beaudesert

Beaudesert is a rural town and locality in the Scenic Rim Region, Queensland, Australia. Beaudesert is located on the Mount Lindesay Highway, some 70 kilometres (43 mi) south of Brisbane. The surrounding countryside includes numerous valleys leading up to the ranges dividing Queensland and New South Wales with creeks running through them and accompanying mountain scenery. The town was originally set out in a grid pattern; however, several of the streets followed cart tracks. The area was originally settled for growing cotton and sheep. However, the area is also notoriously short of water and the cotton was not a successful crop. Hoop pine was very successfully collected from the area. In 1863 the cotton workers were indentured labourers from the South Sea Islands, the first such use in Queensland. In the 1880s, the Cobb & Co stagecoaches ran between Beaudesert and Jimboomba. Even though the area was known as Beau-desert (beautiful desert), the droughts and the floods were continuous problems in the area. In times of flood, houses, animals and people were washed away. The damage caused by floods is often recounted in historical documentation. Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaudesert,_Queensland

Good illustration of this technology

Small dog protecting a big load of watermelons.

Officially referred to as "drop centre saloon cars", or "four motor cars", they were popularly referred to as "400s", "FM's" or "silver bullets". They were the first class of trams built in Brisbane with airbrakes. 155 were constructed by the Brisbane City Council between 1938 and 1964, with a maximum carrying capacity of 110 passengers. Trams 400–472 were built with wide centre doors, 407 was altered to narrow centre doors and renumbered 473 (and the tram to be numbered 473 entered service as 407), trams 474–554 were built with narrow centre doors. Through the 28 years during which they were built, many innovations were introduced, such as fluorescent lighting, helical gears, resilient wheels, remote-controlled controllers and streamlined construction techniques. Early versions had canvas blinds in the doorways, while later versions had sliding doors. The last 8 trams were built from components salvaged from the Paddington tram depot fire and were painted light blue with phoenix emblems below the motorman's windows, to symbolise that the trams had risen from the ashes of the fire. Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trams_in_Brisbane