Big Lizzie was the brainchild of Mr Frank Bottrill, who aided by the foundry of A.H. McDonald of Richmond, commenced making the machine in 1914 and completed it in 1915.
The machine with 2 wagons, each 30 foot length, set out from Melbourne in 1916 intending to cart wool from outback stations in the Broken Hill area. The idea was to replace camel trains hauling wool. The crossing of the Murray was too hazardous to the machine & trailers were used for carting wheat in the Merbein area. One such load was 899 bags, weighing a record 75 tons at the time, around 68 tonnes.
To carry heavy loads over soft terrain, such as the sands through the outback, Big Lizzie had dreadnaught wheels. Dreadnaught wheels, developed and patented by Bottrill, is similar to pedrail wheels using flat pads for the wheel to sit on top of to spread the weight over a larger area. The difference is dreadnaught wheels connect the pads together and the wheel runs on top of them, rather than the pads being directly connected to the wheel.
In 1920, Lizzie was commissioned by the Victorian Government to clear trees and scrub in what was to be the largest soldier settlement in Australia – Red Cliffs.
In 1925 Big Lizzie again moved off and this journey to the Balmoral area was the last great trek. She lay on a station property, Glendennng, for some 40 years – rusted, worn but proud.
Big Lizzie is 34 feet long, 11 feet wide, and 18 feet high. She was powered by a single cylinder engine running on crude oil, good for producing 60 horsepower. The one cylinder has a bore size of 9 inches and a stroke of 18 inches, or 1,145 cubic inches. That’s an 18.8-litre engine with 45kW of power from its one cylinder. Imagine filling up its 19,800-litre fuel tank. Even an oil change requires 430 litres of oil.
The was enough to push the 40.8-tonne vehicle, 7.25 tonnes being just the engine, to a normal travelling speed of 1.6km per hour at 215 RPM. A top speed of 3.2km per hour was achieved through her 4-speed gear box. The turning circle was a massive 61 metres.
Biz Lizzie was moved to her final resting place by Mr. A. Hillgrove, contractor of Birchip, using a low loader.
To Get There
From Mildura Visitor Information Centre, turn left out of Twelfth St to head south-west on Deakin Ave (Sturt Hwy). Follow Deakin Ave for 2.4km and turn left at the roundabout into Fifteenth St (Calder Hwy) and follow for 13.9km into Red Cliffs. Big Lizzie is on the left on the corner of Jamieson Ave with the brown sign for Big Lizzie.
