Comets Building Road in Brunei
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TWENTY-EIGHT Leyland Comet ± dumpers and three Beavers are being employed by the Brunei Public Works Department on the Tuetong roadconstruction project linking the town of Brunei with Kuala Belait. The vehicles were supplied through Henry Waugh and Co., Ltd., Kuching, Sarawak, and have been working under difficult conditions in high temperatures with humidity rising to 99 per cent.
After travelling along rough jungle tracks between trees up to 200 ft. high, the Comets dump their loads of sand and return for more loads from the beaches or hills, whichever are nearer. Six Aveling Barford Leylandengined graders spread the Material, which is stabilized with cement and sealed with bituminous emulsion. The surface is then spread with chippings and covered with tarmacadam.
Other Leylands in operation on the island include three Super Hippos employed on timber extraction by the Bombay-Burmah Trading Corporation, Ltd., and manned by crews from the Philippine Islands. The vehicles work in conjunction with 25-ton logging bogies, and a tipper model is used to carry road-building materials from a nearby stone quarry to maintain a five-mile stretch of metalled road built by the company.
Without the constant attention of the tipper, the road would quickly be reclaimed by the jungle. The highway leads from the felling sites to the River Kalabakan and is employed by the logging vehicles to take timber to the river, where the wood is floated down to Wallace Bay for shipment overseas.