Clip description

Aerial shots of section one of the expressway show work completed by mid-1964, a year into construction of the Sydney-Newcastle expressway. A map illustrates the first two sections of the expressway including the interchange at Mount White. The Department of Main Roads establish an engineering and organisation depot at Mooney, where planning and analysis is conducted and computers produce bar charts to record progress. Surveyors assess the landscape prior to earthmoving equipment starting work. Tractors loosen the rock in preparation for motorised scrapers and push loaders transporting the material.

Curator’s notes

The aerial shots indicate both the scale of the project and the rocky terrain that the expressway design had to negotiate. Twenty-first century viewers can marvel at state-of-the-art computer technology, circa 1964 – particularly the computer’s size, and the spools of ticker tape produced by what looks like an oversize typewriter!

The narration later notes that Aboriginal rock engravings encountered during construction were ‘carefully recorded before blasting’, with others cut out and removed for preservation and exhibition.