmosphere. I snuck my oldest son to work a few times on subdivision jobs after hours when the bosses weren't there to show them the machines and take them for little rides in them. It's good to have the memory's from those time.
As a kid growing up in Newcastle, a trip to Sydney needed a stop at OAK Peats Ridge for a crumbed sausage.
I grew up in Gosford, and we would also go to Peats Ridge OAK, back in the day.
Ice cream was mandatory for us kids at the OAK in the late 60's early 70's.
Always……😅
I bet you love a crumbed sausage
Chocolate thick shake for me! 3.5 hours drive, was quicker to take the train.
19:20 I'm amazed that they managed to get Colonel Sanders to open the freeway.
haha 🤣
hahaha classic
That’s what I thought when I saw him. It could do with a KFC on the freeway.
There was a KFC at Mt Colah just before the tollway at Berowra … the Colonel must have popped out to open the road during his lunch break 🤣🤣🤣🤣
The new road was built for Gosford customers to go to Mt Colah KFC
Nowaday users of this section of the former F3 would not realise how mush innovation went into these roadworks without vision such as this. The section covered here plus the newer bridge over the Hawkesbury and the remarkable works at Jolls Bridge on the north side were absolutely specacular during construction.
Watching these videos about the F3 shows how far ahead the people were in putting this together and just what they had to go through to achieve what we have now.
I recall reading in the daily papers how this was expected to reach Brisbane in the next 15 years. Still waiting.
@@ohasis8331 after the original bits were bit Mooney Mooney to Calga (Peats Ridge Rd), Berowra to Brooklyn and the Hawkesbury River bridge. All this finished around 1972. Whitlam decided the main highway was New England Highway. Peats Ridge Road was to join up to Singleton that was part of the plan. This is why so much inaction happened for decades and only small bits done. Debate happened on which was to be the National Highway but during the 1980's two upgrades happened with Peats Ridge Road consigned to a white elephant with the Mooney Mooney Creek Bridge and the upgrade from Berowra to Wahronga. Things came to a head in 1989 with the dual tragedies and than further inaction, delays and some medical reasons given too. Eventually again began to happen slowly. Way too slowly.
@@BulldogDynasty I'd always wondered what was up with Peats Ridge Road. I'd always just assumed it was some old route that was bypassed.
@@peejay1981 Peats Ridge Road was the original Gosford by-pass. It was a largely poorly designed road. But all the inaction after the Hawkesbury River Bridge was really the politics of the National Highway direction as Whitlam wanted it to be New England. Even when the Mooney Creek Bridge was upgraded finished 1986 the Pacific Highway wasn't the Nationally funded Sydney to Brisbane highway despite being more popular. It all came to a head in 1989 with the dual bus crashes. I don't have a great memory of the upgrades past Somersby except Ourimbah bypass happened after 1997-98, the Minmi bypass happened around the same time maybe a year later and the Wahronga to Berowra was around 1989. The state government didn't have the federal funds this is why so often we hear Sydney to Newcastle F3 freeway as that was the plan just to link the two biggest NSW cities.
Still today when I drive on it I remember how exciting and futuristic it seemed to us kids when brand new all those years ago.
This brings back some memories. I was an apprentice carpenter and joiner at the DMR workshops at Rosehill from 1980 to 1984. One of my jobs as a 3rd year apprentice was to build the 4 sided display hut, (it displayed coloured maps and details of the construction of the bridge) for the public lookout over the Mooney Mooney bridge. An impressive feat of engineering, I mean the bridge not the display hut. Thanks for posting this video.
The Mooney Mooney Bridge is slowly sinking on one of them. I found out this when I was doing my engineering course at TAFE.
They can’t even build roads like that today . Nice one Australia .
We have problems fixing pot holes today , and it usually takes a team of 12 to do one hole .
I remember hearing the rock blasts in the distance when I was at school at Mt Kuring-gai. This was an amazing change to the area. The old road was forever backed up.
I can remember as a five year old in Thornleigh being woken up at 2.30 am to start on our seventeen hour pilgrimage to Brisbane for Christmas. My memory is of bumper to bumper traffic snaking it's way through the dark toward the Hawkesbury on the narrow old Pacific Highway. The completion of those early sections was a marvel of modernity. I remember being jealous of a friend who was boasting of their drive on this new wonder at sixty five mph all the way.
DEAR THORNLEIGH WE ARE NOW FIGHTING FOR THE GWH MOUNT VICTORIA/BLACKHEATH BYPASS TUNNEL IN THE BLU MTS NSW.
Hello Thornleigh.We are fighting for the GWH/MT VICTORIA/BLACKHEATH BYPASS TUNNEL/Blu Mts NSW.
yeah and the speed limit was 100kph in a xc falcon with no power stearing and it was safer than the m1 in 2024
I remember travelling on this stretch of road back in 1969 in my grandparent's 1958 VW Beetle. It seemed very beautiful and modern at the time.
It was! If you read the history of crossing the Hawkesbury, you'll find it took them over a century to do it direct like this (W/O going around via the Great North Road and w/o a vehicle ferry). It was a major project over very rugged terrain. The freeway still looks pretty modern today, I think.
JUST LIKE THE GERMAN AUTO BARNS.
JUST LIKE MY VW BETTLE.
As a kid in the early 70's, I used to work with my father during the summer holidays on high rise construction. The good old days when 14yo kids could run around a building site and nobody would care...
I would work all day, working on the very top of the buildings - no shade, no hats, no sunscreen. I don't know how I did it - and I don't remember being too bothered by it. (although I do remember drinking litres of water and falling asleep every day on the way home)
When I was a teenager the 'missing links' of this freeway were done. The Wahroonga to Berowra & Mooney Mooney Bridge sections (mid 1980's). I see in this doco they breeze over the pre splitting of the batter walls by illustration. Often it's some of the first work that's done. Rustic drill rigs that drill 20m depth at a time to create the pre split holes. I never understood how old rough drill rigs could dril such accurate holes 1/2 m apart. The batter lines on all this feeway are works of art. The batter line cuttings approaching the Mooney Mooney bridge are huge.
The reason I watched this was to learn more about the drilling and blasting through those hills, I'm a bit disappointed there wasn't a bit more detail!
Yes a very artful job, i was a mechanic with the Cat dealer in the 80,s so repaired many machines through those sections you mention and further north also and got away as fast as we could on Fridays to go see the Spys or Angels or Oils whenever they were in town!! Awesome memories
Driving through here in 2003, had to check out those blast pre split lines, very good work guys!!
This must be one of the most used motorways in Austalia today. I remember having to throw coins into the Toll basket.
75,000 vehicles per day now.
Gone are the days in Australia when the tolls are removed after the road has been paid off.
The music is so intense compared to what’s on the video 😆 Fantastic.
A project the then NSW government could really hang a hat on. It truly is a magnificent achievement!
My brothers worked on this expressway as powder monkey`s..One recently passed away. thanks for the memories...
NSW had magnificent roads compared to up here in Queensland.
Just think, this marvel of engineering, which I've driven so many times over the years, was completed basically in the year i was born, 1968. 55 years ago. And had 3 lanes each way to allow for future development and expansion and here we are in Qld still playing catch-up 55 years later with the pathetic state of the Bruce Highway north of Curra via Gympie responsible for so many serious accidents over the years and still only a single lane each way, which winds through towns and around hills that should’ve been upgraded 50years ago!
Good on you NSW!
HERE'S to the hard working men who gave their all to build this and other important roads in NSW!
I've always like this bit of road. It's impressive with the big cuttings and the sweeping approaches to the bridge.
Edit: 4:10 so that's how they do that. You see that kind of cutting everywhere but I've always wondered what the procedure is because they don't do it that way anymore.
Great video thanks for this! My dad worked for the DMR, have 8mm film of him working in Sydney circa mid to late 70's
Great video. I grew up in Newcastle and have traveled that motorway many times. The river still looks fantastic from the highway.
Growing up in Sydney with rellies in Maitland and Brisbane meant various trips up north a few times a year . I would have been around 5 during this construction and remember the coin baskets at the toll booth. Also remember the pacific hwy and my sister and I in the back of the Simca wagon, waving at the truckies behind us on all those bends.
Awesome film, great to see the Yellow Express Autocar trucks pulling and pushing those concrete beams.
its cool seeing howmuch this freeway has cahnged. USed to be tolled. use to have MPH and now has KPH. renamed 3 times. all since 1969 - 2023. Also the lane markers have changed.
I drive on the new concreted road all the time to syd. Thanks lads for making it 💪
Seeing some the men working in just a pair of shorts is so old school …
Not seen this one before, great stuff, thanks for sharing. I don't think people these days appreciate the dividends we've gotten, and continue to get, from things like this. Today's "leaders" will never leave a legacy like those of the past.
Not a chance, not now we have imported so many who would never contribute to anything like this. This was the real Australia when this was made.
@@byza101 💯
Excelente obras viales un Australia años 60 s 70s con calidad toda la. Logística
Achieved more with less compared present. Incredible feat by incredible people BRAVO👏👏👍👍💯
All of it done without hi-viz. Who'd have thought?
@@KC-shuntingand probably built to a better standard
19:04 Interesting there were originally street lights here on the southern approach to the Hawkesbury River, but those lights haven't been there for a long time now.
Awesome thankyou great original coverage ..much prefer that ..i ofen wondered as a kid and even now as a old bag how did they move that much rock between mountains ..well now i know 👍..great insite to a very necessary road ....❤
Much respect and thanks..
Not much has changed for every one guy working there were 3 guys watching😂 great video
Was only 5 when this started but can sill remember the before and after difference
An absolutely amazing undertaking and a route I know well.
The construction of this portion of road way epic. I lived in Berowra during this time and was overwhelmed (at the time) of what they had achieved. I did not see many large semi trailer on the old pacific highway during construction. So where did they go? I enjoyed the opportunity to go back a couple of years and apricate what was.
I can remember being a kid stopping on our way to The Entrance while they did blasting.
I remember when the Hornsby bypass section opened in 1989.
Good to see Colonel Harland Sanders was given the gig to open this road.
Driven it 100' s of times.❤
As the boomers say, back in the 50s and 60s we did projects like the F3 here. Also the snowy mtns scheme, the opera house, warragamba dam, the nat. gallery of victoria and Fisher Library. Sure, we almost turned the QVB into a carpark, but we dont really do much nowadays except basing our economy on cashed up immigration (without integrating them) and building cheap mcmansions and mega malls 🤷
Snowy 2.0, buts it’s another monumental Coalition cock up!
What a fantastic video
Very informative and interesting
Thanks.
That's how we done it back then, no OHS, hi viz and jumped up university grads telling us how to do our jobs. Oh, and no cabs on the machinery! (wasn't so keen about that). Didn't work on that job, but plenty like it all over the country, good times.
good on ya Colin
Alas there was also far too many fatalities in construction due to no hi vis, no OHS etc. Half of those guys on site in this video would probably have had serious melanoma issues later in life. Work safety wasn't introduced to be a pain in the arse, it was introduced to save lives.
Thanks Geoff. Love this!
We lived in Sydney and in around 1971 when I was 11 we took a trip to Forster. I can't recall whether mum or dad was driving but we were in the RH lane and one said to the other, having never driven on a road like this before, "I can't help thinking a car will come around the bend and we'll have a head-on". It may have been impressive in its day but like the railway of 100 years before, I dare say so no thought was given to it ever reaching the capital city to the north, Brisbane. It reached somewhere near Gosford a few years later and then very slowly made its way to Black Hill near Newcastle. After the two bus crashes near Kempsey in 1989, the government committed to extending it to the QLD border and in 2024, it's still not finished and won't be for another couple of years. I now live very near one of the two still-missing sections. Adolf Hitler may have had some negative character traits but he initiated Germany's autobahn system during the 1930s and the Americans began their incredible interstate highway system in the 1950s and had 78,500 kms done in the 1990s. In Australia, we can't travel on a road like that from the VIC-NSW border to the NSW-QLD border in 2024 and west of the Hume-Pacific Motorway, no such road like that exists at all in NSW at least. I know the US has 13 times our population but we're talking about taking almost 40 years (by the time it's finished) to build around 650 kms of road.
"I know the US has 13 times our population". Yeah, same for Germany. Aussies need a lot more km of road per person which makes it hard to pay for good freeways, no matter the timeframe.
Plus I think the freeways are boring to drive on. A trip from Sydney to Brisbane puts you to sleep now.
@@Mark_Bridges True, there are not enough tax-payers here to pay for stuff. I don't say we need a 4-lane freeway connecting Lightning Ridge to Tennent Creek but along the east coast where 75% of the population lives, yes. Also true that freeways are boring to drive on. I ride motorbikes and prefer the back roads anyday. Going from Raymond Terrace (on of the two missing sections) to Melbourne in October and won't be going on the Pacific-Hume. That said, trucks need roads like that. In some countries, they have two sets of roads and two sets of railways. Roads - Back roads for people who want to take the scenic route or think freeways are boring and freeways for trucks and people who want to get there in a hurry. Railways - Regular track for freight and high speed track for passengers. Australia has very little of one and none of the other.
Shhhhhh… corruption 🤫
All that freshly-blasted, unweathered sandstone!
Can you imagine trying to build this today. Every tribe from here to Newcastle will suddenly find a until now unknown sacred site where after extensive negotiations and money it isn’t so sacred anymore, 10 years of environmental studies, and they’d build it with two lanes each way requiring an upgrade within 5 years at triple the cost so we can keep the CMFEu in a job.
Exactly whats happening with the M12 at the moment while the M7 gets a third lane upgrade. We are being duped big time.
Would be 2 lanes for sure 🙄
They constantly playing Muzak would drive even the hardest criminal to confession
Not a hint of high visibility work wear or long pants or long sleeve shirts, how things have changed.
Hey there, I would love to use a little bit of this footage in a music video I am editing at the moment. Was wondering what the deal was with the copyrights to this, or if it I owned by you if you would be ok with me using a touch of the footage (about 20 seconds) Of course you will be fully credited for it in the description. Would look great in a montage. Let me know
Always wondered... what's at the top of those safety ramps? (at 19.10)
Picnic tables .
16 miles of highway for $13M. The good ol' days. You can't build for less than $20M/mile now
My guess is they paid the workers $30 a week or something along those lines.
@@terrykennedy7422 And safety didn't exist.
@@And0199safety has only existed for 20 years or so, yet so many landmarks have been built around the world for thousands of years.
@@byza101 yep, and the on the job deaths would be huge. compared to now.
@@And0199 I’ve been in the game 30 years mate, much preferred working back then vs now. Wouldn’t go near a civil/commercial site these days. I like to work in trainers and take my shirt off when it’s hot.
@ 22:00. Was the expressway opened by Colonel Sanders?
It would literally take 10 times longer and cost 10 times as much today, in 1969 dollars, after the constructor completed their Statement of Environmental Effects, Bushfire Assessment Reports
Biodiversity Test of Significance, Biodiversity Assessment Reports, Flood Reports , Acoustic Reports, Heritage Impact Statements and Aboriginal Cultural Heritage assessment
100% correct. Every tribe form Sydney to Newcastle would suddenly and conveniently find a multitude of sacred sites. That coincidentally after much negotiation and exchange of money miraculously become less sacred.
Can still see those core drill marks...If you can look past all the signs and cameras now. 😅
Impressive piece of road that went as far as Peats Ridge then turned into a goat track .....
height of human civilisation right there. People of competence and personal accountability (to go with the almost comical lack of safety equipment)
Why is it comical?
The cheesy muzak drivin me nuts 🥜🥜🥜
So now you can pretty much go from Hornsby right through to the Gold Coast,on dual carriage way .except for a few bits .
Soon (?) the Coffs Harbour bypass will be ready, saw some of the works when going up to the Gold Coast 6 weeks ago. A lot has changed up there compared to last time I did that drive 25 years ago.
If this was built today, it would've been done by a private company and tolled to charge $100. Going from Hornsby to Campbeltown on the motorways costs $25 one way right now!!!
Great Video , but you may want to rename the title to "Berowra to Hawksbury River", the F3/M1 was not extended to Newcastle Interchange until the 1980/90's
@gold4leaf 1993 and the project was compleated until 1998
Would like to see a video on the extension from Hawksbury to Newcastle
@@frankbeans5921 i dont think there is any
The vid is called berowra to hawksbury river already
It looked like they did a god job, are people still driving on it?
1969 and they haven't done anything to this road since. Time to double the number of lanes!
1:16 can’t imagine the burning these days 😂
Amazing that over 50 years later Victoria still can’t build roads this good…they’re so bad here they’re dropping highway speed limits to 80kmh, it’s appalling
A decade or two back regional Vic roads were far above the standard of NSW regional roads. Always so noticeable when you crossed the border.
@@stephenpage-murray7226 But the F3 (now M1) freeway in this video is many decades old.
@@OldAussieAds
Regional roads, not freeways. Big difference
love how it seems to be 1/10th the workforce 50 years ago yet the roads are opened sooner taken 2 years to add 1 lane to the m7 at eastern creek in 2024
All the workers with a ciggie hanging off there lip classic
1:16 "The cleared material was placed in heaps and burnt"
Everyone also burnt their rubbish in the backyard, we survived 😂
@@donttellmewhattodo7750you can't help bad luck
As someone who lives on the Central Coast, I'm very grateful to the generation of bronzed Aussies who worked hard ,without a helmet, hi-viz shirt, or any shirt at all sometimes, with a cigarette in their hands at the same time! Of course, most of them have since died from lung cancer or skin cancer, but they got the job done! Also, kudos to a time when the Government actually built the roads, and the toll was just 20 cents! As kids we used to fight over who would throw the coin in the basket!
Hi Geoff, could I ask who you obtained copyright permission from to post this?
Thats what i want to see that was hard work dig down rocks from metre high and all way 1969 that did happen hard labor than today
That's the way to do it!
used those toll booths in a beat up VW
Was there any over run on the build budget ?
Back when roads were constructed properly
13 ,ooo,ooo sounds like a bargain in today’s world
13 Million dollars!! Bargain. That wouldn't get you a round about these days.
I remember my mum telling me she could hear the explosions from northern beaches
Yes I remember when it first open
I hope this project got 🌈✔
Back when they made a good road, not like the crap asphalt they do now! My street got redone & it was smoother before! I said something to them about asphalt being bad now & they replied it’s better now, it’s a multi million dollar gps guided machine! Well it is crap
No hi-viz safety gear back in those days
Just shorts and desert boots. And if it’s hot just take off the shirt and show the guys your chest.
Hehe, not too many helmets to be seen too.
those days men were working shirtless. These days Workplace safety manager would not allow that 😊
Yeah, because most of the blokes who worked that project (my dad included) were riddled with skin cancers and lung issues from the dust as a result. Some people are too stupid to know better. That's why they need to be told.
Back when roadworkers actually did their job, instead of today, where they just stand around and do nothing all day. They can’t even adequately patch a pothole anymore
I am sure I saw one of the workers was not wearing his PPE.
Where's the traffic??😅 Was the best time in Australia 🇦🇺.
Interesting the music on Shazam has it as London Life.
Just one of those generic music library tracks.
@@jkkay477 1968 ruclips.net/video/DvJCv98nff4/видео.htmlsi=NOq7coe-1uJoEYvb
And not a single flashing light or fluro vest...
obviously no sacred sights here
*sites
wasnt finished until 1998
23 minutes? Only if you're doing 100 mph 😅.
I bet these road crews didn’t whine half as much and the ones we have now…
Apart from operator comfort, our road construction standards have gone backwards haven’t they?
Build that now it’ll cost 13 billion
its got looney tunes music
The music is the best part isn't it!
Opened by the KFC Colonel
Not a single hardhat or piece or hivis to be seen.
not a pride flag in sight. How on earth did we ever get by??
imagine asking those guys what their promouns are
@@lamontcranston5414 those guys would die rolling around the on ground
@@lamontcranston5414mate. I’m gay and if anyone asked my pronoun I’ll laugh at them. I don’t believe in all that rubbish and most don’t. Like all groups a small bunch of loud activists think they speak for everyone.
no chick labourers standing around drinking a redbull + vapouriser
@@iwaswrongabouteveryhthing I like a bit of V on the side of the road. Before i get cancelled i might mean 'V' the drink
3×3.