Shipping Chassis 'n stuff

[Mike Cecil]

Gents,

The C60X thread, where David H has info that 60 chassis were delivered to Australia in/by October 1942, and I have info from 'across the pond' that the first batch (other than a single chassis) of 48 were not received until Feb 43, throws up an intersting point. At what point is a chassis 'delivered'? As far as GM Canada were concerend, this appears to me to be when the chassis were dispatched from their works, while in Oz, they were not 'delivered' until they arrived at the assembly plant's holding yard. Of course, given the distance between the two points, there is a considerable lead time between them, the length of which must depend on several variables: the availability of shipping space, priority of the cargo, method of despatch (west coast or east coast port, so availaibility and priority of loading onto railway flatwagons, and their routing across North America also becomes a variable) and so on.

Does anyone have any records or information of the dispatch dates and shipping of materiel from Canada to Australia? I am aware of only a limited number of ships and saling dates for CMPs being sent to Australian ports, but would like to learn of more, in order to get a better picture of this essential part of the Australian CMP 'saga'. Just how long did a batch of truck/truck parts take to get from GM Canada to a GMH plant in Australia?

Gauntlet thrown down .... who's up for the challenge of nutting this one out??

Regards

Mike C