Owner Driver 341 June 2021

ownerdriver JUNE 2021 #341 $3.00 inc. GST

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Destined to drive Gemma Pilbeam: at home in a Western Star 4900 See page 60

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Let’s clear the air over illegal engine remapping

Remapped engines release 60x more pollutants To ensure the heavy vehicle industry does its part to minimise impact on the environment, all new trucks sold in Australia since 2010 must meet Euro V Vehicle Emission Standards.

The illegal practice of engine remapping means the vehicle will not comply with these standards, putting truck drivers and the public at risk of harm.

Exposure to toxic diesel emissions in the workplace, our communities, schools and the environment causes major health risks.

The NHVR’s priority is to protect the safety of drivers and the community, helping to ensure a productive and sustainable heavy vehicle industry.

To find out more on the risks and penalties visit nhvr.gov.au/engineremapping

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Contents #341

JUNE 2021

60

20 20 BRISBANE BEATS THE ODDS

After facing immense assaults on its future from various sources, the 2021 Brisbane Truck Show proved why it is truly the trucking industry’s foremost event

30 ALONG THE TRAILER TRAIL

The Brisbane Truck Show proved that Australia is home to some of the world’s best and toughest trailer manufacturers

33 AFTERMARKET EXTRAVAGANZA

Parts and accessories stands were spread across three big floors at the Brisbane Truck Show

42 MUTUAL MILESTONES

While Paccar Australia celebrates 50 years of truck manufacturing, it’s also 75 years since Brown & Hurley opened its doors

44 PICTURE PERFECT

Gavin Sutton’s retired ’89 Mack SuperLiner was earmarked for the show circuit, but it’s now back in the workforce

54 RESTORATION BLUES

76 SCANIA RAISES THE STAKES

In this wide-ranging report, we start with a Sydney to Melbourne test drive in a new R540 B-double before catching up oneon-one with Scania Australia’s managing director Mikael Jansson

With decades in transport behind him, Bob Miller’s 1955 Dodge and ’64 B-model Mack are reminders of his working past

“I was delivering equipment on the float before I even had my full car licence.”

60 DESTINED TO DRIVE

Gemma Pilbeam always had a fascination with the trucking industry.

Now she’s behind the wheel of a smart Western Star 4900

72 DETAILED THE DRAKE WAY

Drake Collectibles’ latest replica model, the limited edition 1988 Bicentennial Mack, is a hot item for truck lovers of all ages

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BEHIND THE WHEEL Greg Bush

EDITORIAL

Editor: Greg Bush Ph: 07 3101 6602 Fax: 07 3101 6619 E-mail: Greg.Bush@aremedia.com.au Senior Journalist: Ben Dillon Ph: 07 3101 6614 E-mail: Ben.Dillon@aremedia.com.au Technical Editor: Steve Brooks E-mail: sbrooks.trucktalk@gmail.com Contributors: Warren Aitken, Frank Black, Warren Caves, Warren Clark, Rod Hannifey, Michael Kaine, Sarah Marinovic, Sal Petroccitto, Robbie Tyoson, Ken Wilkie Cartoonist: John Allison

PRODUCTION Production Co-Ordinator: Cat Fitzpatrick Art Director: Bea Barthelson Print: IVE Print

ADVERTISING Industry Sales Manager: Adrian Christian Ph: 0423 761 784 E-mail: Adrian.Christian@aremedia.com.au Brand Sales Manager: Peter Gatti Ph: 0437 895 600 E-mail: Peter.Gatti@aremedia.com.au Sales Manager (Qld): Hollie Tinker Ph: 0466 466 945 E-mail: Hollie.Tinker@aremedia.com.au Sales Manager (Vic): Matt Alexander Ph: 0413 599 669 E-mail: Matt.Alexander@aremedia.com.au Sales Manager (NSW): Con Zarocostas Ph: 0457 594 238 E-mail: Con.Zarocostas@aremedia.com.au Sales Manager (SA/WA): Nick Lenthall Ph: 0439 485 835 E-mail: Nick.Lenthall@aremedia.com.au Agency Sales Manager (NSW): Max Kolomiiets Ph: 0415 869 176 E-mail: Max.Kolomiiets@aremedia.com.au

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EXECUTIVE GROUP Are Media Automotive CEO: Andrew Beecher

New age road charges

T

HE RECENT COVID outbreak in Melbourne has again highlighted to Australians that, despite intenational border restrictions, this virus will be with us for some time to come. So, while the trucking industry will keep doing what it has been successfully doing since the pandemic hit in early 2020, there remains a degree of nervousness around event scheduling for the foreseeable future.

Heavy Vehicle Industry Australia (HVIA), the organisers of the recent Brisbane Truck Show, must be breathing a sigh of relief that its big event went ahead without any drama last month. Despite COVID concerns, the trucking community turned up in droves to check out the latest trucks, trailers and industry innovations.

The importance of the event was reflected during a speech on the Brisbane Truck Show’s opening day by Daniel Whitehead, CEO of Daimler Truck & Bus. While Whitehead voiced his disappointment that certain exhibitors had failed to support the industry by not turning up, his remark that the Brisbane Truck Show was currently the “biggest truck show in the world” highlighted how well Australia is doing in regards to minimising the effects of COVID. Truck events worldwide, notably in Europe and the USA, have been placed on the backburner, although organisers of

the big Mid-America Truck Show, held in Louisville, Kentucky, have announced that the event will return next March following its cancellation this year. Many more are set to be back on the calendar in 2022 due to the vaccine rollout.

Back in Brisbane, one of the most intriguing aspects of the show was the increasing number of electric vehicles on display, from vans to rigids and right through to batterypowered prime movers. For the non-believers who scoffed at this section of the industry’s progression, this was a reminder that electric commercial vehicles primarily aimed at last-mile deliveries are quickly arriving from a wide range of inventive manufacturers.

The benefits are many: zero emissions, low noise pollution and less reliance on fossil fuels. Governments should be rejoicing at this scenario. Instead, they are perturbed about missing out on revenue, namely fuel excise.

The Victorian government has come to realise that “electric vehicle uptake is inevitable”. While it promotes the ideal of reducing emissions and mitigating climate change, the fear of losing revenue has promoted Victoria to introduce a road user charge specifically for electric vehicles, despite the small percentage currently on the road.

Whether this dampens the enthusiasm for would-be electric vehicle buyers remains to be seen.

GM – Industry: Graham Gardiner Group Finance Manager: Cain Murphy Digital Director: Tim Kenington Commercial Director: Matt Rice Operations Manager: Regina Fellner People & Culture Manager: Nicola Ramsay ISSN 1321-6279

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The Goods

NEWS FROM THE HIGHWAY AND BEYOND

Vale: Cummins stalwart Col Baker Former truck driver and highly valued Cummins executive Colin (Col) Baker loses his battle with cancer at age 52 ONE OF THE MOST respected, dedicated and genuinely liked people in the Cummins realm, Col Baker has passed away at the age of just 52 after a long and fiercely fought battle with cancer.

A true gentleman of the trucking industry and an immensely trusted colleague within the Cummins company and its vast customer community, Col is survived by his wife Jenny and three daughters.

Born in Longreach and a Queenslander to the core, Col first trained as a mechanic before turning his hand to truck driving where he gained a founding appreciation for the world of truck operators and the road freight industry.

He joined Cummins in 2000 as a mechanic working in the Darra (Brisbane) branch where his

commitment to customers and mentoring others in the Cummins network saw him rise to a leadership role in the engine company’s Queensland truck and bus markets.

With an engaging personality and inherent appreciation for the importance of customer satisfaction, all mixed with an almost insatiable initiative, Col was able to nurture and maintain the respect of a wide cross-section of industry partners from customers to truck dealers and brand executives. His friendships spanned all sectors of the trucking industry, from drivers and mechanics, fleet operators to chief executives.

Given his abilities and experience, it was perhaps inevitable that his services would eventually necessitate a move to Cummins head office in

Melbourne during a difficult time for the company when senior people of Col’s ilk would be an invaluable asset in maintaining customer relationships.

“Col Baker was the best example of living out the values of integrity, caring, teamwork and the pursuit of excellence,” says close friend and Cummins colleague, Mike Fowler.

“The courage he demonstrated during his fight with cancer has been nothing short of inspirational but, in truth, it was just so typical of him. We truly mourn the loss of a dear friend and our sincere and heartfelt thoughts are with his wife Jenny and family.

“Cummins and the wider trucking industry have lost someone very special.”

– Steve Brooks

The late Col Baker

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THE GOODS NEWS FROM THE HIGHWAY AND BEYOND

Heavy vehicle limits for aging bridge Transport for NSW plans noninfrastructure improvements for the Hume Highway’s Sheahan Bridge TRANSPORT for New South Wales’ (TfNSW) moves are afoot on the ageing Sheahan Bridge northbound at Gundagai, NSW’s Livestock Bulk and Rural Carriers Association (LBRCA) and the National Road Transport Association (NatRoad) report.

Transport for NSW has announced that short-term improvements will be carried out to improve access, while planning work is underway to ensure future capacity and efficiency for heavy vehicles on the Hume Highway.

“Sheahan Bridge northbound, over the Murrumbidgee River at Gundagai, was built in 1977 to the standards of the day, however, modern heavy vehicles are now capable of carrying heavier and longer loads than could have ever been imagined 44 years ago,” the LBRCA points out.

“Due to the bridge’s design capabilities, it has previously been inaccessible for higher productivity

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vehicles. However, following the weather event in March and demolition of Wallendbeen Bridge on Burley Griffin Way, Sheahan Bridge northbound has been opened, under permit, to these vehicles to allow the efficient transportation of freight.

“To allow this short-term measure, TfNSW are investigating a series of non-infrastructure solutions to ensure the bridge remains safe and fit-for-purpose, including limiting the northbound bridge to one lane of traffic for trucks and installing cameras and monitoring equipment on the bridge to identify vehicle numbers, loads and how the bridge responds to these loads.”

The Australian Trucking Association (ATA) welcomed initial moves to address the bridge’s issues last September.

NatRoad underlines that the Hume Highway is the nation’s busiest

The Sheahan Bridge over the Murrumbidgee River

interstate freight route and carries 40 per cent of the total national road freight task.

“NatRoad supports the work of Transport for NSW to make the much-needed upgrades to the bridge required for accessibility to all heavy vehicles using this major route but especially an expansion of capacity so that 30 metre A-doubles or quad B-doubles can be used on the entire length of the Hume Highway and operate under a notice rather than on a limited permit basis,” it says.

“More must also be done to provide a larger number of rest areas along

the Hume as well as upgrades to existing rest areas along the highway to allow for the longer length of combinations.”

The LBRCA notes two main actions that can be expected: • Over the coming months, TfNSW will be carrying out short-term improvements. This may include the introduction of a heavy vehicle lane restriction, upgrades to line marking and installation of data collection cameras • There may be temporary traffic changes. Electronic signage near the bridge will alert road users to the changed conditions.

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THE GOODS NEWS FROM THE HIGHWAY AND BEYOND

Call to put brakes on award increase NatRoad deems ACTU demand ‘unrealistic’ while TWU backs 3.5 per cent increase THE NATIONAL ROAD Transport Association (NatRoad) is rejecting Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) calls for a 3.5 per cent increase across all awards rates, which it claims is crucial for post-pandemic economic recovery.

Instead, NatRoad CEO Warren Clark seeks “cool heads and realism” in the push for a higher minimum wage.

He says the ACTU claim amounts to a rise of $30.24 per week for a local driver of a single articulated vehicle and $31.57 per week for a local driver of a B-double, which places too high a burden on small businesses while the economy is still in a post-COVID recovery phase.

“NatRoad believes now is not the time to make an ambit claim of this size,” Clark says.

“Last year the ACTU sought a 4 per cent increase, but the Fair Work Commission’s [FWC’s] minimum wage panel settled on 1.75 per cent in recognition of the effects of the pandemic.

“Those effects are still being felt and uncertainty remains, so cool heads and realism must prevail.

“That may not sound a lot but when the vast majority of heavy vehicle operators are small businesses operating on a profit margin of 3 per cent, it can break someone.

“NatRoad supports the federal government’s submission in urging the FWC to take a cautious approach given the current uncertainties in the

domestic and international economic outlook.”

Though not putting an exact figure on an acceptable increase, Clark says keeping small business viable is “not negotiable” right now and the minimum wage increase should be discounted to take into account the rise in the superannuation guarantee from 9.5 per cent to 10 per cent that is due from July 1, 2021.

The FWC’s minimum wage panel decided that due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and government efforts to prevent the spread of the virus there were exceptional circumstances to justify deferring the wage increases in certain industries, NatRoad notes.

As a result, the 1.75 per cent increase to the minimum rates in the two road transport awards and the clerks award were delayed to November 1, 2020.

NatRoad is at odds with the Transport Workers’ Union (TWU), which supports the ACTU push for a 3.5 per cent increase for workers on Awards, including drivers.

“This is a fair increase given the effort drivers have put in over the past year and given the ballooning profits of retailers, manufacturers and oil companies at the top of the supply chain,” TWU national secretary Michael Kaine says.

“Drivers have proved themselves during the pandemic to be essential workers, willing to risk their own health and lives to keep goods flowing around Australia.

“They overcame last-minute border closures, confusing state entry permits, closed truck stops and continual COVID tests to keep doing their jobs.

“At the same time, many of the companies whose goods they are transporting have seen their profits soar.

“Global and domestic retailers have boomed during the pandemic: Aldi Australia grew its sales in 2020 by 10 per cent to $10.5 billion; Amazon last week announced profits up 224 per cent to US$8 billion; Apple said its profits have more than doubled to US$23.6 billion,” Kaine says.

“We don’t think it’s right that drivers should work long hours and yet struggle to support their families and put food on the table as all other costs go up.

“We don’t think it’s right that drivers are pushed to speed, skip their rest breaks and drive faulty trucks while obscene profits are being made by the companies whose goods they are carting.”

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THE GOODS NEWS FROM THE HIGHWAY AND BEYOND

Warehouse owner in Fair Work sights Sydney warehouse distribution workers allegedly underpaid more than $360,000 in 12-month period THE FAIR WORK OMBUDSMAN (FWO) has announced that it has commenced action under the ‘serious contravention’ provisions of the Protecting Vulnerable Workers laws, alleging the underpayment of 30 migrant employees in Sydney.

The FWO has commenced proceedings in the Federal Court against Winit (AU) Trade Pty Ltd, a Hong Kong-owned company that provides warehousing and distribution services in Sydney for products sold on online platforms, including eBay. Also facing court is the company’s director and general manager, Song Cheng.

The regulator alleges Winit underpaid 30 employees a total of $368,684 under the Services and Wholesale Award 2010 between July 2017 and June 2018.

All 30 employees were working holiday visa holders, mostly from Taiwan and aged in their 20s, who performed various duties associated with sorting, loading and packing goods at Winit’s warehouse at Regents Park, western Sydney.

Individual alleged underpayments range from $446 to $28,202, with 19 of the employees being allegedly underpaid more than $10,000.

It is alleged that four of the underpayment contraventions meet the definition of ‘serious contraventions’ under the Protecting Vulnerable

Workers amendments to the Fair Work Act because there is evidence to show the contraventions were deliberate and systematic.

Fair Work Ombudsman Sandra Parker reminded companies that maximum penalties for serious contraventions are $630,000 per breach.

“Employers are on notice that the Fair Work Ombudsman will enforce the Protecting Vulnerable Workers laws to ensure that any individuals or companies who allegedly commit serious contraventions are held to account,” Parker says.

“All workers in Australia have the same rights, regardless of nationality and visa status. Anyone with concerns about their pay or entitlements should contact us for free assistance.”

It is the fifth matter nationally in which the FWO has alleged the increased maximum penalties should apply.

FWO investigated Winit after receiving requests for assistance from several employees.

It is alleged employees regularly worked up to 60 to 70 hours per week over six or seven days but most were paid a flat hourly rate of $24.41 with no penalty or overtime entitlements.

Winit allegedly also failed to comply with laws relating to pay slips, providing new employees with

a Fair Work Information Statement and various award obligations, including shift allowances, meal allowances and frequency of pay.

FWO also alleges the company contravened adverse actions laws by reducing at least two employees’ shifts after they refused Winit’s settlement offer, made shortly after FWO commenced its investigation, to pay only 25 per cent of their outstanding entitlements.

All employees have now been back-paid in full.

It is alleged Cheng was involved in Winit’s contraventions concerning overtime rates, penalty rates and frequency of pay.

In addition to the penalties faced for the alleged ‘serious contraventions’, Winit faces penalties of up to $63,000 per contravention for other alleged contraventions. Cheng faces penalties of up to $12,600 per contravention for the contraventions he was allegedly involved in. Serious contraventions are not alleged against Cheng.

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24/5/21 8:34 am

THE GOODS NEWS FROM THE HIGHWAY AND BEYOND

Budget slammed for ignoring safety TWU national secretary Michael Kaine says gig economy, road safety and aviation are glaring omissions THE TRANSPORT WORKERS UNION (TWU) says the federal government has failed to provide any funding or initiatives to tackle deaths and abuses in the gig economy, provide a strategy to help aviation and to address the high numbers of deaths in truck crashes.

The TWU notes that the budget admits a decrease in funding for the Infrastructure Investment Program, including $188.7 million in 2020-21 and $3.3 billion over four years to 2023-24. It re-states money for aviation, which was announced months ago, and again fails to set conditions for airlines like Qantas receiving the money.

TWU national secretary Michael Kaine slammed the budget for ignoring safety in Australia’s deadliest industry and for failing to provide a plan for aviation.

“There are glaring omissions in this budget on aviation, road transport and the gig economy, and workers and the Australian community will pay the price for this. These industries have workers dying, road users dying, workers losing their jobs and dealing with grave uncertainties about their futures.

“We need urgent structural certainty, structural reforms, investment and planning. Yet there is no

strategy, no plan and no policy in this budget,” Kaine says.

“The budget admits a decrease in funding for infrastructure at a time when truck drivers and road users are losing their lives. There is no funding set aside to save lives in Australia’s deadliest industry and there is no investment to tackle the financial squeeze on transport by wealthy retailers and manufacturers which is forcing operators and drivers to delay maintenance on trucks, work long hours, speed and skip their rest breaks.

“The federal government has yet again badly let down the trucking community and road users in Australia,” Kaine states.

“On the gig economy we have had a horrendous year of deaths of delivery riders and exposés of appalling abuses. The federal government clearly does not see any of this as a problem as there is no investment plan to fund agencies to address it. In fact, the budget does not even mention the sector.

“This is a signal to the likes of Uber, Deliveroo, Amazon and others to keep exploiting workers and driving them to their deaths because the federal government won’t be holding them to account,” Kaine adds.

The TWU points out that, according to the

Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics 885 people have died in truck crashes in the last five years. It adds that in the same period, 183 transport workers have died on the job, the highest by far for any industry, according to Safe Work Australia.

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NHVR Sal Petroccitto

Mapping a safe future The National Heavy Vehicle Regulator is aiming for a sustainable and productive heavy vehicle industry

T

HE HEAVY vehicle industry is the backbone of this country.

It’s been this way for many years and the number and movement of trucks and trailers on our roads is only increasing.

Right now, our industry includes more than 40,000 owners and operators and in excess of half a million heavy vehicles. With this amount of movement, it’s vital that together, we continue to ensure the best safety, productivity and efficiency outcomes are maintained and strengthened.

Safety and innovation have been cornerstones of the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR) since its inception. I’m pleased to say that, overall, we are an industry that delivers on safety and welcomes innovation, particularly when it comes to our vehicles and those who drive them.

Like any industry, however, there

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is always room to improve and work together to ensure we remove risks, such as engine remapping, which can release up to 60 times more pollutants into the atmosphere.* To an extent, we’ve been combatting the risk since 2010, with all new trucks sold in Australia since then required to meet Euro V Vehicle Emission Standards. This was an important step in the right direction over a decade ago and it remains so now. Inevitably, the standards will increase, and the NHVR is continuing to work with our industry and stakeholders to deliver these improvements.

ENGINE REMAPPING For now, we need to remain vigilant in ensuring that heavy vehicles are always operating in a safe and sustainable way. That’s why the NHVR is undertaking an engine remapping campaign, reminding heavy vehicle owners and drivers about the risks

SAL PETROCCITTO became CEO of the NHVR in May 2014, bringing extensive knowledge of heavy vehicle policy, strategy and regulation to the role. He has broad experience across state and local government, having held senior leadership roles in transport and logistics, land use, transport and strategic planning, and has worked closely with industry and stakeholders to deliver an efficient and effective transport system and improved supply chain outcomes. Over the past seven years, Sal has led a significant program of reform across Australia’s heavy vehicle industry, including transitioning functions from participating jurisdictions to deliver a single national heavy vehicle regulator, harmonising heavy vehicle regulations across more than 400 road managers, and modernising safety and productivity laws for heavy vehicle operators and the supply chain.

of remapping and the benefits of improved engine technology.

The campaign is focused on compliance and education, and the NHVR is seeking to ensure that owners and drivers are helping to deliver a sustainable and productive heavy vehicle industry of the future.

While NHVR officers will continue to ensure that the HVNL is upheld, including prosecuting those that deliberately put themselves and others in harm’s way, it is of equal importance that we work collaboratively as an industry to provide greater education on the risks of engine remapping.

Over the next few months, we’ll continue the discussion around engine remapping, and I thank you in advance for playing your part in developing a cleaner environment for years to come.

Let’s all continue to clear the air over engine remapping and deliver better outcomes for our communities. *Australian Bureau of Statistics January 2017 Motor Vehicle Census

“There is always room to improve and work together to ensure we remove risks.”

JUNE 2021 17

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brisbane truck show

BRISBANE BEATS THE ODDS After facing immense assaults on its future over the past few years, and despite several major brands choosing not to support the show and the multitude of men and women who have kept Australia fed, fuelled and functional during the toughest time in modern history, the 2021 Brisbane Truck Show proved yet again why it is truly the trucking industry’s foremost event.

Steve Brooks reports 20 JUNE 2021

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I

T WAS A POWERFUL statement by Scott Buchholz, the federal government’s assistant minister for road safety and freight transport, which perhaps best summed up the timely and critical importance of the 2021 Brisbane Truck Show.

After being escorted around by Todd Hacking, chief executive of the Brisbane show’s organising body, Heavy Vehicle Industry Australia (HVIA), an obviously impressed Scott Buchholz issued a press release describing the 2021 show as being part of “a heavy vehicle industry renaissance, following a significant increase in freight and logistics demand during the COVID-19 pandemic”.

Adding: “Workers in the [trucking] sector are Australia’s unsung heroes and the truck show not only put on display the latest and greatest in technology, it recognised the significant contribution of the workforce.”

What’s more: “I want to thank all the freight operators, drivers, DC [distribution centre] workers, manufacturing and maintenance crews who have met the challenge of increased local demand,

keeping our supermarkets stocked and our economy running.

“To the industry, and to Todd Hacking and his team, all of the sponsors and exhibitors and, of course, the visitors here over the course of the show, thank you for supporting this industry.”

Perhaps he could have also made mention of a Queensland government intent on creating the platform for the show to go on in a safe and secure environment. Then again, kudos for a Labor state government probably wasn’t front and centre in the Liberal minister’s mind.

Nonetheless, if ever there was a year for Brisbane-based truck brands in particular to revel in the excitement and potential of a loosening of the pandemic shackles, it was 2021. However, only the Penske Group’s Western Star and MAN brands, headquartered at Wacol on Brisbane’s outskirts, took the opportunity to attend.

As a Penske spokesman pointed out, it’s now 40 years since Western Star made its Australian debut, where else but at the Brisbane Truck Show.

Blatantly conspicuous by their absence, of course, were the big name truck brands

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Left: Across the ages. In the background, the Legend SAR and up close, the latest in the line, the T410SAR

“Workers in the [trucking] sector are Australia’s unsung heroes.” ownerdriver.com.au

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“It’s sure to be remembered as an event that defied the odds.” from Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane who chose not to support the show and, as Buchholz commented, recognise the significant contribution of the freight industry’s workforce.

Those who did attend, however, were intent on giving back to the industry and perhaps none extolled that intention better than Freightliner chief Stephen Downes during an overview of the highly impressive, three-pronged Daimler Trucks exhibit of Freightliner, Fuso and Mercedes-Benz. The Brisbane Truck Show is a major platform, Downes exclaimed, and while it’s expensive to exhibit, it also represents an ideal opportunity “to give back to our industry, which gives so much to our country”.

Yet, while Brisbane 2021 certainly won’t go down as the biggest show ever held in the northern capital – though more than 30,000 people filed through the doors – it’s sure to be remembered as an event that defied the odds and attracted substantial crowds to what is sure to be the only truck show in the world in 2021. Moreover, creating an event that truly added much-needed glitter to an industry audience that, like every part of Australian society over the past year and more, has known little else but gloom, difficulty and separation.

Indeed, the resilience and determination of HVIA to maintain Brisbane’s established position as the Australian road freight industry’s premier event for the broader trucking community of

Top & above left: Safety first. Freightliner Cascadia takes conventional truck safety to an unmatched standard while, on the inside, the digital dash option creates a new dimension in function and form Left: Livewire DAF. Assembled at Paccar’s Bayswater (Vic) factory, DAF CF model is now available with the sprightly MX-11 engine as well as the MX-13

22 JUNE 2021

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drivers, operators, fleet businesses, truck, trailer and component manufacturers and suppliers, have been inspirational.

It’s easy to forget, for instance, that after the 2019 show, there was a powerful move to push Brisbane into obsolescence with the Truck Industry Council’s (TIC) expensive and somewhat naïve attempt to make Melbourne the new Mecca for an Australian truck show.

Stunning display!

One of the main protagonists of the TIC venture was Melbourne-based Paccar Australia but to its inestimable credit, the company went to Brisbane ’21 with arguably the best presentation of show trucks ever seen at a truck show, anywhere in the world.

And for good reason, with 2021 also marking 50 years of Paccar truck manufacturing in Australia.

Vitally, Kenworth and DAF were for the first time presented as equal Paccar partners, each painted in the same spectacular show livery adorned by brilliantly air-brushed images of iconic Australian scenes. Words can’t do the display justice and show visitors were attracted to the Paccar stand in droves.

As for new models, none were more appealing than the special edition Legend SAR, pulling people to Paccar like bees to a hive.

Created to capture the almost euphoric esteem of the legendary Kenworth SAR, the ‘Legend’ version follows in the hugely successful wake of earlier Legend 950 and Legend 900 models and, like its predecessors, is almost guaranteed to be an economic master stroke for Paccar.

While we initially, and wrongly, forecasted that the Legend SAR would go on sale for one day only at the truck show, the ‘one day’ for taking orders will actually be July 8. In the interim, it’s easy to envisage Paccar principals rubbing their hands together in expectation.

Many pundits are predicting at least 300 orders and with a unit price said to be somewhere between $425,000 and more than $500,000 – depending on the specification of course – it seems no one has the ability to cash in on a classic better than Kenworth.

Then again, if past performance is any guide, there’s

24 JUNE 2021

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no shortage of cashed-up buyers willing to take a trip down memory lane, even if it means stepping into a skinny cab with an incredibly tight squeeze between the seats for accessing the sleeper. The good ol’ days, indeed!

Taking the SAR mantle into the modern era, however, is the wide-cab T610SAR and its new sibling sharing the roomy 2.1 metre-wide cab, the T410SAR. Making its first public appearance at the Brisbane Truck Show, the 410SAR is punched by Paccar’s MX-13 engine at up to 510hp (380kW) and with its setforward front axle design, provides another critical string to the Kenworth bow.

On the DAF front, pride of place alongside its K200 cab-over kin was the flagship XF model but grabbing the eye of shrewd show-goers at the back of the

display was a Bayswater-built CF punched by Paccar Australia’s relatively new MX-11 engine.

Available in ratings from 370 to 410hp (276 to 306kW) and 450hp (336kW), and offered in the 6x4 CF at a gross combination rating of 60 tonnes, our few short stints in the MX-11 have shown the engine to be the spearhead of a remarkably lively and smoothly efficient DAF powertrain.

The MX engines are, however, simply the tip of the iceberg in Paccar Australia’s ambitions for the DAF range. Indeed, big things are brewing both locally and overseas which, from next year and beyond, will have a major impact on Paccar’s cab-over class – DAF and Kenworth.

Stay tuned, because there’s also a big story brewing on these developments.

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27/05/2021 1:36:43 PM

For Safety’s Sake Just as it was two years ago, staring straight across the aisle at Paccar’s presentation was Daimler’s Freightliner Cascadia.

Unlike 2019, though, when a right hand-drive Cascadia was still a work in progress, North America’s biggest selling truck is now pushing ahead with bold ambitions for the Australian market.

And it is not without a very powerful and expedient tool in the chest. Safety!

From the outset, Cascadia set a new and incredibly high benchmark for safety in conventional trucks with the standard inclusion of the Detroit Assurance 5.0 suite of advanced safety functions. But, as the company announced in Brisbane, it is about to push the safety stakes to an even higher level with the introduction late this year of a head-protecting side airbag in addition to the existing steering wheel airbag. Right now, and for what will be probably quite some time to come, Cascadia is unrivalled in conventional truck safety.

Typically, Daimler Trucks Australia boss Daniel Whitehead didn’t pull any punches in citing Cascadia’s credentials and, specifically, the need to protect drivers no matter what brand of truck they drive.

“There is no good reason why conventional truck drivers in Australia should not be able to drive a truck fitted with the latest safety features,” he said in a prepared statement.

“It doesn’t matter whether you are driving a truck with or without a bonnet, your safety is just as important.”

As Freightliner’s announcement added, the head-protecting side airbag has been specially developed for the Australian market by RollTek and America’s IMMI, industry leaders in the design, testing and manufacturing of advanced safety systems.

Meanwhile, a number of the Cascadias on display also featured a digital dashboard layout that will become optional later this year.

Largely identical to the digital dash already available on Mercedes-Benz models, it’s a layout using a 312mm (12.3-inch)wide screen as the main display directly in front of the driver for gauges, trip data and adaptive cruise control information and to the left, a 254mm (10-inch) touchscreen to access a range of ancillary functions.

Familiarity and ease of operation with the digital dash come quickly, as we’ve found in previous drives of Mercedes-Benz trucks where the system is known as the multi-media cockpit.

While Cascadia was unquestionably the star attraction for Daimler this year, the three-pointed star certainly wasn’t short of its own news, led by the announcement that Mercedes-Benz

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“Cascadia set a new and incredibly high benchmark for safety.”

Above: Fuso’s new Shogun 360 sixwheeler. Japanese toughness with Daimler smarts. A Euro 6 mediumduty Fighter was also released Opposite top: Family first. DAF and Kenworth shared the spotlight and the same livery for the first time.

In the cab-over class, there’s big news brewing for both brands Opposite bottom: Star power: Top-of-the-tree Mercedes-Benz 2663 was joined by a rigid class now with a similarly high level of safety features. Benz will soon start testing a partially automated steering system in Australia

TRIDENT TRIBUTE

While neither Cummins nor Mack attended the 2021 Brisbane Truck Show, Followmont Transport’s display of a Cummins-powered Mack Trident was a magnanimous and highly fitting tribute to a true stalwart of the trucking industry, the late Col Baker.

A Cummins man to the core and immensely proud Queenslander despite a move to Cummins HQ in Melbourne, Col passed away only days before the Brisbane show after a fiercely fought battle with cancer. He was just 52-years-old and is survived by his wife Jenny and three daughters.

In what was something of a secret project between Cummins and the Brisbane-based transport company, Col worked closely with Followmont Transport principal Mark Tobin to slot an X15 engine under the Trident snout for an extensive trial, with the trust and respect between the two manifesting in Tobin’s heartfelt tribute to his Cummins mate.

“Col Baker was the best example of living out the values of integrity, caring, teamwork and the pursuit of excellence,” says close friend and Cummins colleague, Mike Fowler.

“The courage he demonstrated during his fight with cancer was nothing short of inspirational but in truth, it was just so typical of him.

“Cummins and the wider trucking industry have lost someone very special.”

Absolutely!

Above: Followmont Transport’s tribute to Col Baker. A Cummins man to the core and true stalwart of the trucking industry

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is set to launch an Australian validation program for an Actros that can help steer itself.

Known as ‘Active Drive Assist’ technology, a statement from Mercedes-Benz says the system enables a partially automated driving capability and is a first for the Australian market.

Mercedes-Benz states: “The system helps to actively steer the truck and keep it in the centre of its lane, although the driver is still required to hold the steering wheel.”

Also, says Benz: “It is one step ahead of some current systems [because] the Mercedes-Benz system actually helps steer the truck in the first place.” As the company insists: “Proactive rather than reactive.”

Apparently, we’ll be given a drive of Active Drive Assist before too long but it wasn’t the only news from Mercedes-Benz.

Until now, the Benz rigid range and specifically the Arocs 8x4 model, wasn’t available with the full suite of advanced safety functions used in prime mover models due to what were explained as “applicationrelated packaging restrictions”.

Those engineering challenges have been overcome and the eight-wheeler now comes with the radarbased ‘Active Brake Assist’ package as well as existing safety features such as electronic stability program, driver airbag and lane departure warning.

Last, but definitely not least in Daimler’s truck triumvirate, is Fuso, easily the biggest selling brand in the group and using the Brisbane show to highlight the iconic Canter model’s 50-year milestone on the Australian market.

It’s worth noting, too, that of the four Japanese truck suppliers in Australia, only Fuso attended the

26 JUNE 2021

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Brisbane show and, as one senior Daimler executive was quick to comment: “It’s their loss because we have plenty to show and plenty to talk about. It’s disappointing for the industry that the others aren’t here but, commercially, we don’t mind being the only Japanese brand on show. Not one bit.”

Emphasising the evolution of the remarkably durable Canter range, the light-duty Fuso is also the platform for the recently launched eCanter electric

truck and, at a truck show where electric power was high among the highlights, the eCanter was certainly a timely addition to Daimler’s displays.

However, it was the launch of Fuso’s new Shogun 360 model, which perhaps had pragmatic truck operators most engaged.

According to Fuso, the Shogun 360 six-wheeler – available as a 6x2 or 6x4 – was developed as a premium 14-pallet rigid model equipped with Daimler’s extensive standard safety features, Euro 6 emissions compliance and a trim cab/chassis tare weight of 6,950kg.

Power comes from Daimler’s responsive 7.7-litre six-cylinder engine dispensing 360hp (268kW) and 140Nm (1,030lb-ft) of torque through a 12-speed automated transmission that also provides the EcoRoll fuel-saving feature and crawler modes for lowspeed manoeuvring.

Continuing Daimler’s high level of standard safety features, the 360 comes with advanced emergency braking, lane departure warning, electronic stability program and Driver Attention Assist, which uses facial recognition technology to warn of fatigue.

It is, by any measure, an impressive package in the six-wheeler rigid class and, according to Fuso

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“The ‘Road Ant’ can be driven independently from both ends of the vehicle.”

Australia chief Alex Müller, sizeable orders have already been taken.

Business Models Michael May, the former head of Mercedes-Benz truck operations in Australia and now managing director of Iveco Trucks Australia, went straight to the point when previewing the company’s Brisbane display.

“Iveco is excited to be supporting the 2021 Brisbane Truck Show,” he said in an opening statement.

“The display vehicles highlight the benefits Iveco enjoys as a European manufacturer with a local research and development and manufacturing capacity, which ensures all vehicles are tailored to Australia’s unique operating conditions.”

Diversity was at the core of a four-model display ranging from the latest incarnation of the versatile and popular Daily lightduty line-up in its ‘Tradie-Made’ ready-to-work configuration through to the well-mannered medium-duty Eurocargo, the never-say-die ACCO in a typical 8x4 configuration with a Superior Pak front-loading compactor body, and at the top of Iveco’s on-road range, a ‘Highway’ heavy-duty model rated to 70 tonnes.

A quick look at the specifications of all Iveco’s show trucks confirmed an undeniably well-equipped range sporting advanced safety and Euro 6 emissions as standard features.

Top, L to R: Wide appeal: Iveco was intent on showing a Euro 6 product range that covers many bases, from the latest light-duty Daily to the revamped Highway flagship.

Meanwhile, over at the Southbank Truck Festival was the unique ‘Road Ant’, an aggregate spreader based on an ACCO that can be driven independently from both ends of the vehicle Below, L to R: Electric power was high among the highlights in Brisbane with none bigger than the innovative Janus heavy-duty system of exchangeable batteries.

The batteries power an electric motor from Dana Spicer

Away from the show, however, another Iveco was doing its bit to not only support the broader industry, but also confirm the breadth of the brand’s engineering and manufacturing capabilities.

As a company statement explained: “In addition to its support of the Brisbane Truck Show, Iveco is also supporting the Southbank Truck Festival with display of a Q-FE ‘Road Ant’,” described as being “a dual control, forward moving aggregate spreader based on an ACCO six-wheeler fitted with a Trout River, asphalt-compatible body and 10-gate chip spreader.”

Its creation stems from a recent VicRoads requirement, which mandates that from July 1, 2022, all aggregate spreaders working in sprayed sealing applications must be forward-moving.

Consequently, the ‘Road Ant’ can be driven independently from both ends of the vehicle.

Meanwhile, back at the show, the Penske pair of Western Star and MAN certainly weren’t without plenty of people keen for a close look at a couple of big bangers.

Top of the list was Western Star’s 4900FXC, destined for heavy-duty roadtrain roles with a 600hp (447kW) Cummins X15 powering into an Eaton 18-speed overdrive – manual, of course – and Dana rear axles running a 4.56:1 final drive ratio, mounted on Neway airbag suspension.

Yet, perhaps one of the most underrated or overlooked features of Western Star these days is the Stratosphere sleeper.

According to many people we’ve spoken to over the many years since Stratosphere first arrived here, it is the best bunk layout in the business and there’s little doubt the premium 82-inch (208cm) high-rise shed on the back of the 4900 show truck was a solid reminder to most.

When it comes to muscle, though, MAN’s flagship TGX 640 carries the flag in the Penske portfolio. This is an impressively strong truck to drive but, unfortunately, durability issues haven’t been kind to buyers and the brand alike.

Still, while Penske insiders didn’t deny the brand’s “chequered past”, there’s confidence that a new MAN range due in 2022 will help right the wrongs, perceived or otherwise. Critically, they also say Penske is committed to the brand’s future in Australia.

Similarly, an entirely new Western Star range launched in the US last year is said to be heading our way in 2022.

Gas and Electric Down the power scale, South Korean brand Hyundai, exhibiting through its Brisbane-based East Coast Hyundai distributor, appeared to attract plenty of interest in its new medium-duty addition called the Pavise.

Available in weight ratings from 12 to 12.9, 15.5 and 17.6 tonnes, and wheelbase lengths of 4.3, 4.9 and 5.7 metres, all Pavise models are powered by a turbocharged 5.9-litre Euro 5 sixcylinder diesel rated at 276hp (206kW) in the top weight model

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“Somewhat surprisingly, though, there was no Hyundai Xcient on show.”

Top: Big bangers: The Penske pair of MAN and Western Star. Insiders say there are new models coming for both brands next year Left: Cummins was missing in action but technology partner Eaton waved the flag for both brands. Expect some big news from the transmission specialist as it prepares to test a new Endurant family Below: Korean connection. With the absence of three of Australia’s four Japanese truck brands, there was ample interest in Hyundai’s new Pavise medium-duty models

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and 246hp (183kW) in all others. Coupled to the engine in all models is the choice of a nine-speed ZF manual transmission or a 12-speed automated box, also from ZF. All models come with an extensive range of advanced safety features, including autonomous emergency braking, forward collision avoidance system and airbags for driver and passenger.

Somewhat surprisingly, though, there was no Hyundai Xcient on show. Xcient is Hyundai’s flagship heavy-duty contender and, while Australian sales continue to be ghostly thin, it is the platform model for the South Korean maker’s well publicised plans to become a major player in the development of hydrogen-fuelled trucks.

Several Chinese commercial vehicles were also on show in Brisbane, including the much maligned JAC brand now attempting a comeback with a light-duty electric truck.

In fact, electric power was on show at every level, from the light EC11 Chinese van currently under evaluation, to the wellpublicised SEA Electric venture, which has attracted former Hino executive Bill Gillespie to a top management role, and at the top of the weight scale, the undeniably innovative Janus electric heavy-duty truck.

Following an earlier announcement that it will revolutionise heavy-duty road transport with its patented exchangeable battery system, Janus Electric showcased its prototype model based on a converted Kenworth T403.

With its exchangeable battery packs, Janus principals insist its system removes the need for heavy electric vehicles to stand idle for up to 12 hours waiting for batteries to recharge.

Instead, says Janus, battery packs can be swapped by forklift in a matter of minutes to dramatically enhance vehicle utilisation.

Janus director Lex Forsyth says operator interest in the system is exceptionally strong and, with confidence running high, the company has worked with Kenworth to supply a T610 ‘glider’ for further testing and development.

Typically, perhaps, the Janus system has already drawn an undercurrent of cynics, but this innovative Australian approach to electric truck viability appears to have significant potential.

Two years from now at the next Brisbane Truck Show, we’ll know if the potential is being realised or not.

Even more certain, those brands missing from this year’s event will be clamouring to come back in 2023.

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officer’s assessment of the situation that decides which risk category is applied.

The legal view Sarah Marinovic

OFFENCE DISPUTE

Offence highs and lows What is the HVNL’s ‘risk-based categorisation’ and can you dispute it?

T

HE HEAVY Vehicle National Law (HVNL) uses ‘risk-based categorisation’ for all mass, dimension, loading and fatigue offences. This is a system whereby each offence is divided into different categories based on the potential risk to safety and damage to infrastructure.

There are four categories: • Minor • Substantial • Severe • Critical (which applies to fatigue offences only).

So for example, a driver who works a few extra minutes over their hours might receive a penalty notice for ‘exceed work hours – minor risk’. An operator who allows their truck to be driven many tonnes over the mass limit might be charged with ‘not comply with mass requirement – severe risk’.

Which category a breach falls into can significantly change how it is treated. The HVNL uses the risk categories to: • Decide whether you will need to go to court – usually penalty notices can be issued for lower category offences, whereas the higher category offences can only be prosecuted through court • Set the penalties – for a penalty notice, the amount of the fine depends on the risk-category. If your case goes to court, the maximum penalty that the magistrate can impose is determined by the risk category.

The category also determines the number of demerit points • Signal to the magistrate how serious the offence is – the higher the risk category, the higher the presumption is about how

much risk the breach posed to public safety or infrastructure and the more likely it is that you will receive a bigger fine.

NUMERICAL LIMITS With so much riding on the categorisation, I can understand why drivers and operators are concerned about being placed into too high a category. Recently I’ve had a number of people approach me for advice on whether they can dispute the category.

The scope to successfully dispute a risk category depends on what type of offence you have been charged with. To understand why this is the case, I need to explain how the risk categories are decided.

There is a misconception that deciding the risk category is always up to the discretion of the charging officer. Many people think that the officer assesses how dangerous they think the offence is and chooses a risk category accordingly. For most offences this is not the case.

For fatigue, dimension and mass offences the risk categories are decided entirely by numerical limits. So, for example, whether your dimension offence is a minor risk or severe risk depends entirely on how many millimetres you’re over the limit. Whether your fatigue offence is substantial or severe depends on how many extra hours you worked. There’s no scope for the officer to look at the situation and decide whether they think what you did was a serious risk or not.

The exception to this is loading offences.

For a breach of the loading rules, the risk category depends on whether the load has actually shifted and the extent of the risk it poses to public safety, infrastructure and public amenity. In this case it is the charging

SARAH MARINOVIC is a principal solicitor at Ainsley Law – a firm dedicated to traffic and heavy vehicle law. She has focused on this expertise for over a decade, having started her career prosecuting for the RMS, and then using that experience as a defence lawyer helping professional drivers and truck owners. For more information email Sarah at sarah@ainsleylaw.com.au or phone 0416 224 601

So, where does this leave us? If you have been charged with a loading offence then it can be possible to successfully dispute the risk category. The assessment of whether an incident posed an appreciable risk to public safety, etc. is a judgment call, and people may hold different opinions.

Unfortunately, if you have been charged with a mass, dimension or fatigue offence the scope to dispute the risk category is very limited. It would usually only be possible if the officer has made a miscalculation (e.g. they measure your truck incorrectly, or add up your work hours wrong).

This can be frustrating for people who are charged with a high risk category offence in circumstances where the actual danger caused by the incident is very low.

There are many scenarios where in purely numerical terms a breach falls within the severe or critical risk category, but when the actual circumstances are considered, it’s clear the real risk was low.

In situations like this we rely on magistrates to look at the situation objectively and make sure the penalty is proportionate to what actually happened.

Thankfully, in my experience, this usually happens.

“Higher category offences can only be prosecuted through court.”

Your Transport Manufacturing Specialist 5 Year Structural Chassis Warranty

12-16, Fowler Road, Dandenong South, Victoria 3175

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Email: admin@bte.net.au

Email: scotta@bte.net.au

Ph: (03) 979 40330

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Ph: 0427 502 881

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26/05/2021 2:04:22 PM

brisbane truck show: traliers

ALONG THE TRAILER TRAIL

A truck show has to have trucks. But, trailers are just as important. Australia is home to some of the best and toughest trailer manufacturers in the world.

The Owner//Driver team follows the trailer trail at the Brisbane Truck Show BYRNE’S BIG ON LIVESTOCK Byrne Trailers showcased a diverse line-up at the Brisbane Truck Show (BTS) but the standouts were undoubtedly the livestock trailers, standing tall as the only ones on show. And with good reason.

The company, founded by Mick and Teri Byrne in Peak Hill, NSW, in 1974, has seen solid growth from its small beginnings, where it now claims to hold market leadership in the livestock sector.

Extensive manufacturing facilities were established in Wagga Wagga in 1988, with expansion into Queensland in 1993 via a manufacturing and service depot in Toowoomba.

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Byrne’s capabilities were represented at the show via a B-triple unit that can cart sheep, cattle and pigs alongside a B-double cattle-only unit belonging to Shanahan’s Livestock Transport.

Though not outright new releases, Byrne explains it is seeing success in recent years with these units due to their clever stainless steel design, which delivers the “same strength and ductility as carbon steel but is 250 times more corrosion resistant”, and therefore “rusts 250 times slower”.

“It also makes the trailer a bit lighter and allows you to add a couple more animals on the trailer,” Byrne sales expert Sam Gwynne tells us.

A tri-axle dolly, designed for the livestock task, accompanied its headline units.

Elsewhere, Byrne had a couple of aluminium bulk trailers on display, containing the Keith Manufacturing Walking Floor conveying system, where slats move back and forth in the loading/unloading process.

One of units is ideal for agriculture, while the other, heavier-duty, unit, has been designed for waste and building supplies industries.

INNOVATIVE DRAKE BTS saw some of the latest Drake Group innovations across the Drake Trailers and O’Phee Trailers brands.

The Drake Group show stand highlighted the fact it is still innovating, merging new technology with a century of combined O’Phee and Drake trailer-building know-how.

You’d be hard pressed walking through the show and missing the Drake Group’s gargantuan Steerable Deck Widener.

The latest widener from Drake features its own ‘Active Steer’, allowing for up to an additional 35 degrees of manoeuvrability – the difference between being able to fit or not!

A standout feature on the latest Steerable Deck Widener, and one of the keys to achieving such significant manoeuvrability improvements, is that all axles on the trailer steer, not just the self-tracking on the rear axle.

The system works via a mechanical link and is steered off the skid plate to the turntable, steering the trailer behind the prime mover.

Active Steer also allows the operator to steer the trailer independently using a remote control setup, allowing the trailer to be ‘crabbed’ to achieve more steering angle than you could with the prime mover.

O’Phee Trailers are all about semitrailers and its BTS display was all about showcasing performance-based

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standards (PBS) Super Semi options. The O’Phee Super Semi range includes side loader, flat top, drop deck and skel trailers ranges.

The two on display at the show were the slick flat top and container skel trailers, showing off the new axle group arrangement that allows up to 49.5 tonnes gross in PBS applications.

GRAHAM LUSTY TRAILERS’ PBS OFFERING It may not be all that widely known but Graham Lusty Trailers (GLT), listed as Lusty TIP Trailers Pty Ltd by parent company Teaminvest Private, is a big deal for said parent, which assumed full ownership just a couple of years ago.

After all, GLT “again delivered record operational and earnings improvements in the first half of the year” for TIP’s engineering division, TIP says.

“GLT’s unique designs deserve a substantial premium in the transport market, and their never-ending quest for innovation gives us confidence that their reputation as the ‘Rolls Royce’ of bulk haulage will continue to be enhanced,” it continues.

“Happily, the use of a GLT trailer adds so much to most haulage companies’ bottom line that customers now choose to place orders up to six months in advance just to secure a booking in GLT’s busy Brisbane facility.”

Such innovation was certainly on show, and taking pride of place was a 30-metre A-double combination with a tandem dolly setup for Riordan Grain Services.

Built for Victorian PBS applications, the combination

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comprises two chassis tippers, six-foot-six (1.98m)-high sides with 50-tonne hoists and manual rollover tarps.

“The combination all up can tare a payload of 68 tonne, so you’re getting around a gross weight of 82 to 85 tonne, depending what you put on them,” purchasing officer Grant Platts says.

“Another trailer here for Reardon is a chassis tipper with 6-foot (1.83m)-high sides – it has a blower application in it pumping grain up in the silos for when an auger isn’t available.

“We’ve got quite a few of those and they seem to be a bit of a flavour combination.”

Also featuring was a tri-axle dolly for 30m A-double PBS combinations for New South Wales and Queensland – which can run in conjunction with B-doubles.

Such a B-double unit was also on display, pulled by Magill Transport’s Kenworth prime mover.

“It’s our most common sale – it gives you the versatility of carrying a different range of products in different applications,” Platts says.

ROBUK’S AUTISM AWARENESS A fascinating narrative coming out of the BTS is the emergence of Hemmant-based Robuk Engineering – and its backstory, given its relation to GLT. As operations manager Josh Petersen tells us, BTS was meant to be the company’s big unveiling.

Instead, the 11-month-old fledgling company is already snowed-under with orders.

“It was supposed to be our, ‘hey, we’re here’ moment but our build schedule is out until April next year,” says Petersen.

“If we had them in the backyard we could have sold eight sets this week.”

Petersen describes the company as less than a year old, but with more than 90 years’ experience building trailers.

It’s the brainchild of James Yerbury, interestingly the former managing director of GLT, who, along with Petersen and others in the Robuk team, departed GLT following its takeover.

Petersen is quite bullish on his firm’s trajectory, saying it drew from its experience making trailers at GLT and “made it better”.

“We offer the full range of trailers – anything that carts grain: side tippers, end tippers, tip-overs, sliders, rollbacks, tri-axles, tandem dollies.

“We can also do some pocket road trains, 19-metre B-doubles.”

To this point, the confidence is justified for the expanding Brisbane-based company.

“We started in a small little shed in Gympie and outgrew the shed,” Petersen says.

“The trailers we were building were 34-foot (10.36m) – we had to build a 36-footer (10.97m) and it wouldn’t fit in the shed, so we had to come to Brisbane.

“We were going to do one trailer a month and be sustainable with the small crew we had, but the demand

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Sharman is full of praise for show organiser Heavy Vehicle Industry Australia’s (HVIA’s) steely resolve to make the event a success, despite Covid spot-fires in the lead-up.

“We had full confidence in the HVIA and followed suit,” he said.

“We put the show on and supported them 100 per cent and beyond. We had outside space as well as inside space.

We asked for additional space [early on].

“For us, it was about being there for the industry and for our customers.

“We looked at contingency plans if there was a border closedown, as opposed to not going to the show.”

That included surveying its dealer network and other options to source equipment.

PRIME POSITION FOR MUSCAT

was ridiculous as soon as anyone found out what we were doing.

“They all wanted trailers from us and our production schedule is out nearly 12 months.”

On show were customer Duggan Bulk Haulage’s two identical dangerous goods-specified 32-foot (9.75m) lightweight aluminium tippers with six-foot-six sides, taring in at 6.6 tonnes, along with a tri-axle dolly.

In a nice touch, Duggan’s livery puts autism awareness in the spotlight.

“John Duggan is a big advocate for autism awareness,” Petersen says.

“He said to me: ‘That is the only thing that matters about it, I couldn’t give a shit if they didn’t work.’

“Obviously we care if they didn’t work, but yeah, we’re very proud to display it.”

HAMMAR FLIES SWEDISH FLAG Hammar is the Swedish container transport specialist with a burgeoning Australian presence – in fact, it claims to produce over half of all new sideloaders to hit the road here.

While its headquarters, manufacturing, development and testing are based in Olsfors, since Bengt-Olof Hammar designed his first sideloader in 1974 his company has expanded to eight worldwide locations, including Australia, and has provided its products to more than 115 countries.

As Australian general manager Grahame Heap tells us, bluntly: “You can’t be the best if you don’t focus on one thing.”

Thus, Hammar’s Australian business was displaying one such thing – its latest PBS offering, the split-tri PBS, allowing 30-plus tonnes payload on the road.

Heap notes the new concept’s axle groupings allow for a PBS combination with higher payloads, which will appeal to the wharf cartage sector.

“This combination is already up and running in Queensland and is able to carry higher mass without impacting infrastructure,” the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR) notes in its own BTS walkaround.

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The key to Hammar’s offering down under, Heap adds, is a high-grade steel brought in from Sweden, with frames manufactured there but assembled in Australia, and some chassis manufactured here too.

“You can take a main product and tweak it to suit the country you are in,” he says on the local focus on quality.

He also emphasises the brand’s dedicated local support network.

“If something goes wrong for an operator we are never down for long.”

MAXITRANS BIG CELEBRATION MaxiTrans is a staunch BTS supporter, invested fully in the belief of its wider importance for the industry.

Of course, the show coincided with celebration of the group’s Freighter brand notching up 75 years – just another indication of the extraordinary staying power of the nation’s peerless trailer-making sector.

“Fortunately for us, we had a customer function where we saw in excess of 300 people attend and celebrate with us and former staff members. And we had customers from all across the country, which was fantastic, and a couple from New Zealand,” NSW sales manager Glen Sharman says of an event the company sees as an acute indication of customer regard for the make.

With so many of its makes and models on display, he was loath to highlight particular items but felt a comparison of old and new was compelling.

“If there was a highlight, it was showing the old strap trailer that we had up high,” Sharman says.

“Show attendees had the opportunity to see what a trailer looked like in the 1950s, how it was and how it differed to now.

“We had it on a current trailer, a current drop-deck, and that allowed people to walk underneath to see the quality of the finish and build of the Freighter products.”

Otherwise, he did note a “safety mezz deck on a Freighter drop deck, new model suspension on the Boral Azmeb, and the new diesel-electric fridge on the MultiQuip Maxi-Cube”.

No stranger to awards and recognition of high achievement, Muscat Trailers was keen to make the most of its BTS opportunity and spruik its offerings’ productivity and safety accomplishments.

“Because business is now more focused on safety, we are focusing on non-tip solutions,” Muscat Trailers CEO Troy Azzopardi, bullish about his firm’s ability to punch above its weight, said.

“This is a PBS quad that with the right prime mover can give the operator 32.5 tonne payload.

“We’ve worked in the non-tip market now for five years. We are a leader in non-tip solutions. Other manufacturers are sitting on the fence to see how the industry evolves. But I feel that’s not a plan.”

Certainly, Azzopardi feels Muscat was in a rare and very forward position, both in the Show and more broadly.

“When you look at the next 10 years, things will certainly evolve but we’re five years into it and about to release a second live floor.”

The top half is manufactured in the US but Muscat has been working with the manufacturer to ‘Australian-ise’ that section.

“The next version of this will be better again and more suited for our roads and our conditions.”

As a smaller manufacturer, the company was conservative in its presence but happy to gain a strategic position on main floor.

While Azzopardi was critical of a few much larger firms with bigger budget withdrawing, it did allow operations like his to shine. And he was one of a number who welcomed federal support for exhibitions and exhibitors, despite the time entangles in attendant red tape.

And while he believes the attendance was fair under the circumstances, he reckons organiser HVIA will “have its hands full” fitting everyone in during the next show.

Muscat Trailers CEO Troy Azzopardi

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brisbane truck show: parts & accessories

AFTERMARKET EXTRAVAGANZA

Parts and accessories stands were spread across three floors at the Brisbane Truck Show. Here’s a snapshot of some of the standouts Garrett Motion Australia GM Paul Carlsson

GARRETT’S LIGHT DUTY CREDENTIALS Garrett Motion Australia GM Paul Carlsson highlights the many ways to gain from the BTS. The local arm of the global US firm that helped boost engine output through turbochargers, Garrett had a range of both heavy and light machinery options, including those for trucks.

But, as Carlsson notes, fleet owners and their managers are also performance and leisure machine fans.

Thus the Garrett stand accommodated both.

Whereas Garrett used to do heavier-duty truck turbos, it is now more focused on fitting lighter rigids, such as Isuzu, Hino and Fuso.

“In most cases, you’ll get guys come up and say ‘I don’t have your turbocharger in my truck but, I’ve got a twinturbo ski-boat that I want to do up – and that’s why we have the performance stuff here,” Carlsson says, noting that they might also have company utes or private performance cars as part of their lives.

They can be “truck drivers, fleet owners, managers that are successful as far as their work-life goes” who may have little opportunity otherwise to see the performance range, which, interestingly, is where the most BTS enquiries are focused.

Carlsson’s 2021 is chequered with similar events planned at least as far back as before November.

He insists there was little concern about the BTS going ahead.

And the value of it and other such events is broad. ”It’s a way of getting in front of the customers out there – the end-users, the installers – and talking to them – it works well,” he says, not to mention the opportunity for education and advice nights

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Garrett can provide to the likes of diesel mechanics.

Carlsson estimates that perhaps half of turbo problems can be put down to device failure and the rest are entirely fixable, saving replacement cash.

“It could be an oil drain line that’s blocked [meaning] that oil’s got to go somewhere so it goes through the seal,” he says.

“Fix the drain line and the oil can drain away again and it’s not pressurising the internal part of the turbo charger and the oil stops.

“Or, the opposite. They think it’s the turbocharger, they replace the turbocharger and the leak’s still there.

“It’s what I call ‘diagnostics by replacement’ – it’s very expensive. It’s not a good thing to do.”

Carlsson insists developments come constantly, reducing device size while increasing power, at a ratio of 15-20 per cent a time and informed by Formula 1 turbo technology.

And it wouldn’t be the 2020s without an electric aspect here too.

“This year we are launching with AMG the world’s first mass-produced e-turbo vehicle,” he says.

“It’s like a normal turbo-charger but in the centre of it, instead of having the bearing where the oil and water goes into it for cooling, it has an electric motor as well.

“Through the rpm range, from the 800rpm at idle to 1,500 to 2,000, the electric motor does the work.

“As soon as it’s going fast enough that the exhaust gas takes over, the normal turbocharger kicks in. And then, when it goes past that point, it then reverts the electric motor to an alternator and the power goes back into the battery.

“So, what that gives you, via ECU control, is infinite power whenever you want.”

The e-turbo move to from performance use to heavy vehicles is seen as only a matter of time.

HELLA’S SHINES WITH DURALED RANGE Hella Australia’s stand lit up the surrounds with its array of heavy commercial lights, lamps and other electrical accessories.

The company promotes a ‘fit and forget’ mantra for fleet owners with maintenance-free lighting solutions – particularly its DuraLED range of signal, marker, heavy duty and combination lamps that comes with a lifetime warranty.

The company notes the DuraLED collection is tried and tested over two decades, hence its confidence in the range.

Further offerings include its Grilamid lenses that provide UV and chemical resistance to avoid fading and embrittling, Jumbo-S Series signal lamps, Rallye 4000 driving lamps, and wider catalogue of warning beacons, safety daylights, light bars and work lamps.

Hella specialist Kevin Betty notes an innovative product development involves forklift-mounted bar lights that shine a ‘guided’ area around the vehicle, providing a safety zone for others to keep clear of.

He also emphasises the importance of Australian Design Rule (ADR)-spec lights as non-compliant products that are not optimised for human eyes can contribute to an accident and lead to later legal headaches for the user.

In an interesting sidebar, suzi coils have been a recent

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Some two decades in the planning, these are to be aimed at battery electric (BEVs), plug-in hybrid electric (PHEV) hydrogen fuel cell hybrid and compressed natural gas hybrid electric vehicles.

This time around trailer and line-haul axles took centre stage, with aftermarket parts acting as a chorus led by its red drums.

“This is a product we’ve had for a while but it’s a new version without a pump,” product and marketing manager Adam Carroll says.

“It’s basically a high-efficiency version for linehaul work.

“The trailer axle is the main focus for us because we’ve not done that before. It’s available in North America but it’s not been available here.”

The key to getting traction with it is fleet attraction.

“What we’re looking for are partners, so fleets that are interested to trial. We have one fleet that has it on trial at the moment,” Carroll says.

“We need the fleets to have it on trial, then we need the trailer-makers interested as well.”

Carroll admits that uncertainty was an issue his side had to deal with pre-show.

“We ‘um’ed and ‘ah’ed quite a bit and also about the numbers and whether it was worth bringing everybody up here with lockdowns . . . but ultimately we decided to go to the show,” he says, adding that it was worth doing even if his mob was somewhat overstaffed.

“Because it’s a networking thing as well.”

SUPERCHROME’S FINE FINISH point of conjecture in the industry and Hella sees its heavy-duty trailer connectors as future-relevant.

“It’s a changing scene for manufacturers – the old common metal one no longer be allowed to fit at manufacturing level.

“Six months away this will be the standard – you’ll have no choice.”

LOADMAN AIMS HIGH On-board weighing is growing in importance as road access arrangements increasingly require availability of mass data collected through Smart on-board mass (OBM) systems.

In one example, by late 2021, Victoria’s higher-mass limits access system will require vehicles to be fitted with Smart OBM. Hence, scale system distributor Loadmass Australia was spotlighting its credentials at the BTS. It notes it was the first supplier to be Category-A type-approved by transport technology assurance organisation Transport Certification Australia (TCA), and, importantly now boasts two brands, Loadman and Airtec, type-approved for Category B higher mass applications.

Those seeking higher mass limits access are offered scale systems digitally connected to Smart OBM systems, allowing not only the recording of the load, but other safety and regulatory information

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for compliance purposes, Loadmass notes.

At the other end of the spectrum, the BTS saw a release of Loadmass’s light commercial range – its LMA Series 3030 sensor, developed in Australia for utilities and vans.

Loadmass director Ralph Rossteuscher explains its air bag or spring systems can accommodate the full range of rigid trucks and commercial vehicles.

“Air bag system measures movement in the air pressure in the air bags of the suspension, so, as the truck gets a load on it, the air bags compensate and pump up and we measure the pressure in the airline.

“In the spring suspension one, we measure the movement in the suspension – it will display an overload situation when it happens.”

Similarly, for heavier-duty applications, “we measure the air pressure in air lines through a transducer which sends a signal back to a converter.”

MERITOR LOOKS TO BLUE HORIZON Helpfully placed diagonally opposite SEA Electric’s space, it was by happy coincidence that axle provider Meritor’s flagging of its Blue Horizon EV option came as the show put on its most electric face yet.

Meritor was able to explain to visitors curious and fascinated by the EV impact there that Blue Horizon would be coming the Australian market’s way soon, in 12Xe, 14Xe and 17Xe e-powertrains capable of 180kW and 250kW, 250kW, and up to 450kW ratings respectively.

Sydney-based Superchrome has been in the wheel chroming business for 25-years with the last 20 of those years offering a chromed alloy wheel to the industry and owner drivers alike.

“We are the only ones in Australia who chrome alloy rims,” says Superchrome general manager Greg Druitt.

“We have a special way we do the chroming and we offer a seven-year warranty.”

The appeal of Superchrome’s seven-year warranty and the low maintenance aspect are some of the reasons why people are choosing to go with a chromed alloy over the standard wheel, according to Druitt.

“The main complaint we hear all the time is people are sick of polishing,” Druitt says.

“The work of polishing an alloy wheel for an hour and you can’t get between the nuts etc. and with our wheels all you do is give them wash with a soapy brush and a pressure washer and away you go.”

But it’s not just all for aesthetics with Druitt noting the protective nature of chrome on an alloy wheel.

“One of the big advantages of chrome on an alloy wheel is that alloy is soft and chroming puts a hard coasting on it so all the little stones that hit alloy wheels and leave marks that need to be polished out, that and the continual need to polish alloy wheels to keep them looking good, make our chromed alloy a good choice.

“We’ve always used Alcoa but now Armoury out of Taiwan have a very good well with good finish to chrome so we have them at the Truck Show. We only do the two

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brands because we know these are really good quality so that’s all we use,” says Druitt.

The Brisbane Truck Show has also given Superchrome a chance to come and interact with its customers and meet people who may not have heard of the company before.

“Our wheels are not cheap, but they last. We’ve got guys coming up to us here at the show with wheels that are 15-years-old and still going and quite often they sell their truck, keep the wheels and put them on their next truck,” Druitt says.

As with many industries the global pandemic has affected Superchrome.

“Originally, with Covid, things slowed things down, but in the last 10 months we’ve had all time record months in sales and we currently going through our third upgrade to our production facility,” says Druitt.

“It just keeps getting bigger and bigger because most guys when they buy a new truck they don’t go back to alloy wheels. You just can’t beat chrome for a great shine,” says Druitt.

BETTER SHOE FROM TRU-SHU Adelaide-based company Tru-Shu say it has made a ‘better mouse trap’ with its innovative brake shoe and drum design for S-cam braking systems based on the firm’s years of maintaining trucks and trailers teamed with the availability of supply chain manufacturers left behind from Holden’s departure from the Adelaide manufacturing landscape.

“I’m a transport operator and in my journey, I guess we’ve had to put up with a lot of not-very-well-made parts,” says Tru-Shu managing director Ken Pitt.

“The S-cam brake drum overall is quite good but it had some failings; the brake shoes would walk out the side of the drums, especially in rough conditions. So I had a good look at the system and we came up with a way to stop shoes coming out. We trialled it and it worked well so we started manufacturing.”

But it wasn’t enough to just make a better shoe. From years of pulling braking systems apart for maintenance and repair, Pitt wanted to make it easier to repair and maintain as well as more effective.

“When 10-stud rims started coming in it seemed stupid to pull the hubs off just to do brake maintenance so we’ve made our brake shoe with an extra hole in it to put a cable or a zip-tie through to pull the return spring up and put a clip in to hold everything in place so now we don’t have to pull hubs off to replace brake shoes,” Pitt says.

Along with the hole to access the return spring, the system relies on no backing plate as well with a drum with various holes and slots to release braking gasses, dust and general debris, which can cause overheating and pose a potential fire

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risk in a traditional trailer braking system.

“We’re not running backing plates, we aren’t trying to hide anything, we want to do our maintenance and we want to look in there,” Pitt says.

“We’ve perforated the drum with different sized holes to help clear the drum of rubbish and dust and things like that.

“Our trailer axles we’re making actually use drive hubs, bearings and seals. We’ve made a collar to go over the drive hub so we run two wheel seals because we want to run oil rather than grease as a lubricant because it does a better job. Now we are starting to build our own suspension which is based being easy to maintain, being very stable, so one thing is leading to another,” says Pitt.

“We fell like we’ve got the drum brake working as good as it can. We’ve got it to a stage where the maintenance and performance and cost saving from having something work really well is there. We think we’ve helped out a fair bit.”

Pitt says his company runs around 30 trucks and 45 trailers moving machinery around Australia and has trialled their braking system over 100,000km with good results so far.

With plans to sell the shoes on a return basis and an eye toward engineering better suspension and

axle components, Pitt is optimistic about the future of the company especially with the support of local manufacturers.

DOUBLE THE RANGE WITH TYREMAX Independently owned and operated tyre wholesaler TyreMax had an impressive array on show, with a particular focus on its Maxxis and Continental commercial vehicle tyre ranges.

First cabs off the rank were the Maxxis steer and allposition tyres, which TyreMax notes is the perfect midrange offering for regional and long-haul highway applications.

“We’ve developed a new steer tyre, which we have tested at length in Australia and have found better results than both the Michelin and Bridgestone,” says TyreMax technical product specialist Neil Jonsson.

“It was only a smallish test but it was a really promising result so we’re bringing that out in bulk from about June onwards and hoping for a good result and good sales.”

Vital to Maxxis’ product development is its proving ground in Kunshan near Shanghai, one of only a select few privately-owned in China, notes TyreMax product manager Jeff Moorhead.

The US$150 million rigorous testing operation, which took several years to plan and construct, opened in 2012 and is the basis for the company’s evolving tyre technology.

Meanwhile, Continental’s research and development department has devised a range of Conti CrossTrac tyres, which “lead the way for a new generation of onand off-road truck tyres”, the company notes.

The story of Continental’s heavy-duty range is characterised by a “dedication” to the Australian market, with Jonsson noting, pre-COVID, engineers would regularly fly out from Germany to Australia to check test tyres and examine how they wear here, what influences that wear, and much more.

“It’s a massive investment in a market that isn’t huge globally, but because it’s such a difficult market to make tyres for, their ideology is if you can make tyres for the difficult market … that can come together to build better tyres for the world.”

Another recent development for Continental sees it team up with Pacific Telematics to offer a digital transport monitoring system.

The new ContiPressureCheck system, launched at the show, uses sensors fitted inside each tyre to provide drivers with real-time information on the tyre status.

The continuous, automatic tyre pressure monitoring system is designed to reduce overall operating costs and results in lower fuel consumption, reduced risk of tyre-related breakdowns and extended tyre life.

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INNOVATIVE EXHIBITORS The Brisbane Truck Show’s technology and innovation centre showcased the latest and greatest ways to digitally enhance many facets of one’s business – from fleet, job and repair management software to thermal imaging and remote controlling Pete Hellemons (left) and his son Drew from Avantgarde Distribution

KEEPING TRACK WITH SENSIUM Sensium is a Brisbane-based vehicle telemetry and fleet tracking firm whose point of difference is its local focus.

As CEO Jeremy McLean tells us, its designs and manufacture all its hardware – its platforms, developments, firmware, communications protocols, end-to-end, are all its own, and “very few others are doing that, so it’s unique”.

Another selling point is that the product suits the majority of companies – it’s web-based, not over the top, and claims to provide the highest resolution and quality data in the industry.

Starting with trades and moved into transport industry, registered as a provider for TCA schemes – for example, on show it was demonstrating how the system integrates with other products like Airtec on-board mass.

AVANTGARDE’S EASTERN EXCURSION It is a long way from Perth to Brisbane, so the appearance of FLIR Thermal Imaging provider Avantgarde Distribution at the show was welcome.

Avantgarde’s Pete Hellemons gain more of a public profile four years ago when the safety technology was making a splash and he says the desire to be at the BTS has been around since then. The trouble being how to successfully find an opening.

As with other exhibitors, this year saw that opportunity open up.

“We’ve had this business going for nearly 10 years now and we’ve been getting pretty big in the west but we wanted to diversify, so we thought ‘we’ve got to come over to Brisbane’.

“Had wanted to come here for a couple of years but getting into the show has not been easy.”

So, with some exhibitors forced to withdraw due to pandemic disruption, he was never going to let the opportunity slide.

“We’re just hoping we get an invitation to come back in 2023 – that’s the plan.”

Hellemons was buoyed at the opportunity to get in front of eastern-state faces, in the same way he did early on in WA, saying he gained serious interest even on the show’s last day.

After all, there is at least as much need in the east to know, at night when the sun in low on the horizon, what might be about to damage crucial expensive trucks when seeing danger is difficult.

The other opportunity the show provides is networking and Hellemon found that particularly valuable, providing “as much, if not more” interest than interaction with visitors.

“We are keen to integrate our products,” he says “Telematics organisations here have shown a lot of interest in our products. Trucks already have a lot of cameras on them these days and they are recording that footage into their DVR unit, so it makes sense to have this as a bolt-on item and then marry that information.

“So you’re putting that image on the dashboard for your operator to see but why not feed that into the recorder so that, if an event does happen, you can see what occurred and what the driver could see before it happened.”

ONE STOP IBODYSHOP

iBodyshop offers a one-stop maintenance suite for smash repairers and workshops.

Director Stephen O’Brien notes that, unlike desktop packages that traditionally need two or three pieces of software for the whole task, iBodyshop’s system is cloud-based and integrated within one package, making it faster and smarter.

This allows a repairer to write a quote, manage a job, lodge with insurance, do labels, time recording and accounting all in the one place, making the product popular with large truck and smash-repair groups.

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VWORK ON SCHEDULE

VWork is an electronic job scheduling and dispatch software package for any transport operation.

It claims to reduce paperwork processes, increase responsiveness to customers through automated electronic notifications for proof of service or impending arrival of drivers, bill more accurately for time or distance travelled and reduces the need to chase drivers for paperwork.

Business development manager Paul Blackwell says the software is easier to deploy as it’s up and running in matter of weeks and is adaptable to different types of operations – courier, linehaul, spare sparts, etc. – and configured for individual business.

Plus it’s free for 12-months – the longest trial period on the market, more than enough for an operator to become accustomed to the tech.

TIGER SPIDER’S 3D VIEW

Tiger Spider is a transport engineering and software consultancy for heavy commercial and performance-based standards (PBS) vehicles.

Managing director Marcus Coleman runs through its suite of services, including PBS design and approval work, testing, certification and compliance tasks for truck and trailer manufacturers, transport companies, road and traffic managers and engineers.

Hevi Spec is the firm’s flagship product: software for truck and trailer design.

It incorporates any vehicle combinations, taking into consideration weight distribution, payload optimisation, PBS assessment and more. It presents a 2D vision with 3D model in the backend.

Another key product, Spider Path, provides ‘swept path’ diagrams of vehicles, meaning it can build any vehicle configuration and check if it fits over satellite image map – critical for access assessments.

FUTURE FLEET’S ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Future Fleet is an Australian telematics provider specialising in internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI) powered, satellite and 4G/5G asset and fleet tracking solutions.

General manager Richard Saad says the company’s three pillars are efficiency, compliance and safety.

One of its highlights is Australia’s first IoT direct-to-orbit tracker developed in conjunction with satellite connectivity firm Myriota, a fellow Australian company.

It also offers an AI-driven front-facing and road-facing camera that warns of distraction or fatigue, electronic work diaries (EWDs), solar and non-solar asset trackers.

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SCANRECO’S REMOTE SOLUTION

Hace Industries is the distributor of wireless industrial control products from Swedish firm Scanreco. In a nutshell, it’s like playing with remote controlled vehicles to the real world.

From pocket remotes to whole consoles complete with joysticks and screens, Scanreco is able to reduce the risk of human involvement in hazardous applications.

Its systems are suitable for materials handling, mining, agriculture, transport, and shipping equipment such as cranes, winches, concrete pumps, tilt slides, forklifts and others.

Pertinent to trucking, Hace manager Niall Field points to Scanreco’s capability to remote control a truck – stop and start an engine, command steering and drive, activate brakes and lights, and more.

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brisbane truck show

SNAPSHOTS OF

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BRISBANE

The Brisbane Truck Show burst its boundaries in May, extending beyond the traditional event to encompass Heavy Vehicle Industry Week.

And, as this pictorial shows, the event brought out many of the personalities associated within and outside the industry PHOTOS BY WARREN AITKEN, GREG BUSH AND BEN DILLON

Top, L to R: Waiting game: The crowds gather outside the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre; HVIA president John Drake, NTI CEO Tony Clark and HVIA CEO Todd Hacking officially opening the 2021 Brisbane Truck Show on May 13 Above, L to R: Owner//Driver columnist Ken Wilkie takes a day off from longhaul to catch up with his daughter-inlaw Michelle Wilkie, a member of the Heritage Truck Association. (See our feature on the heritage truck display in Owner//Driver’s July edition.); This 10 Swedish Kronor coin was found at the Brisbane Truck Show. Any takers?

Left: The big rigs made their presence felt among the wining and dining scene at Brisbane’s Southbank Opposite bottom, L to R: It was standing room only on the foyer level at the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre during the Brisbane Truck Show; The girls from Rocklea Truck Electrical were happy to pose in front of the company’s Kenworth

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Above: Country star Sinead Burgess was at the show to promote the RACQ’s LifeFlight Rescue helicopter service on the Rhino Trailers stand. Back in January 2020 Sinead was the co-host of Tamworth’s Golden Guitar awards concert Above left: Glen ‘Yogi’ Kendall (left) caught up with Simon Keogh of Keogh Transport who looked as pleased as punch that his new Western Star 4900 with Stratosphere sleeper was on display at the show Far left & left: NHVR CEO Sal Petroccitto took time out at the Brisbane Truck Show to approve a new electronic work diary option – Quallogi by Kynection – for heavy vehicle drivers, watched on by John Tsoucalas from Quallogi; Lawyer Adam Cockayne and veteran truck driver and practising paralegal Robert Bell came to Brisbane to gauge feedback for their new Highway Advocates legal service Bottom, L to R: Strongman Troy ConleyMagnusson successfully pushing a Freightliner Cascadia at the South Bank Truck Festival during the show. His effort earned him a Guinness World Record as well as raising money for charity; Leonnie Carter, co-founder of Carter Heavy Haulage, popped in for a visit at the Owner//Driver stand. Leonnie is also co-organiser of the annual Newcastle and Hunter Region’s Road Safety Awareness Day

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Top: The National Apprentice Challenge kept the Southbank Piazza audience enthralled. Southern Region (Luke Kneebone and Samual Allan) came out on top in the final. Photo courtesy HVIA Above left: The National Road Freighters Association stand attracted plenty of interest at the show: From left, national secretary Glyn Castanelli, driver’s advocate and VP Trevor Warner, NHVAS auditor Mark Reynolds, and NRFA president Rod Hannifey Above: Kenworth was a popular brand for night revellers at the the Southbank Truck Festival Left: Paccar Australia managing director Andrew Hadjikakou and Naomi Frauenfelder, CEO of Healthy Heads in Trucks & Sheds with the new DAF LF260. The customised vehicle was used for free ‘Truckie Tune Ups’ at the show

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trucking heritage

MUTUAL MILESTONES T Paccar Australia has celebrated 50 years of truck manufacturing at its Bayswater (Vic) headquarters but, notching an even bigger milestone, it has now been 75 years since two Army mates formed a company called Brown & Hurley.

Today, of course, the two companies are synonymous with success. Steve Brooks writes

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HE FIRST HALF of 2021 has certainly been a memorable time for Paccar Australia and its leading dealer group, Brown & Hurley.

For Paccar, it’s now 50 years since a K125 cabover affectionately known as the ‘Grey Ghost’ became the first Kenworth truck to roll off the Bayswater (Vic) production line.

For Brown & Hurley, this year notches 75 years since the fateful day in 1946 when Alan Brown and Jack Hurley cobbled together their Army discharge pay to create a company bearing their surnames.

It was, however, in 1964 that Paccar and Brown & Hurley forged the first bonds that would glue the companies so intrinsically together. After all, that was the year Brown & Hurley became Australia’s first Kenworth distributor and, soon after, sold its first Kenworth, a W923 model, to Doug Wyton of Toowoomba.

Two years later, Paccar principals in the US announced that Kenworth trucks would be assembled in Australia from completely knocked-down kits but it wasn’t until 1969 that a big block of land at Bayswater, back then a largely rural suburb on Melbourne’s outer rim, was bought to build a factory to actually manufacture trucks in Australia. It was a boldly optimistic and exceedingly fortuitous decision.

In half a century of truck making, Paccar Australia has produced more than 70,000 trucks and around 30 per cent of them have been sold through the Brown & Hurley Group. The 70,000th truck was, in fact, a T659 specifically ordered by Brown & Hurley as a commemorative unit for its 75th anniversary.

Celebrating its 50 years of truck manufacturing with a high-profile event at the Bayswater plant attended by federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg and a number of government ministers and industry leaders, Paccar

Australia chief Andrew Hadjikakou emphasised the critical contribution of past and present employees in securing the company’s success over such a long, and sometimes demanding, period.

“Today, the workforce behind each truck is measured in the thousands. An extended family of exceptional employees, dealers and suppliers that span the nation,” Hadjikakou enthused in a statement.

“The desire to build the world’s best trucks still inspires and unites us.”

Critically, the statement also cited Kenworth’s success despite “the removal of import tariffs, soaring fuel costs, economic downturns, global recessions, dimensional changes, emissions reductions and, most recently, a pandemic demanding changes to the production line to

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“He’s sold more trucks on his own than some brands have sold altogether.”

protect the workforce and maintain supply of trucks to the essential transport industry”.

As Hadjikakou commented: “2020 showed how important Australian manufacturing is to this country.”

Likewise, a determined Hadjikakou didn’t miss any opportunity to make the same point as he led Frydenberg and his political allies on a tour of the Bayswater plant. By any measure, it was a polished and highly professional performance by the Paccar Australia chief.

Equally, it wasn’t lost on a few guests that while all Australians have despaired at the widely publicised decimation of the country’s car making industry, the truck manufacturing sector has quietly continued to remain buoyant, productive and a significant employer, despite ongoing corporate pressure to remain economically viable in a demanding, low volume market.

Farewell and funny business Among several honoured guests at the 50th anniversary event were Manny Melkonian and the elder statesman of Brown & Hurley these days, Jim Hurley.

It was a deserving tribute for Manny in particular, announcing his retirement after a truly stellar career with Paccar Australia spanning more than 50 years. Indeed, Manny was selling Kenworths before the Bayswater plant produced its first truck.

Something of a quiet achiever and now close to his 81st birthday, Manny is the quintessential master salesman whose loyalty, knowledge and contacts seem to know no bounds within the Paccar fold, and whose passion and commitment to the product and its customers have seen him accrue more than 3,000 sales. As one wit remarked: “He’s sold more trucks on his own than some brands have sold altogether.” True!

On the other hand, Jim has been retired for a number of years and, with a business card which describes him simply as a ‘roving ambassador’ for the Brown & Hurley Group, he bears many of his father, Jack’s, traits, not least a dry wit and laconic sense of humour.

The choice of a T659 model as the 70,000th truck was, as Jim put it: “Because it’s a real workhorse.” As for the truck’s notable absence from the event, held up by floods around Moree, an unfazed Jim said simply: “Well, it just goes to show, Nature has the final say.”

But with so much history to draw upon, it was Jim’s delivery of an anecdote from the formative years of Alan and Jack that had many people captivated and laughing. A few, however, appeared exceedingly relieved that prime minister Scott Morrison – then being hammered far and wide for his poor handling of genderrelated issues as well as a very seedy act of self-gratification by a parliamentary staff member – had belatedly flick-passed the Paccar event to Frydenberg.

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Just as well, because Jim’s story went something like this: in the very early days of the business, and as was their occasional want, Alan and Jack would adjourn to a local pub to discuss things, with Jack’s wife, Thelma, or Alan’s wife, Lil, invariably left to look after the office at the company’s Kyogle base in far northern NSW. One day, Jack was proudly telling a mutual acquaintance how he’d sold various pieces of equipment and how well he was going. Listening to Jack’s high opinion of his sales success, Alan soon reminded him that the business – with Jack doing the selling and Alan looking after service – was in fact a partnership in every way and everything they did, they were equally responsible for.

Suitably chastened, Jack agreed.

“Yep, you’re right mate. We share responsibility for everything.”

A few days passed. Alan strolled past and Jack asked him into his office.

“Mate, you know how you said we share responsibility for everything?” Jack asked.

“Yeah,” Alan replied.

“Well, we’ve just got the office girl pregnant.”

While the assembled audience cracked with laughter, on stage it was a toss-up who squirmed the most, Frydenberg or Hadjikakou.

As for how ‘Scotty from Marketing’ would’ve coped … well, we’ll never know, but it would’ve been priceless to watch.

Opposite top: Grey Ghost. Fifty years ago, the K125 cab-over was the first truck fully built on Paccar’s Bayswater production line Opposite below: Making a point.

Paccar Australia chief Andrew Hadjikakou gets the ear of a thoughtful federal treasurer, Josh Frydenberg Top, L to R: Half a century later, Brown & Hurley’s 75th anniversary T659 becomes the 70,000th truck to roll out of the Paccar Australia factory; Master salesman Manny (Manuel) Melkonian. Set to retire after more than 50 years, the Paccar stalwart has sold more than 3,000 trucks in a long and dedicated career Above: Brown & Hurley roving ambassador, Jim (JJ) Hurley. The artwork on the 75th anniversary T659 captures the early days of company founders Alan Brown and Jack Hurley

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truck of the month

PICTURE PERFECT

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Gavin Sutton discovered a retired classic Mack Super-Liner, refurbishing it with a view to taking it around the truck show circuit. But this ’89 bulldog scrubbed up so well that it quickly wound up back in the workforce. Warren Aitken writes

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“He replied, ‘it’s for sale’ so I grabbed my wallet and said ‘how much?’”

Top: Rewiring led to an all new dash, with new upholstery as well Above: The old Super-Liner led a pretty hard life as a tow truck Right: Gavin Sutton’s life-long dream was to own a classic Mack SuperLiner Opposite top: Back to work: the Super-Liner’s truck show career has been put on hold

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E

VERYONE’S HEARD the old adage, ‘a picture paints 1,000 words’. Right? Well, as a journalist I supply the picture as well as 1,000 words to go with it. Some of it is an attempt to be informative, some of it is an attempt to be entertaining, but most of it is just to get paid. Every now and then I get to photograph some trucks where there is no number of words that will ever entertain as much as the photos of aforementioned trucks. Like Gavin Sutton’s Super-Liner for example. A photo of this Mack is worth more than 1,000 words, easily.

Gavin runs GST transport, based out of Australia’s home of country music, Tamworth. He’s got a fleet of trucks covering all corners of the country and there is a story to tell there as well, but that’s for another day. Right now we are focusing on the ‘right place right time’ situation that resulted in Gavin fulfilling a lifelong desire to own a classic Mack Super-Liner.

Believe it or not, the 1989 Super-Liner was an unwanted child. It ended up in the hands of Don McQueen and the McQueen family after the original order got cancelled. The keen-eyed observer will pick up on the non-factory sleeper box that Don had fitted to the day cab-specced truck. With Don behind the wheel, the truck was a regular on the Newell raceway back in the infamous early ’90s.

“It’s still good for near 100mph [161km/h],” Gavin confesses, though I’m sure this is a qualified estimate based purely on the long diffs and some fine calculations, not from testing it out. The Mack spent five years running up and down the coast. Word has it the truck used to haul for Comet out of Melbourne, up to Brisbane and then race off and grab a load of bananas back to Sydney. Painted up in an olive green with yellow blue and silver stripes, and adjourned with plenty of scrollwork, the Super-Liner was the epitome of cool from day one.

After five years it was apparently sold to Keysseckers in Mudgee, where it was used to cart explosives. Think of the irony in that – a big banger carting big bangs (it doesn’t take much to amuse me). The Mack spent another five years doing explosive work, but sadly the rules and regulations for that work stipulated that no trucks older than 10 years were acceptable. Again, the truck went up for sale.

That’s how the truck ended up in Gavin’s neck of the woods, though still a fair while before he would get it. It was bought by John Dunn Towing in Tamworth, the chassis was shortened to fit some heavy towing gear on the back, then a nice new paint job and it became one of NSW’s coolest tow trucks.

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Retirement ready After five years of Hume racing and five years of explosive adventures, the big Mack settled down to nearly two full decades of playing recovery vehicle. In that time, John wore the factory E9 out and had it replaced with a new one. Even with the old motor I’m pretty sure it would not have been beaten to many recovery jobs by anything other than the local cops.

In early 2017, John retired the 28-year-old truck and replaced it with a new Iveco. It was here that a chance encounter brightened up both Gavin’s day and the bulldog’s future.

“I happened to stumble along John one Saturday morning doing a recovery,” Gavin recalls. “I said: ‘What are you doing with the old girl?’. He replied: ‘It’s for sale,’ so I grabbed my wallet and said: ‘How much?’”

Impulse shopping is never really a great idea, but restoring an old Super-Liner, driving an old Super-Liner, owning an old Super-Liner, well, all that trumps common sense and Gavin walked away that Saturday with his very own Mack Super-Liner.

According to the thousands of photos on Gavin’s phone it was February 2017 when he picked the truck up, drove it straight to the yard, stirred up some dust and no doubt let off a few smoke signals before parking it in the workshop, where he and the team began the tear down.

The truck obviously had the towing gear already removed, meaning Gavin, along with a lot of help from Daniel ‘Boon’ Dowe, was left to pull the rest of the truck to pieces. Cab and bonnet were removed and all the tanks; in fact, everything was removed. The cab and chassis were all blazed, primed and resprayed by Boon.

Before the respray the truck was lengthened back out to its original specs by the team at Alan Fisher Fabrications. Once it had been tidied up by Boon, with a little help from Gavin, they put the truck back to a basic point and sent it back off to AK

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Fabrications to get a lot of the more specialised repairs done.

All-new deck plating needed to be built and all-new brackets were built for the tank steps as, at some stage during its lifetime, someone had replaced them after some damage. A new turntable was also fitted.

Not so smooth The fuel tanks themselves were about as smooth as the Bruce Highway, so, rather than try and repair them, Gavin actually threw them in the back of the ute and headed to Rob and the boys at RC Metalcraft to get them wrapped.

“They didn’t have a stencil for these type of tanks” Gavin recalls.

“They mucked about for about a day and got it done though, did a great job.”

Contrary to my first assumption it wasn’t just to avoid polishing, I saw photos and the tanks were very worn.

The other stainless work was farmed out to a local company, JRC Stainless, and, like Gavin, I couldn’t fault the workmanship. The customised pieces between the rear guards – with the bulldog cut into it – are spot on. JRC also did the stainless and lights on the steps, as well as around the dogbox. According to Gavin, their biggest challenge was adding the stainless under the cab.

“The bit under the cab on a Super-Liner is very, very difficult.

Because of the nature of the cab and how it’s formed, it took a lot of work.” He makes it very clear though that he’s very pleased with the work. “They did an outstanding job, outstanding.”

Another local company with huge involvement in the project was A&K Auto Electrics. Basically the whole truck got rewired, everything around the engine, the cab … everywhere.

“It was a bit of a rat’s nest,” Gavin admits. “Over the years, different owners, different applications, it had been doctored up a lot.”

From the radiator to the taillights it all got a work over. When it

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“Over the years, different owners, different applications, it had been doctored up a lot.”

came to rewiring the interior it was decided to source a whole new dash.

“The old one was just full of holes from 57,000 CB radios, UHFs, scanners and all that sort of thing,” Gavin says. A fibreglass company in Toowoomba was able to supply a new one for the big rig. Pretty much all the lights were stuffed or walking the plank at best, so all-new lights were fitted. Gavin sourced original Mack lights, just sealed beam lights this time. He wanted to try and keep the truck close to original.

Part of that originality was the Mack bullbar. The truck’s original bar had obviously sent many a creature off to that big farmyard in the sky and was beyond repair. A call was placed to Tony Tester, who runs BigRigBullbars and specialises in replica Mack bars. The bar is slightly different to the truck’s original one, but the new one looks right at home under the bulldog’s nose.

Mack aficionados will notice the offsets on the steer axle. True, those weren’t factory fitted, however the 10 stud alloys were. On the build sheet, and in the early photos of Don’s ride, you’ll see it had 10 studs up front. Sure, Don would have had to polish his whereas Gavin’s gone with chromed alloy all round for the restoration. One less thing to polish.

Top, L to R: The Mack practices smoke signals before heading into downtown Tamworth locals (note to environmentalists: please look away); A bulldog guards the rear guards Above left: The Super-Liner’s wrapped tanks, thanks to RC Metalcraft Below: A special shout-out to Roger Evans, the man with a million Mack photos, who found this stunner of the Mack in its original setup. She was an eye-catching piece even then

truck sent off to Ferry’s Motor Trimmers to get the upholstery fitted.

It took almost two years to get the legendary old Mack back into show class standards. From a hard worked ex-tow truck, Gavin brought it back to a top class show truck. I say that with a little grin.

Why? Because it lasted as a show truck about as long as I would on Dancing with the Stars. In fact, it was roadworthy for a week or so before Gavin had it down at the local transport office getting it registered.

Two days later he had hooked it up to the company trailers and loaded up. They built those old MKIIs to work and Gavin couldn’t resist doing just that. Sure, he was gentle with it at first, just single trailer jobs, very picky about which pickups and deliveries it would do.

Then he decided to change the rego and start putting road trains behind it. As a truck lover and a photographer I’m all for this.

However, I’d also want a chaser car out front making sure no-one was flicking stones at the classic truck as they went past either. It would be an emotional rollercoaster.

With it getting a bit of work to do there has been another important change as well. The original nine-speed ’box has finally been removed and replaced with an 18-speed.

“I thought it might slow it down as well,” says Gavin with a grin.

“I don’t think it has.”

He’s had the old Super Liner for four years now and is still loving every minute of it. Even as we moved around Tamworth to go get some photos there were heads turning as they heard and saw the big girl coming.

“The desired effect was plenty of smoke and plenty of noise and that’s what we got,” Gavin admits.

It may be helped that during the restoration project the single muffler in the chassis just ‘happened’ to be left out. The end result is that Gavin Sutton has a working show truck whose image can paint more than 1,000 words.

Freshened up A cup of tea and a computer screen with the legendary Showy from Showman Signs in Newcastle saw the scrollwork designs decided.

“He’d add one here, I’d take away one here,” Gavin smiles. He admits Showy is a fan of Macks as well so he had some great ideas that wouldn’t be too over the top.

While the company colours for GST are white with the blue, when Gavin and his painter Boon discussed the repainting they knew it would start with a metallic blue chassis. Cab-wise, he wanted it to look similar to his fleet, albeit different, so cream it was. There was a fair bit of time mixing, getting creamier and creamier as it went, until the end result emerged.

Last but not least was a freshen-up of the cab. With the allnew dash and wiring set up it goes without saying that the rest would get a spruce up. Again, Gavin looked locally and had the

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26/05/2021 11:41:08 AM

TWU Michael Kaine

Joint industry effort Despite the usual opposition, a minimum road transport rate will benefit all in the supply chain

I

T WAS almost five years to the day since the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal was torn down that I was back in Canberra again last month. This time it was to give evidence to the Senate inquiry on the safety and sustainability of the road transport industry.

I described the need for reform in our industry so that standards can be lifted for drivers and operators alike, ensuring that fairness and safety are the main focus. I spoke about the need to hold wealthy retailers, manufacturers, oil companies and banks at the top to account. Because it is our industry that is forced to cart their goods for low prices and it is our industry that bears the brunt of these low prices through financially stressed operators, bankruptcies, underpaid drivers, faulty trucks, injuries and deaths.

This is something the Transport Workers Union (TWU) has been calling for for some time.

But what was new on this day in Canberra was who I was standing with.

I was proud to make a joint submission to the Senate Inquiry with Gordon Mackinlay of the National Road Freighters Association.

Five years ago, as the nation’s attention was focused on the views and thoughts of the trucking industry, myself and Gordo found ourselves on opposite sides of the debate. Since then we have realised we in fact have a lot in common. We both recognise the deep unfairness in the system and we want to address the squeeze on transport by the big clients whose profits grow at our industry’s expense.

Our decision to stand together does not come without risks for both sides but Gordo perfectly summed up where our minds have met when he addressed the Senate Inquiry: “People ask, ‘What are you doing working with the TWU or talking to a Labor senator?’ I’ll tell you what I’m doing, talking to them.

I’m trying to get something done for this country. They’re the only people who are listening, and I thank them for listening.

“You don’t have to be a rocket scientist for this. We’re not making money out of transport. The best operators are not making money out of transport. While the wage thing is important, you can’t get blood out of a stone. The person who owns the vehicle has to be remunerated properly. That

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can filter down to the drivers, and so it should filter down to the drivers, but it should also filter down so the person who owns that company can give that driver a very safe, modern workplace to work in. I think it’s very important that we try to get to that point.”

The truth is, Gordo and myself care about the transport industry. We know things aren’t good right now and we want to change it.

What we are battling are those standing in the way of reform and those who say they care but really don’t.

MICHAEL KAINE is the national secretary of the Transport Workers Union of Australia.

Contact Michael at: NSW Transport Workers Union, Transport House, 188-390 Sussex Street, Sydney, NSW 2000. twu@twu.com.au

MINIMUM RATE OPPOSITION Giving evidence after myself and Gordo was the Australian Trucking Association (ATA), which made some startling admissions.

The ATA said it was opposed to reforms holding clients to account for their low rates and ensuring a minimum standard across the industry, despite the fact that many of its own members are in fact in favour of this.

The ATA seemed to believe that all was okay when it came to sham contracting and it gave evidence that the Australian Taxation Office was handling this just fine.

It failed to name one achievement by the federal transport minister, Michael McCormack, when asked, despite insisting that “he is strongly

BELOW: At the Senate Inquiry into road transport: Gordon Mackinlay (left) and Michael Kaine

engaged with the sector”. Anyone watching this evidence would be left in no doubt as to what the ATA represents in our industry: it is an apologist for a federal government that had actively made our industry worse.

On Senate Inquiry day this got exposed.

Senator Glenn Sterle pushed the ATA on whether minister McCormack consulted with the association on the setting up of the Senate Inquiry before the government voted against it. The ATA representatives refused to give an answer, which said it all.

SUPPLY CHAIN SQUEEZE Our industry is becoming more united each day on need for real, binding reform to right the wrongs and to balance the power dynamic in transport. We want an end to take-it-or-leave it rates; we want an industry striving for excellence, not one continually engaged in a race to the bottom.

The TWU at our national council in Darwin last month revealed our plans to target the top of the supply chain. We are serving claims on over 50 major retailers, warning of their responsibility to ensure that they are paying transport operators enough to guarantee that their goods are being delivered safely. As enterprise agreements for thousands of transport workers expire in the coming months, we will target the squeeze by retailers with actions and protests.

To those industry bodies and operators which are serious about reform and also want to see change we will be happy to join forces with you.

But to those who stand in our way, to those proposing meaningless voluntary codes and cosy-ing up to the likes of the federal government, allowing them to pretend they have our industry onside for doing nothing we say: get out of our way. Because there are lives and livelihoods at risk and this reform agenda is too serious for jokers and charlatans.

“While the wage thing is important, you can’t get blood out of a stone.”

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sponsored content

FREIGHTER CELEBRATES 75 YEARS

The year 2021 marks 75 years since the first Freighter products rolled onto Australian roads. Freighter’s history is clearly as long as it is rich, and that legacy is a key component of every trailer that rolls off the line today

T

he origins of Freighter hark all the way back to before World War II, and its influence has been growing ever since. Truly national before any other manufacturer dreamed it was possible, the company didn’t limit itself to being the best in truck trailers. It also made boats, buoys, buses, forklifts, caravans, starting gates for racing tracks, wood heaters and even had a crack at building its own 4WD vehicle.

It’s said that, during the 1970s, nine out of every 10 heavy-duty trailers on the road were Freighter. Its influence on the industry remains undeniable.

Freighter was officially created in 1945, with the first products rolling onto Australian roads in February 1946. However, its origins reach back even further, starting with a man named John McGrath, who was born in Melbourne just as the 19th century turned into the 20th. Back then, an estimated 1.6 million horses, 6,000 camels and 45,000 bullocks were providing the power behind freight, and a car trip between Sydney and Melbourne could take a week.

From scratching around to get by, McGrath had become the biggest trailer manufacturer in the country.

Post-war, new roads and new regulations were created to formalise the transport industry. The developments didn’t suit John’s mode of operation or stage of life, so he decided to sell out of his burgeoning, but somewhat ramshackle operation.

An enterprising man named Noel Peel saw things another way – with more structure around the already impressive operations, surely McGrath’s team of engineers, welders, fixers and makers could really shine.

The company was renamed Freighters Ltd (apparently after a champion racehorse of the time) and held its first AGM in late 1945. The main order of business? Buying McGrath Trailer Equipment.

Peter White – an experienced industry professional – purchased the business in late December 1982 and in early January it was

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named Freighter Australia Manufacturing.

With Peter’s laser focus on costs and product innovation, as well as some inspired licensing arrangements (such as the relationship with Tautliners), by 1985 the new Freighter celebrated the manufacture of 600 trailers in two years. By the early 1990s, the business was on the up-andup again.

More geographic and product diversification followed, and by the late 1990s Freighter’s performance drew the attention of a respected industry performer, Jim Curtis. Jim had created Maxi-CUBE, which had been ASX-listed in 1994, and was looking for a big step forward to achieve his growth aims. Freighter was a much bigger fish than Maxi-CUBE, but that didn’t stop him.

In 1998, Freighter was acquired by Jim’s business.

Later that year, MaxiTRANS was established.

Freighter prides itself on and will continue to be a part of every locally-manufactured high quality trailer that is produced.

“We sit here today reflecting on the great achievements of Freighter, from introducing the first mass-produced curtain sided trailer into the Australian market, known in the Freighter family as the Tautliner, through to continuing to push the boundaries on performance-based standards (PBS).

“A common theme across the years has been finding innovative ways for our customers to get more out of their equipment, allowing them to increase productivity with outstanding reliability, so they can focus on continuing to deliver the needs of the nation.

“75 years in operation is a significant milestone, not only for the Freighter brand, but for the wider

“WE LOOK FORWARD WITH GREAT EXCITEMENT TO THE FUTURE OF THE FREIGHTER BRAND.” Freighter’s standing was so well-established that its name was retained and Freighter products became a key component of the MaxiTRANS business. Its status continued throughout the 2000s, as MaxiTRANS underwent a period of significant acquisitions and growth.

Today, Freighter is celebrating 75 years as Australia’s longest standing trailer brand. While it has gone through significant changes through its journey, the brand continues to deliver on its promise of high quality, high performance trailing equipment with an unmatched network of national back up support.

“Freighter’s long and successful history is owed to our loyal customers,” says Dean Jenkins, MaxiTRANS managing director and CEO. “Many of our customers are second- or thirdgeneration Freighter loyalists. It is this on-going support that has helped build the legacy that

transport industry too. Supporting Australian business and locally manufactured products is what has made it possible for the brand to continue to thrive.

“In celebration of this milestone and for our customers wishing to be a part of this historic year, we have released a limited edition Freighter 75th year Diamond Pack, available across the Freighter range throughout 2021. We encourage those interested to reach out to their local MaxiTRANS dealer.

“We again take this opportunity to thank all our customers, suppliers and staff for their on-going support throughout our extensive history, but also as important, during the most recent challenging times. We look forward with great excitement to the future of the Freighter brand and the transport industry as a whole.”

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trucking heritage

RESTORATION BLUES With decades in the transport industry behind him, Bob Miller turned his attention to a couple of reminders of his working past, a ’55 Dodge and a ’64 B-model Mack, with the end result of returning the iconic models to their former glories.

Warren Caves writes

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Bob Mil hauled ler and Warre new n K in their 1 955 Do cars and old w g dge in ith the ear ly ’70s

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S

EEMINGLY INSIGNIFICANT chapters in one’s life can, unknowingly at that particular juncture, leave a lasting imprint on your soul. A road trip holiday, a significant birthday celebration or even something as mundane as weekends tinkering in the shed. These are all the little things that make us who we are, these fragments of time get tattooed firmly on our minds as real as if they happened yesterday.

It stands to reason that the more time we spend experiencing these chapters, the more vivid the tattoo.

For those of us that call the open road our workplace, the memories are etched deeply. Different loads, roadhouses, loading facilities and the people that we shared them with, remembered fondly, albeit, sometimes through ‘rose-coloured glasses’. Let’s face it, time spent on the road in trucks can easily, in some cases, outweigh the time spent at home with wives, partners and spouses.

One constant throughout these years for some, can be the truck. Hours upon hours spent together, learning each other’s quirks and personalities, forming a bond based on mutual respect and dependability.

As time passes, for some the opportunity to reunite with an old truck many years moved on can prove irresistible, much like catching up with an old mate sharing tales of old over a beer or two, the urge can be intoxicating.

For Bob Miller, it would seem the desire of catching up with

“We were paid as much to bring one wreck back as we were paid to take three new cars up.”

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that old truck and treating it to a few sessions at the salon to spruce it up again has bitten him – not once but twice.

In a quiet residential street (occasionally disturbed by a Mack air start) in the lower Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, Bob Miller has two of the trucks that have shared space in his life.

Yet to be fully restored is Bob’s first truck he bought in partnership with his mate Warren King.

The 1955 Dodge was purchased by the pair in 1970 and worked as an interstate car carrier, for Commonwealth Car Freighters in Enfield, NSW. As a rigid truck, Bob and Warren ran mainly Sydney to Brisbane with two cars on the top of a frame and one on the trays deck below. Eventually the truck was stretched out a further six feet to allow it to accommodate two on top and two below.

Originally the truck had a Dodge ‘Kew’, side-valve, sixcylinder engine in it, which Bob says was prone to overheating.

Warren, a mechanic, and Bob promptly removed the old side-valve, replacing it with a 225 cubic inch (3,687 cubic cm) Chrysler Valiant engine that, according to Bob, were readily available at the time and produced more power than the truck’s original engine.

Bob recalls completing one-way trips to Brisbane in a laborious 24 hours, a time which seems somewhat incomprehensible in these days of 600-plus horsepower and cruise control, although he did admit on one occasion the run took a week due to persistent breakdowns.

“We would take new cars up north and sometimes return with bagged potatoes or smashed cars for the NRMA. These wrecks were a good backload; we were paid as much to bring one wreck back as we were paid to take three new cars up,” Bob recalls.

Above: Bob is keen to get the refurbished Mack back on the historic truck show circuit Left: Bob Miller’s B-model and James Miller’s Flintstone at the 2017 Sydney Classic and Antique Truck Show Opposite top: Bob Miller bought the Mack back in 2007, the old B-model looking a little worse for wear; Blue and green should not be seen together – except on a B-model Mack

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at Mt Victoria sometime in the mid-1980s … and there it stayed.

Warren, who had a penchant for restoring old machinery himself, was mid-way through the resurrection of a traction engine at his Mt Victoria property in 2005, but he would not see its completion. Sadly, he passed away before the job was finished.

In true Aussie style, Bob and some of his mates completed the traction engine project in Warren’s honour.

During those long hours in Warren’s shed completing the traction engine restoration, Bob’s old Mack was looking on sitting idly in the background in a somewhat less than pristine condition. At the completion of the traction engine project – and at a time when Warren’s sister was eventually ready to sell some of his old equipment – Bob asked if he could have first offer on the old B-model.

A deal was done and Bob found himself back in possession of his old Mack in around 2007.

Born again

“We had two 44-gallon (200-litre) drums attached to the truck which permitted us to complete the trip without fuelling up.”

Pushing luck a little too far one day saw the upper deck frame work pack it in halfway to Brisbane, buckling under the overburden of a Land Rover Warren had loaded on the upper deck. According to Bob, this ultimately ended the car carrying business.

The Dodge was shortened up again after that and converted into a tipper for a time before being put out to pasture at Bob’s parents place in Katoomba in 1973. There it sat until five years ago when Bob brought it back to his home where he has been chipping away at the restoration ever since.

Now, what about the Mack you say? Well, for the rest of the story we must revert back some years to 1974 again.

Top & above: The old Dodge currently under restoration Right: Bob gives the Mack a blast of Aerostart to get the old girl rolling each morning Opposite from top left: The B-model ran Vaughan Transport trailers in the mid-’70s; The B-model was a regular at events such as Haulin’ The Home before COVID hit; The 225 Chrysler motor still sits in the old Dodge

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For the next three-years, Bob and his son James (who also owns a classic Flintstone Mack) gradually brought the old truck back to her former splendour.

As Bob tells it, all of the truck’s springs were broken and had to be replaced. Carrolls Springs fabricated new springs and all of the brakes were overhauled by the father and son team at Bob’s home. Apart from the springs, brakes and some universal joints, the restoration was mostly cosmetic. Bob did point out that after all those years working on the coal; the black dust had gotten into literally every corner and crevice of the truck.

The engine and driveline remain untouched, although Bob does admit that, like many who enjoy their first coffee of the morning to get the day started, the old B-model’s engine takes hers with a splash of Aerostart.

The truck features a Mack Thermodyne engine producing 160hp (119kW). This power is stirred and distributed to the diff by a Mack 18-speed Quadruplex twin-stick transmission.

Parked up Following the retirement of the Dodge, Bob went to work driving for others before eventually buying the ’64 B-model Mack in 1974 to once again return to owner-driver life. The union of Bob and that Mack saw the two working on interstate transport, firstly for Halls Van Lines in Milperra, then later Vaughan Transport. Over a two-year period, many miles were covered and a strong bond formed.

In 1976, Bob sold the B-model to his former business partner, Warren, who worked the truck on coal carting duties around the Lithgow area for some years. Tired and battle weary, the old B-model was eventually parked in Warren’s shed

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“With all the cancellations of truck events the old truck hasn’t been out much.”

No fancy AMTs here. Using a makeshift spray booth set up in his back yard, the make-up was re-applied to paint the old Mack back to her original, sky-blue hue to complete the job.

Before the world went to hell in a handcart (COVID-19), Bob was a regular at truck shows and the Haulin’ the Hume truck rally, which he sorely misses.

“It’s been a quiet 18 months or so,” Bob laments.

“With all the cancellations of truck events the old truck hasn’t been out much.”

Occupying the need to get behind the wheel these days, Bob can be found driving the local school bus twice a day, and of course there’s always something to do on the old Dodge parked out the back.

One thing is for sure, driving that school bus these days must be a lot easier than running the highway in the old B-model. I’d even wager a bet that the school bus doesn’t have twin gear sticks to contend with, just excitable school kids. I’m not sure which would prove the most troublesome? I’ll let you decide.

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driver profile

DESTINED TO DRIVE

From a very early age, Gemma Pilbeam had a fascination with the trucking industry. Now she’s an experienced driver behind the wheel of a well-cared-for 2011 Western Star 4900. Warren Aitken catches up with Gemma in Gippsland, Victoria 60 JUNE 2021

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I

AM FINALLY getting to start on my little pet project. I have been impatient to start a specific run of ‘Woman in Transport’ stories for quite a while now and I have finally found my first one. My editor has been behind me since I first voiced the idea. I have had numerous story ideas and options open to me and so there was only one hurdle left to overcome: my tendency to get side-tracked, distracted, off topic … see, there I go again. Then, I saw Frank Morgan

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Transport’s magnificent Western Star. Sitting behind the wheel of this stunning Western Star was the incredibly friendly Gemma Pilbeam. Two ‘Stars’ in one scene; how could I pass that up?

Let’s deal with the bigger of the two stars first – obviously I’m being extremely literal in that comment. As mentioned before, Frank Morgan Transport runs the 2011 Western Star 4900 and has clocked up over 1.3 million kilometres with it so far.

Frank Morgan Transport is located out of Myrtlebank in Gippsland, Victoria and is the epitome of a rural transport business – small in numbers but massive in its impact. Frank runs six trucks, two T909s, a big cab Kenworth K108, an anniversary model Kenworth T601, an FM Volvo and the 4900 Star.

Frank began the company back in 2000 and, as trucks were added, the diversity of the company just kept growing. He has stock trailers, flat tops

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and tankers. There literally is nothing that Frank will not cart.

He keeps his locals well covered. In fact, when I arrived at his yard to meet the second star of his fleet, Gemma was busy tarping down a flat top load of bulk bags that she would be delivering to East Gippsland the next day. I dared not offer a hand, as I am sure that my tarping skills were well below the level Gemma was displaying. I politely waited until she was finished before we grabbed a cold drink and sat down to hear her story.

Well-schooled Gemma was born and raised in Heyfield, Victoria.

From as far back as she can remember she would tag alongside her father when he went off to work.

“Dad was a diesel mechanic for a logging company,” Gemma says.

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“I used to go to work with dad and I always said to him I was going to drive a log truck when I grew up.”

I tried to get a rough ‘guesstimate’ on her age at that stage. Gemma freely admitted that she was extremely young.

“I’ve always been with dad; I was daddy’s little girl.”

Gemma grew up in and around trucks. After school, during the holidays, anytime she could, she would be down learning and helping. When she was old enough to reach the pedals she was even moving the trucks in and out of the workshop for her dad.

“I remember walking to school and seeing an old Western Star. It used to do the mill run and I would think: ‘I’m going to do that one day’,” she recalls.

Both Gemma and her parents figured she would eventually grow out of the fascination, but we all know that once trucking has a grasp on you, you are hooked.

By the time Gemma finished Year 12, her mum had convinced her to get a job in nursing. She applied, got accepted and was due to start her course in February, which was just a couple of months after school finished. If only the course had started earlier, who knows what could have happened – transport may have lost one of its brightest young recruits. Instead, just a week after being let out of school, Gemma picked up a job for a local contractor. The jaws of transport had grabbed her and nursing was going to miss out.

Her first job was behind the wheel of a roller.

“I hated that!” Gemma freely admits now, but it was a step in the door.

“Being a girl I didn’t know if anyone would, you know, have any faith in me.”

That roller did not last long. Her attitude and skills soon saw her moved up to a grader.

Responsible for working on many of the shire roads, it was another step towards her goal of driving trucks. Soon enough, Gemma got her first driving work in that company on a single drive tilt tray. It wasn’t long then before she was upgraded to a bogie drive tilt tray.

Even at that stage, though, Gemma had her eyes on a Kenworth and float trailer. Gemma remembers being told by her boss: “When you can load a 20-tonne excavator by yourself then you can try the float,” to which she replied: “Fine, that’s what I’m going to do then.” She did, too.

Licensed to haul Gemma learnt how to drive, load and chain down the big excavator, then the keys to a Kenworth T408 were hers. At just 19-years-old it had taken a special permit for Gemma to get her HC license only a year after gaining her HR. “I was delivering equipment on the float before I even had my full car licence,” Gemma tells me. A lesson in determination and commitment to your passion shows anything is possible.

Gemma admits she learned a lot in that job, spending almost four years doing heavy haulage work, but also learning how to deal with a little bit of industry jealousy as well. She admits that, as a

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Far left: Gemma’s favourite Star is all ready for her to head off and unload. Her trusty stock crates sit ready for her to hook back up to on her return Left: Getting into the B-double work saw Gemma getting some pretty big logs, I mean loads Opposite below: Flashback: Five year-old Gemma hanging out with her father Glen Pilbeam Below: I’m a terrible passenger but had a ball as I sat back and watched Gemma do all the work

young woman doing a job that many guys wanted, she copped a bit of flack. Credit to her resolve, though – instead of buckling under, it just made her more determined to do a good job.

A chance encounter at a local weighbridge with another local, Shannon Smith of Gippsland Logging & Earthmoving, led to Gemma finally fulfilling her childhood goal.

“If you’re ever interested in driving a logger, let me know,” Shannon told her. Summoning all her cliché Australiana, her reply was: “You ripper!”

With the keys to a yet another Kenworth 401, this one with a jinker in tow, Gemma took to logging like a duck to water.

I could have said like an activist to a tree, but it just seemed inappropriate. It was no easy track into logging either (pun intended). Gemma was straight into the hardwood logging, getting in and out of places not originally designed for trucks like hers.

“It was good to start off in the little truck,” Gemma admits.

“Just to get the feel of how to do it, load the logs on and tie them down.”

Her natural abilities saw her promoted to a B-double with a T909 in front, the 402’s big bonneted brother. For Gemma,

“I always said to him I was going to drive a log truck when I grew up.”

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“I was delivering equipment on the float before I even had my full car licence.”

this was the pinnacle, this is what she had been chasing. Her alarm clock was going off half an hour before midnight, so she would be up in the bush ready for her first load. Tackling the kind of roads that saw you spending an hour and a half to cover a mere 35km, it was heaven to this hard-working young truckie.

“People always ask me why I like driving a log truck,” Gemma says.

“There’s no better feeling than coming out of the bush, crawling up a hill with a load of logs on and the morning’s breaking. People just don’t get it.”

Gemma also recalls a moment when she first moved up to B-doubles.

“There’s a sign on the way out by Corryong that says, ‘Caravans not permitted’ and you are in a fully loaded B-double. It’s strange but pretty cool at the same time.”

For Gemma, it was a dream job, fulfilling her childhood goal. As she got older (I use that term loosely as she’d hadn’t even hit her 25th birthday), Gemma felt the need to spend more time at home. The logging had her traveling far and wide, and away from home. She even spent time carting pine out of South Australia.

Carting livestock

Above: Gemma with her Western Star workhorse. Her attitude and drive is very infectious and a great sign for the future of trucking

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When she started building a house back in Heyfield she took the opportunity to chase another item left on her bucket list – stock. When you think ‘chasing stock’ I’m not making a Kiwi joke. Carting livestock was another of the challenges Gemma had set herself.

“When I was 19 I’d done a couple of loads for Frank [Frank Morgan Transport] and I told him: ‘One day I’m going to drive

one of your trucks.’ When I heard one of his drivers had left, I went and saw him,” Gemma relates. Another example of how strong Gemma’s word really is. It was five years since she had first made that comment to Frank but in the end she was right.

The keys to the day cab Western Star were handed in and Frank gave Gemma the keys to her first sleeper cab truck – the still very cool 4900 Star you see before you.

Gemma’s ability to take on information, mixed with her home-grown common sense saw her spend just a few days under Frank’s guidance before she was off on her own. She was mastering another challenging area of the industry, carting livestock.

“I found that the livestock took a bit of time to get into a routine,” Gemma tells me.

“They are so different: are they shorn, are they not shorn, are they broken, are they not, whereas, with the logs, you just threw them on and they’d be fine.”

There was a settling-in period for Gemma and, in her usual humble style, she is the first to credit others for assisting her along the way.

“Pete who works here, he’s 63 I think, he’s been doing livestock all his life and is absolutely amazing at his job.

I was super lucky to learn the ropes from Pete.”

She also made it clear that Pete can still, even at his age, very easily run rings around her.

With stock not being a year-round job at Frank Morgan Transport, it gave Gemma the opportunity to learn more skills in the transport industry. Loading wool, tarping, bulk bags – Frank was there to help Gemma upskill.

“I guess the hardest part about this job as a woman is loading the wool; I wish I was a bit stronger,” Gemma laughingly admits. I admit I’ve done that myself; it’s not just a gender issue. By the time you hit that third layer I was wishing I was the Hulk. However, it hasn’t stopped her mastering everything from bails of wool to tighter-than-tight tarp jobs.

Mother and son If you needed any more proof of Gemma’s dedication to

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“There’s not really much that gets to me; I’ve heard it all before.”

Pictured: Gemma finishes off a tidy tarp job

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trucking, look no further than 2019. That was the year Gemma became pregnant. She chose not to tell anyone, as she did not want to be treated any different.

“I worked right up until about three weeks before Will arrived,” Gemma confesses.

The arrival of little Will Pilbeam at first made her reassess her career path, admitting that she did think about settling down and getting a different kind of job. Thankfully, that did not take.

“Now that Will’s a bit older and I can take him with me; I’ve found a new lease of life for it again and I want to show Will all of that.”

Balancing the mum life with the diesel addiction has seen Gemma come back to work in several roles. I caught up with her on one of the several days a week she works for Frank. She also does a couple of night shifts back on logs for an ownerdriver and, when she’s free, she’ll work on a mate’s dairy farm.

The workload she carries says more about Gemma’s attitude and work ethic than any of my words could. Although it was once driven by her love of trucks and the transport industry,

now Gemma admits her driving force is to make the best life possible for her son. She is setting an amazing example.

While this story is covering the whole ‘Women in Trucking’ angle, it became apparent in our chat that, gender aside, it was just a couple of truck mad ‘nutters’ enjoying a cuppa and a chat. Like the majority of us, Gemma can remember her days walking down the street seeing trucks driving by and just feeling that pang of jealousy that it was not her behind the wheel.

Gemma has never shied away from any of the challenges of the industry.

“If you’re going to do a job, you’ve got to do all of it – the bad and the good. It’s not all the shiny stuff,” she tells me, referring to the countless tyres that she has had to change and the roadside repairs she’s undertaken.

But it’s all part of the job, according to Gemma. This ‘all in’ approach to her work is something she gives credit to her mum and dad, Glen and Lynette.

“I was just brought up with the fact if you have to do it you just get in and do it.”

Being a woman in a male-dominated industry has not diminished Gemma’s love of the job. It seems her natural respect for the industry and those already in it, as well as her work ethic and skills, has seen her garner respect from all those she interacts with. She is extremely happy to listen to the older experienced drivers and take on board what she finds useful. That is not to say she hasn’t had her fair share of CH40 comments.

“There’s not really much that gets to me; I’ve heard it all before,” Gemma says.

“It’s horrible, it really is, but you can’t let it get to you.”

Instead, Gemma lets her actions speak for themselves.

Although she stated: “I don’t think I’m very interesting,” a couple of times during the interview, I have to disagree.

Gemma has an enviable driving record now, building up a reputation for hard work and admitting that she continues to be driven by harder and more difficult challenges.

It seems my first ‘Woman in Transport’ story shines a light on a young lady that sets the bar for all those in trucking. So thank you very much, Gemma, for finding the time to sit and talk with me. With your workload and drive, it’s much appreciated. And it was a pleasure to photograph two great Stars.

ownerdriver.com.au

26/05/2021 11:21:13 AM

NatRoad Warren Clark

Premeditated fatalities The instances of death by truck is among the more than 3,000 suicides that occurred in 2019

R

ECENTLY NATROAD has been even more focused on road safety. We have lodged submissions on the national draft National Road Safety Strategy for 2021-2030 and the complementary National Heavy Vehicle Regulator draft Heavy Vehicle Safety Strategy 2021-2025.

Currently, around 1,200 people are killed each year on our roads, and almost 40,000 are seriously injured. During the 12 months to the end of December 2020, 170 people died in crashes involving heavy trucks. These included 104 deaths in crashes involving articulated trucks and 68 deaths in crashes involving heavy rigid trucks. Both draft strategies set a path to achieve zero deaths and serious injuries by 2050. NatRoad supports these targets and views road safety as a high priority. A lot of work and effort needs to be made to reach this target.

In the NatRoad feedback to government we addressed an issue that is an uncomfortable reality: that many fatalities involving light and heavy vehicles are the light vehicle driver choosing to commit suicide.

NatRoad emphasised that the mental health component of the government plans should deal with issues associated with “suicide by truck” both from a preventative view and in assisting drivers directly affected. There must also be better research undertaken about this method of taking your own life.

(multi vehicle incidents) in 2017 were indicated or strongly indicated to be suicides by the driver of the car.

This is simply tragic, not only for the victim but for those truck drivers who are likely to suffer significant long-term trauma from such incidents but who have limited ability to take time off work to recover and get expert counselling: their livelihoods depend on them keeping working. More support for affected drivers must be part of government road safety plans.

NatRoad has called for urgent research as to why suicide by truck is a way in

WARREN CLARK, NatRoad’s chief executive officer, has more than 20 years’ experience leading and developing business for emerging companies.

Warren has held the position of CEO at various companies and is a certified chartered accountant.

which people increasingly are choosing to end their own lives. We believe that there can be no zero road toll where the opportunity for this kind of behaviour remains, particularly where road incidents are not clearly of the character of suicide and the related fatalities are included in the road toll statistics because of the doubts raised. Road deaths that are clearly suicides (and other intentional acts like murder) are excluded from the road toll statistics. There has been discussion that suicide by truck may be chosen because it has the appearance of being an accident; therefore, in the mind of the victim this end to life is a lesser burden on family and friends.

One solution is for road separation infrastructure to be installed, especially on highways where heavy vehicle traffic is extensive, such as along the Hume Highway. But that is expensive and cannot possibly be rolled out on the nearly 880,000 kilometres of Australia’s roads. Other solutions could be focused on general mental health and supporting agencies that reach out to people in crisis.

Over 3,000 Australians died by suicide in 2019 and more must be done generally to prevent this number increasing, as well as in the context of reducing road fatalities.

If you have been affected by this article, help can be found at Lifeline on 13 11 14, and beyondblue on 1300 22 4636.

“Road deaths that are clearly suicides are excluded from the road toll statistics.”

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26/05/2021 3:31:10 PM

THE GOODS NEWS FROM THE HIGHWAY AND BEYOND

WHAT’S ON upcoming events ALEXANDRA TRUCK UTE & ROD SHOW June 13, 2021. Alexandra, Victoria

Celebrating 25 years. Sunday Show ’n Shine on Alexandra’s main street.

Includes live music, Victorian woodchop tournament, exhibitions and trade displays, kids’ amusements. Be early for Saturday June 12 truck driver’s memorial service at 2pm and sponsors’ dinner at 6pm.

For truck show details email trucks@alexandratruckshow.com.au, or for further info phone Gordon Simpson on 0409 577 212, Andrew Embling on 0418 266 038 or see the website www.alexandratruckshow.com.au

SA TRUCK AND UTE SHOW June 13, 2021. Mannum, SA

Daimler reflects on ‘first truck’ Gottlieb Daimler invented the world’s first truck back in 1896

ONE OF THE greatest talents of inventor Gottlieb Daimler was finding new areas of application for his engine. He invented the motor cycle, then went to the motorised trolley car, a motorised fire fighting hose and then to the truck in the year 1896.

According to Daimler, pragmatism was behind the design of the first truck in the world, which looked like a cart with an engine and without a drawbar. The engine, called ‘Phoenix’, was a 4hp (3kW)-strong two-cylinder engine located at the rear, with a displacement of 1.06 litres, originating from a car. Daimler linked it to the rear axle by means of a belt. There were two helical springs to protect the engine, which was sensitive to vibrations.

The vehicle rolled on hard iron wheels, after all. Daimler steered the leaf-sprung front axle by means of a chain. The driver sat up front on the driving seat as with a carriage. The engine was at the rear of the vehicle.

The fuel consumption was approximately six litres of petrol per 100 kilometres.

It is noteworthy that the first truck already anticipated 125 years beforehand the planetary axles that are still common today in construction vehicles: because the belt drive sent the power from the engine to a shaft fitted transversely to the longitudinal axis of the vehicle, both ends of which were fitted with a pinion.

Each tooth of this pinion meshed with the internal teeth of a ring gear, which was firmly connected with the wheel to be driven. Daimler says this is how the planetary axles of the heavy Mercedes-Benz trucks up to the

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current Arocs series have worked in principle.

In 1898, Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach shifted the Phoenix‘s engine, which had been located at the rear, to a position under the driver’s seat, with the four-gear belt drive also being transferred forward.

In the same year, the truck was then given the face that clearly distinguished it from the car and was to level the path towards ever-increasing output and payload: the engine was then placed right at the front, in front of the front axle. It conveyed its 10hp (7.5kW) via a four-gear belt drive and a front-to-rear longitudinal shaft and pinion to the internal ring gears on the iron wheels at the rear.

For these vehicles, Daimler made the crucial improvement not only to the drivetrain, but to the engine itself. Instead of a hot tube ignition, the new low-voltage magnetic ignition from Bosch ignited the petrol-air mixture in the cylinders of the 2.2-litre two-cylinder engine, and the radiator was redesigned.

However, Gottlieb Daimler was cautious at first before presenting his new five-tonner to the public. The vehicle, which was highly modern at the time, underwent ‘customer testing’. For months, Daimler subjected his new vehicle to the daily grind of work at a brick factory in Heidenheim and painstakingly remedied the shortcomings it showed.

The first purchaser of the very first truck came from the home of industrialisation: England. There, steam-driven vehicles had long since made the shift from rails to the road, and did not die out until the 1950s.

Sponsored by The Truck Factory. Mannum’s main streetscape will become one massive trucking garage with polished prime movers, trucks and utes from across the state and over the border. Show ’n Shine, trade displays, live entertainment at Pretoria Hotel and more.

For further into see the website at www.satruckanduteshow. com.au or the Facebook page at www.facebook.com/ SaTruckAndUteShowMannum

CASINO TRUCK SHOW

August 7, 2021. Casino, NSW Show sponsored by North Coast Petroleum. Westlawn Finance Truck Parade will roll through Johnston and Centre Sts from 10am on Saturday. Truck registrations ($30 each) from 6am at the Casino Industrial Area on the town’s east side. Includes live music, amusements and markets. Over $12,000 in cash and prizes. Presentation at 2pm. The blinged-up trucks from across Australia will be parked in the CBD. For further info email info@casinotruckshow.com.au or Darren Goodwin at dtgoodwin1@yahoo.com.au; website www.casinotruckshow.com.au and Facebook page. Phone 02 6662 8181 or 0424 340 330.

NATROAD CONFERENCE 2021

August 19 to 21, 2021. Gold Coast, Qld After a difficult year for road freight operators, NatRoad is pleased to invite members to the NatRoad National Conference 2021, to be held at the InterContinental Sanctuary Cove Resort, Gold Coast from August 19 to 21. Includes the ‘NatRoad Parliament’ and the NatRoad Awards presentation at the Gala Dinner.

For further info see the website at www.natroad.com.au/eventsnetworking/2021-conference

NATIONAL ROAD TRANSPORT HALL OF FAME REUNION 2021 August 23 to 29, 2021. Alice Springs, NT

The National Transport Historical Society and The Old Ghan Historical Society has the announced the inaugural ‘Festival of Transport’. As well as the regular reunion activities there will be new events to experience.

For info and nomination forms see the website at www.roadtransporthall.com, www.facebook.com/Trucks.n.Trains, email info@roadtransporthall.com or phone 08 8952 7161.

LIGHTS ON THE HILL MEMORIAL CONVOY October 2 & 3, 2021. Gatton, Queensland

The 2021 Lights on the Hill Memorial Convoy is planned to be held on October 2 and the Memorial service will October 3 at the Lake Apex Memorial wall.

For further info see the website at www.lightsonthehill.com.au or www.facebook.com/ lightsonthehillmemorial

I98FM ILLAWARRA CONVOY

November 21, 2021. Shellharbour Airport, NSW The Illawarra community’s 16th annual big convoy. Bikes will leave Illawarra Coal’s Westcliff Colliery on Appin Rd at around 8am, followed by trucks at Maddens Plains to Mount Ousley, Warrawong, Stockland Shellharbour, Albion Park Rail and on to Shellharbour Airport for the family fun day. Includes live music, food and market stalls and activities. Funds raised will be distributed via the Illawarra Community Foundation to charities and families in need within the Illawarra and South Coast regions.

For further information visit www.illawarraconvoy.com.au or see the Facebook page at www.facebook.com/i98fmillawarraconvoy

To have an event listed, phone (07) 3101 6602 or e-mail odonline@aremedia.com.au

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26/05/2021 10:59:41 AM

DIABETES NSW & ACT Robbie Tyson

Hungry or just tired?

A few tips on how to make a healthier and conscious decision when fuelling-up your body

I

T HAS BEEN reported that fatigue is four times more likely than drugs or alcohol to affect an individual’s ability to undertake their work and do it safely. If your work is driving, then the ability to monitor your fatigue has critical implications for safety.

What is fatigue? Fatigue is a feeling of weariness, tiredness, or a lack of energy that does not go away when you rest.

People may feel fatigued in body or mind (physical or psychological fatigue). If you are experiencing a level of fatigue that is not relieved by enough sleep, rest or a lowstress environment, it may be advisable to have your diet evaluated by an accredited practising dietician. In many cases, simple nutritional changes to your diet will bring back your vitality.

It’s noted that truck drivers have unfavourable working conditions when it comes to the risk of fatigue and they often report sleep problems and back pain as well as other physical health problems.

Given the working conditions, with

regulated breaks and driving hours, truck drivers often end up eating their meals while driving, or refuelling at a truck stop where there is a limited range of food types and choices.

The difficult working conditions faced by drivers also includes health and social challenges. Limited access to balanced food choices and small and isolated work places are just two examples of the difficult work setting.

It is not uncommon for an unfavourable meal pattern to develop, which can then make working out whether you are hungry or tired very difficult. One way to avoid this is to introduce some simple nutrition strategies that will provide long lasting energy and ensure greater alertness.

ROBBIE TYSON is an accredited practising dietician at Diabetes NSW & ACT. For more healthy lifestyle tips and other helpful information on diabetes head to the Diabetes NSW & ACT website www.diabetesnsw. com.au or call the Helpline on 1300 136 588 to speak with a health professional.

RECOMMENDATIONS In order to make long-lasting changes to your way of eating and overall health, start by making small realistic changes.

Making incremental changes rather than overhauling your entire way of eating in

“Truck drivers often end up eating their meals while driving.”

one go is advisable. This will set you up for success and it will be much easier to maintain.

If there are limited healthy options at a lunch stop try downsizing the portion and adding in some healthy options. For example, limit the fried aspect of a meal and swap the soft drink for a bottle of water.

PREPARE One of the biggest barriers to a healthy eating approach is being prepared.

Changing locations and varying work schedules along with long hours on the road can make it challenging to have meals planned ahead of time.

Some simple, easy tips include packing yoghurt tubs and fruit for a quick breakfast and making wraps, sandwiches and salads for lunch and dinner.

HEALTHY SNACKS To beat the boredom of a long drive it is easy to mindlessly snack. If this is a weakness for you then it’s important to keep healthy snack foods at hand so that the healthy choice is always right in front of you.

Before a shift, stock up on healthy snacks like fruit, nuts, trail mix, vegetable sticks, muesli bars and low-fat yoghurts.

Having a healthy snack every three hours can help keep your hunger satiated and your metabolism working. If you wait too long between meals you are likely to overeat at lunch or dinner.

SWAP THE SOFT DRINK Some soft drinks have 10–16 teaspoons of sugar in them and while that may give you a momentary lift, it is not good for your metabolism, nor for long-term hunger suppression. Sugar contains kilojoules and, if consumed in excess of your energy requirements, will be converted to fat and stored, making it challenging to achieve or maintain a healthy weight.

Try swapping soft drinks for water.

If you find water too boring add some sugar-free cordial, fruit slices, or even tea bags for flavour. Go easy on the caffeine.

Too much caffeine can make you irritable and jittery, which could affect driving performance. Limit caffeinated drinks to three or fewer per day and avoid these types of drinks after dinner.

IDENTIFY WEAKNESSES Whether you’re a breakfast skipper or unable to resist the chocolate treats at the service station, try to make small changes in those areas that you acknowledge as a problem. Load up on some healthy quick breakfasts to eat on the road and preplan your snacks to curb the urge for an energy- dense snack bar at the counter.

Changing habits isn’t always easy, so try choosing just one goal and one action step to achieve that goal. For example, start to introduce healthier snacks by buying a bag of carrots at your next supermarket shop. Carrots make a great snack for the truck. Then as time goes on try adding other veggies such as celery sticks, baby cucumbers or snow peas; before long you’ll be getting your five a day without even thinking.

For more information on healthy eating you can always ask an Accredited Practising Dietitian (APD) by visiting dietitiansaustralia.org.au/find-an-apd.

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26/05/2021 10:58:08 AM

EYES ON THE ROAD Rod Hannifey

Shouldering a large load Compulsory R&R after surgery can be beneficial for attempting positive change in road transport

M

Y SHOULDER is improving slowly. I have been told there was little to attach both the tendon and shoulder repair to, so I had the sling on longer than some. It’s recommended I still wear it around crowds and must build up some attachment before I can even consider starting building the muscles back up. Physio exercises three times a day, with heat pack first, then ice pack afterwards, visits to the physiotherapist twice a week and now they want me to sit in a heated pool and wave myself along – no swimming or putting weight on it. But I have been busy with other stuff.

It has been a month of submissions and typing left handed. First there was the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR) submission towards its own input into the National Road Safety Strategy, which was due by April 30. They outlined their intents and focus themes and I responded to each of them directly.

Two and a bit pages, 1,400 words, then there was a meeting held in Dubbo by the NSW Centre for Road Safety, which I was able to attend. That was followed by an online issues survey, a few hundred more words, and you then had the chance to submit further comment online – another four pages and 2,300 words.

There was another online forum, but in joining in for it I found it was part of a Sydney meeting, so another couple of hours there.

Then I had been offered a spot as the new president of the National Road Freighters Association (NRFA) at the last day of the Senate Inquiry into a Safe and Viable Road Transport Industry held in Canberra. Still not able to drive and being in my sling, I put out a call through our NFRA WhatsApp group and one of the new board members offered to drive me to Canberra and take part, then drive me home. Not getting to Canberra too often, I then set up meetings with the new CEO of the Australian Trucking Association (ATA), the CEO of NatRoad and the COO of the Livestock, Bulk & Rural Carriers Association (LBRCA), which are all in the ATA building. We’ll come back to this later.

Knowing our timeslot in Canberra was for 30 minutes and that some had gone over time – and wanting to make sure I did not run out of time for the issues

RIGHT: A new Kenworth K200 on display at the Brisbane Truck Show’s Paccar stand. A worthy TruckRight Industry Vehicle?

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I wanted to raise – I rang and asked if I could lodge a written submission when there. I was asked to submit it online that afternoon, both to have it checked that it met the criteria for the inquiry and to allow copies to be sent to other inquiry members who were participating through video conferencing.

That was three more pages, plus attachments for the National Rest Area Strategy and National Road Standard and Removing Police Powers to Police the National Heavy Vehicle Law written previously, then another three new pages and 1,400 words. So now it was nearly 10 pages and over 5,000 words. In my spare time I started designing the

ROD HANNIFEY, a transport safety advocate, has been involved in raising the profile of the industry, conducting highway truck audits, the Blue Reflector Trial for informal parking bays on the Newell, the ‘Truckies on Road Code’, the national 1800 number for road repairs proposal, and the Better Roadside Rest Areas Group. Rod is the current president of the NRFA. Contact Rod on 0428 120 560, e-mail rod.hannifey@bigpond. com or visit www.truckright.com.au

logbook divider and flyer for NRFA, then the member benefits page, pricing and ordering in between sending drafts to the committee for approval.

The next task I took on to keep me occupied was to ring and introduce myself to all current and past members of the NRFA. We are aiming to improve contact and have some new member benefits and are looking to grow membership.

I must say that with regard to the Senate Inquiry, there have been some large companies, industry and government bodies appear but I believe that NRFA members, both representing the association and individually, would be the single biggest number of submissions. It just shows how passionate we are.

TRAILER LETDOWN While in Canberra we did get to meet with Andrew McKellar, the new ATA CEO. I had previously spoken to Andrew on the phone, wishing him well in the role and offering him a ride in the TruckRight Industry Vehicle (TIV), as well as wanting to meet him in person. Andrew was very open in discussion and generous with his time and I do hope we can work with the ATA on some issues in the future.

Warren Clark from NatRoad was not available and Bec Coleman from the LBRCA was off crook for the day, so we did not get to meet with anyone else, but I have spoken with Bec previously with an issue from one of our members and she offered me congratulations and the offer to work together in the future.

That leaves me to update on the next TIV. There is now a problem with the trailers. For some reason nothing had been actually ordered and the timeline has gone out the window. I do have two fall-back plans and once I can confirm the delivery date for the truck, I will then come up with a solution.

Trying to pull all this together while working has obviously made it harder and while I have been off I have ended up doing a heap of other things that meant my focus had drifted.

I have been asked why I would take on more things; that’s difficult to answer.

However, I would love to see others do more as well and, at least, it can’t be said I have not at least had a go.

The green reflector marking of informal truck bays is approaching 22 years since the first blue ones were put up by Stuart Peden of the then RTA Parkes. I thank him for making that effort and hope we will soon have many more of them.

You must agree, I don’t give up easily.

“The green reflector marking of informal truck bays is approaching 22 years.”

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replica models

DETAILED THE DRAKE WAY Whenever a new Drake Collectibles’ detailed replica model is revealed it’s bound to create a great deal of interest. Warren Aitken battles his way through the crowd to check out Drake’s latest model release – the 1988 Bicentennial Mack

B

Y THE TIME you guys get to read this the cat will already be out of the bag, or should I say the dog is off the leash. The latter analogy seems more fitting, as the news is out that Drake Collectibles has branched out from its stunning Kenworth replicas and started producing diecast Mack trucks, and its first release is the quintessential Aussie bulldog – the Bicentennial Mack Super-Liner.

What started out as a PR project has turned into a worldwide phenomenon for Bruce Hay and the small team of dedicated workers at Drake Collectibles.

Back in 2007, when Bruce was a special projects manager for Drake trailers, he got into a discussion with the man in the big chair, John Drake, about a different way to market their product and acknowledge their customers.

Bruce was, and still is, an avid diecast collector and knew several of the larger companies overseas had commissioned diecast models to hand out to their customers. He put the idea of

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getting a scale replica of Drake’s popular 4x8 Swingwing trailer made to John. They decided to give it a go but insisted they get an Aussie truck built as well to go in front of their diecast trailer.

Bruce approached Paccar about building a replica T908. Several meetings and a lot of emails later, Drake Collectibles had begun.

Right from the start, Bruce was determined that anything carrying the Drake name would have to adhere to the Drake standards. The company had been founded back in 1958 by Colin Drake and his goal was to build the best quality trailers available. Over the years, the controls have been handed to his son, John, but the insistence on top quality has never faltered.

Bruce was determined to bring the same attention to detail with this PR exercise.

With the use of an NQ Haulage T908, every effort was made to replicate a real truck. Measurements and parts were taken and photographed; there was no skimping on detail. After the announcement at the 2009 Brisbane Truck Show,

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26/05/2021 10:53:54 AM

Above: The first Bicentennial off the production line dwarfs the first ever diecast Bicentennial Left: With only 150 available on open day the queues formed pretty quick Opposite below: The rumble of the big Macks as they snuck round during the unveiling nearly drowned out Bruce Hay’s rehearsed speech at Wacol

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“It was all done with my tape measure and a pencil.”

Top: After the first two Bicentennial Macks sold out online and in store in record time, rumours that a third was being released at the Brisbane Truck Show brought the crowd in Above right: The Drake Collectibles attracted interest from all ages at the Brisbane Truck Show Below: Drake’s in-house photography maestro David Price sets up the stunningly detailed model for a range of shots Opposite from top: While there was a lot of help from a lot of people, three of the main players stand proudly by the Mack SuperLiners. Bruce Hay, Don Hoey, who played a major role in the building of the original Bicentennials, and Glen Buetel, another Mack man who has actually restored several Bicentennials to pristine condition; The devil is in the detail of these replica Macks

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pre-orders were taken, and Bruce found that half the orders were snapped up before the models had even landed in Australia. The other half marched out the door pretty bloody quick once they did.

The success and popularity of that first couple of T908s ensured there would be more to come and over the last decade there’s been the release of T909s, 2.3 K200s, king cab K200s, C509 and most recently 900 Legends.

Mack permission In a mix of fleet signage and standard colours the Drake Collectibles have become very hot items. Every new release would see hordes of people bombarding the phone lines or squeezing into the first little shop at Drake’s Wacol factory.

It necessitated the need for a bigger store, more phone lines and, eventually, a world first for model manufacturers: a mobile app. Even with every possible avenue of purchase, the growing popularity of the models saw the systems overloaded at the beginning. It has gone well past a PR exercise now.

While Drake Collectibles was trying to organise new heavy haulage trailers, new fleet releases, new Kenworth model releases, the addition of flattops, curtainsiders, skel trailers and all manner of other variants, Bruce was also

working on the passion project that we are seeing today.

The Bicentennial Macks are an iconic piece of Australian transport history. Released back in 1988, 16 went on the road and are all named after famous Australians. At the time they were the epitome of luxury, yet they all ended up hard at work. The carpeted floors didn’t stop them getting covered in bulldust and red sand as they covered the country.

Bruce is the first to admit the most asked question is: “When are Drake going to do a Mack?” Right from the formative years, Bruce has had a desire to one day make a model of the legendary Bicentennial Mack. The hardest part has always been getting the right permission and licence to allow Drake to undertake such a massive investment. With conglomerates like Mack Volvo there are always a lot of hoops to jump through.

The long and the short of it is that, eventually, the licensing paperwork ended up on the desk of Cam Creech in North Carolina. Bruce acknowledges Cam and Dick Nyvall from Volvo for finally getting it across the line.

With that sorted the next job was to start the designs.

“With the Kenworths we were able to get all the 3D images and drawings for the trucks,” Bruce says, before adding: “The Macks though, there was nothing; it was all done with my tape measure and a pencil.”

Thankfully, Bruce had a lot of help from the Mack maestro himself, Don Hoey. Don was actively part of the Bicentennial build and, in all honesty he’s probably forgotten more about Macks than anyone else even knows.

His help was invaluable. Take the sleepers for example.

There was never really any firm design for them; there was a lot of cutting up sleepers and building by scratch back in 1988. So, getting the accuracy Bruce required wouldn’t have been possible without the likes of Don. A little random fact: the windows in the sleepers were actually sunroofs from cars.

Glen Beutel is another Mack aficionado and Bicentennial owner that played a huge supporting role. Glen has restored a couple of the life-size Bicentennials, so it would have been interesting for him working on a much smaller scale.

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Attention to detail Bruce acknowledges the assistance he got from so many past and present owners in his attempts to do justice to the magnificent Macks.

“Mussy Deen’s probably sick of my face,” he laughs, explaining that he was forever turning up at the MacTrans Heavy Haulage yard and running the tape measure over Deen’s Bicentennials. Bruce even ended up in Rockhampton at a place I like to call ‘Heaven on Earth’, though Tony Champion just calls it his back shed. Here, he was given an engine, drive line and all other goodies to measure up and photograph.

It does seem like a lot of effort, but as Bruce says, it’s the Drake way. Attention to detail and top quality. Adding in that he wanted to do justice to

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such an important part of Australian transport history. Well, for those wondering, he’s nailed it. As an owner of several Drake models I must say that they’ve not only raised the bar on this one, but they’ve strapped the bar onto a 4x8 Swingwing and driven it that far out of town you can’t even see it anymore.

Don’t take my word for it though, just check out the active front suspension – you need to remove the pin to tilt the bullbar so you can tilt the bonnet and inspect the detailed engine. Or maybe try the air ride seats that do go up and down.

Maybe the Jost plate attached to the turntable or the compliance plate inside the driver’s door will convince you. These models are the next level.

By the time this story hits the stands there will

have been three of the 16 Bicentennials already sold out and in the hands of collectors. Never fear though, there is still 13 to come. The choice was made to release the trucks in the same order they came off the production line and in exactly the same setup as they came off the line. So, there will be differences in many of them. In another next level upgrade rather than numbered certificates, each truck will have its number laser engraved in the underside of the chassis.

Drake Collectibles have built a reputation of quality and detail that mirrors its big brother Drake Trailers. It’s great to see an iconic Australian company paying homage to a great Australian truck. Now I’m off to line up for the next release.

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brand overview: Scania Australia

SCANIA RAISES THE STAKES

Recent years have been the best in Scania’s 50-year history in Australia. Not spectacular and not without a few foibles, but certainly better than ever before and certainly enough to cause market leaders to keep a concerned eye on the brand’s rising prominence from one end of the country to the other.

Scania’s gains, of course, have come from the evolution of a significantly more appealing product range but, so too, have they come from more astute management.

In this wide-ranging report by Steve Brooks, we start with a test drive from Sydney to Melbourne in a new R540 B-double before a one-on-one talk with Scania Australia’s quietly composed managing director Mikael Jansson on some of the factors behind the brand’s steady rise in recent years. Then, back in Sydney, we climb into the new baby of the bunch, the seven-litre P-series 76 JUNE 2021

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test drive

SCANIA’S DOUBLE SHOT

S

CANIA HASN’T wasted any time slipping the new 540hp (403kW) version of its 13-litre Euro 6 engine into the market. And nor should it, given that, since the local launch of its much-lauded ‘New Truck Generation’ (NTG) more than three years ago, the Swedish brand has been somewhat off the pace in the 13-litre power parade.

Sure, the new range has many attributes: second-tonone in safety, exceptional build quality, respectable efficiency and, when it comes to big bore brawn, there’s nothing to match Scania’s venerable V8. But, as we asked several Scania operatives during the NTG’s Australian launch, why is the 13-litre engine limited to 500hp (373kW) when the similarly-sized engines of its main rivals, namely Volvo’s D13 and Mercedes-Benz’s OM471, peak at 540 and 530hp (395kW), respectively?

The official response was to simply cite the six-cylinder engine’s gritty torque output (2,550Nm/1,880lb-ft) and its subsequently-stated ability to deliver an enviable mix of potent pulling power and frugal fuel economy at gross combination weights up to 75 tonnes.

Besides, as Scania stalwarts were equally quick to

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comment, if you want more than 500hp, there’s always the 16.4-litre V8 with outputs starting at 520hp (388kW) and going all the way up to 730hp (544kW).

Even so, a few Scania insiders quietly admitted to being equally perplexed by the six-cylinder engine’s 500hp limit that, in our parochially power conscious market, appeared to be handing its main rivals – which now include DAF’s Euro 6 MX-13 engine at 530hp – something akin to a free hit.

On the other hand, Scania’s more senior people were again quick to firmly refute any suggestion of being off the pace, claiming the 13-litre 500hp rating in both the full-size R cab and the lower profile G cab has been “among our most popular [and] widely praised for its performance, fuel efficiency and driveability”.

Fair enough, but with the recent arrival of the 540 rating, the company hasn’t been at all shy about pointing out the new setting’s ability to turn its “sixcylinder prime mover into a genuine long distance interstate B-double hauler”.

Call me cynical, but doesn’t that suggest the 500 rating wasn’t quite the genuine B-double linehauler its defenders declared? It would seem so.

Whatever, there’s no doubt the 540’s additional horsepower, coupled with an extra 150Nm of torque – taking peak torque out to 2,700Nm, or 1,990lb-ft – finally put the Swedish contender head-to-horsepower head with any contender in the highly competitive 12- to 13-litre class.

The extra punch, however, hasn’t come without some critical updates to enhance performance and, predictably, fuel efficiency. In fact, the message from Scania is that, like its in-line siblings, the DC13 engine has been reworked in a number of key areas, not least through the application of low friction coatings on pistons, rings and bores, plus modified inlet and exhaust manifolds, increased compression rates and higher cylinder pressures from Scania’s durable XPI fuel injection system, and a new fixed geometry turbocharger. Also new, and specifically designed to enhance efficiency when the engine is operating at low

load cycles, are variable coolant pumps and a variable steering pump that, combined with all the other updates, allow Scania to confidently claim an overall fuel consumption improvement of up to 2.5 per cent.

All up, it’s simply a more potent package with 540hp on tap at 1,800rpm and top torque on stream from 1,000 to 1,300rpm. And yes, while the V8 is always an option for Scania’s 500-plus proponents, it comes with a 300kg weight penalty over the steer axle compared to the six-cylinder 540 rating.

So, to push the point just a fraction further, a 540 rating might have taken a lot longer than expected to get here but it certainly won’t take long for word to get around that Scania’s 13-litre can now punch as hard as any in the high end of the mid-bore business.

Down the Hume Understandably, Scania has been keen to get bums on the seat of its latest linehaul specialist and the offer to take an R540 B-double with almost 34,000km under its belt on a daylight run from Sydney to Melbourne quickly became as likeable as it was logical.

Scania’s affable driver trainer, Dave Whyte, whose previous lives as an owner-driver and writer for several truck magazines have embedded a deeply ingrained regard for the Swedish truck, appeared more than happy to spend the day in the shotgun seat.

Still, with a shrewd grin, he wasn’t bashful about proclaiming high hopes for performance and efficiency as the combination headed out of Scania’s Prestons dealership in Sydney’s south-west at a gross weight of 58.5 tonnes.

The outfit settled easily into stride down the freeway and while much more than a year had passed since last driving a Scania, it didn’t take long to be reacquainted with a slick powertrain and an impressive array of standard features.

Typically, the engine uses selective catalytic reduction (SCR) and a diesel particulate filter (DPF) to achieve Euro 6 emissions compliance, matched to Scania’s highly intuitive and stunningly smooth 14-speed

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“There’s plenty for a driver to like but there are also a few areas where the Scania isn’t quite the equal of others.”

Above: Inside views of Scania’s R-series cab. It’s an entirely comfortable and well-appointed layout but familiarity with control functions takes time

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overdrive Opticruise automated transmission. Feeding into a 3.42:1 final drive ratio, 100km/h was notched around 1,400rpm.

Fuel capacity in the standard R540 is 1,030 litres – 720 litres in the left tank, 310 in the right – and a 105-litre AdBlue tank, with steer and drive axles rolling on Continental 295/80R 22.5 tyres mounted on Alcoa DuraBright wheels. Scania states a tare weight with full tanks but no bullbar or driver at a tad under 9,800kg.

By comparison, a V8 under the same cab would easily push tare over 10 tonnes.

Disc brakes all-round operate in concert with an advanced emergency braking system and Scania’s highly effective, multistage R3500 retarder and exhaust brake. In short, Scania braking is incredibly strong, smooth and no doubt, as safe as they come.

Standard safety systems are, of course, a major influence in all new trucks nowadays – still, some more than others – and while the R540’s list includes a driver airbag, electronic stability program, lane departure warning, adaptive cruise control, and auto hill hold (arguably the most practical innovation of all), Scania has gone one better than its European counterparts with what it calls ‘side curtain roll-over protection airbags’.

On the inside, there’s plenty for a driver to like but there are also a few areas where the Scania isn’t quite the equal of others. The sleeper, for instance, is not as functional or practical as the topof-the-line Benz bunk and, with a wide array of control functions on the steering wheel, familiarity can take quite a while. In this estimation, operational ease could be improved by moving the small buttons for cruise control and downhill speed control from the bottom of the steering wheel to a higher position on the rim.

Just a thought!

Similarly, and like most of its continental rivals, it took a while to feel completely comfortable with the Scania’s soft and somewhat sensitive steering. But not too long. Indeed, by the time the truck approached the first significant climb at Skyline near Mittagong, comfort and on-road confidence were well established and it was easy to concentrate solely on the R540’s performance.

With the transmission in auto mode and the engine showing a propensity for digging deep into the torque band before dropping a gear, the Skyline climb forced the truck back to eighth gear with engine speed briefly reaching down to 1,450rpm. A good effort, and one which was largely repeated on the pull out of the nearby ‘dipper’.

At the back of the brain, though, there lurked the thought that hill climbing performance could probably be improved in manual mode, making shifts earlier and, where appropriate, taking two gears rather than one. And so it was that, on the approach to the long hard pull over Conroy’s Gap, manual mode was selected and the Scania ultimately steamed over the crest in ninth gear at 1,200rpm. This was a highly impressive pull, with earlier downshifts allowing the engine to keep up a full head of steam and hang onto a higher gear than perhaps would’ve been achieved with the shifter in auto mode.

By this stage, confidence in the Scania’s performance and technology attributes, not least high regard for the downhill speed control function, was winning an increasingly positive opinion of the R540’s abilities. The quiet strength of the peak 13-litre rating and the inherent driver comfort were, in fact, making the trip pass surprisingly fast and with plenty of daylight remaining, the truck was soon enough mingling in the congested afternoon traffic of Melbourne’s western ring road.

Final destination was Scania’s Laverton dealership, but not before swinging into a nearby service station to top the tanks and physically confirm the trip computer’s fuel reading of 2.0km/litre, or 5.65mpg for us older heads, for the 860km run. Either way, a respectable return by any measure, and enough to put the hint of a smile on Dave’s dial.

It was, in fact, an even more respectable return given that the truck was largely driven to assess performance standards rather than any feather-footed, technologically tooled attempt to maximise fuel economy. Proving the point, trip data revealed the R540 averaged a lively 86km/h with an overall driving time of under 10 hours.

So, the end assessment is to simply vouch for Scania’s claim that it has turned its 13-litre “six-cylinder prime mover into a genuine long distance interstate B-double hauler”.

Not before time, perhaps, but there’s no doubt Scania has now made the 13-litre linehaul class even more competitive.

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interview: Mikael Jansson

THE RIGHT DIRECTION

I

F EVER TWO managing directors appeared to emerge from different sides of the corporate corridor, they are current Scania Australia chief Mikael Jansson and his retired predecessor, Roger McCarthy, the sharply styled, articulate Englishman with a polished salesman’s flair for the limelight, and, typically, always up for a chat on industry issues and Scania achievements. And a photo, of course.

Jansson, on the other hand, is a mild mannered Swede with a strong Nordic accent and an apparent preference for quiet conversation rather than public appearance. In fact, now approaching four years in the top job at Scania Australia, it’s surprising to learn that this is Jansson’s first one-on-one interview.

Yet, despite their decidedly different personas, they share a couple of critical similarities. Each is a passionately proud and loyal Scania stalwart with a determined competitive streak and, most significant of all, each has achieved far more than any of his many predecessors.

Indeed, Scania Australia is today stronger and more successful than ever before and certainly nothing like the struggling entity that, in the late ‘90s, came

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close to being withdrawn from the market according to a blunt admission long ago by the brand’s authoritarian and often outspoken former leader, Leif Ostling.

Yet, while Sweden’s commitment to stay in Australia all those years ago had next to no impact on Scania’s position on the sales ladder, it apparently had a big influence on financial performance. According to a bullish Ostling, interviewed during a 2004 visit, Australian profitability had by then improved to be one of the best in the Scania world on “an investment to equity relationship”.

Nonetheless, for the first decade of the new century, the Swedish maker simply could not climb off the lower rungs of the heavy-duty ladder, generally hovering around three or four per cent of the sector despite callow guesstimates by a succession of imported leaders that a 10 per cent slice was “entirely possible” within a few years.

Consequently, and given the underwhelming and occasionally short-lived performances of numerous predecessors, McCarthy’s arrival in 2009 was cynically seen as just another Scania chief happy to enjoy an idyllic sunny break from the great grey of the northern hemisphere. It was soon evident, though, that this highly professional Pommie import was seriously intent on making a mark and, over the next seven years, cleverly implementing several initiatives in niche markets and effectively making Euro 6 emissions a Scania specialty, the brand finally started to achieve steady growth.

To date, he is Scania Australia’s longest serving managing director and, it’s fair to say, it was McCarthy who finally got the ball rolling for Scania. However, it’s equally apparent that, despite a somewhat

diffident demeanour, Jansson hasn’t been at all shy about picking up the ball and running with it.

At the close of 2017, just months after McCarthy’s departure for retirement and Jansson’s appointment, Scania, for the first time, cracked 1,000 heavy-duty sales in a year – 1,003 to be exact – but at 8.4 per cent, still notably short of the elusive 10 per cent share of the big boy class.

However, the best was yet to come and it is a surprisingly buoyant Jansson who agrees that the last four or five years have been Scania’s most successful in the Australian market.

Still, there have been a few unexpected setbacks.

Certainly most worrying of all is COVID-19 but, well before the pandemic struck with all its fears and frustrations, challenges were emerging that would rain on Scania Australia’s excitement after the early 2018 launch of its New Truck Generation (NTG).

Hiding under the fanfare of the new model release were destructive supply shortfalls in Europe, especially on components for building Scania’s popular V8 engine, which led to the bent-eight production line shutting down for several months.

As Jansson commented, it was particularly disappointing “after the new series had received so much positive feedback from customers. The new product ran into supply problems very quickly [creating] a major problem because we’re so dependent on the V8.”

Consequently, 2018 was a year of struggle that took the gloss off the initial excitement of the NTG release, with Scania achieving a relatively lacklustre 891 sales and falling back to just 6.2 per cent in what was then a booming market for the heavy-duty sector.

Still, according to Jansson, the market’s enthusiasm

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for the new model range and the gradual unblocking of V8 supply lines created ideal conditions for a major turnaround in 2019 and, accordingly, Scania notched its best year ever with 1,140 deliveries and nine per cent of the heavy-duty class.

Even so, demand for the new range continued to outstrip supply and it’s an adamant Jansson who insists 2019 would’ve been significantly better if supply had been able to match orders.

Likewise, 2020!

Considering COVID In Scania Australia’s Campbellfield (Vic) boardroom a few months back, Jansson was quick to express relief that people were once again sitting at desks and circulating through the office.

“We need to learn from the lessons of having more flexible working arrangements,” he comments. “But really, this change was coming before COVID, with the younger generation looking for more flexible working arrangements.”

In the next breath though, he stresses the need for face-to-face interaction.

“Sometimes, important decisions are taken during discussions at the coffee machine [and] that’s the interaction you miss when working from home.”

It was a simple example but the message was clear. Quiet for a moment, he continues: “I’m very proud how we handled COVID and how we had no infections at all.”

Equally, employment was kept at full strength, there was no shutdown for Scania and the service network stayed open and firmly fixed on meeting customer needs.

“We kept and protected our people, we kept supporting our customers, the retail operation was running at full speed, and the company was effectively managed despite so many people working from home.

“It was important to keep our competence. We had no people on JobKeeper at all, no support from government [and] it makes me proud that we were able to do that.”

Eager to push the point and no doubt, espouse a higher ideal: “We should get support from government when we really need it, not just because we can get it. For me, that’s about maintaining our social responsibility.”

Yet, whereas some companies were stunningly quick to use COVID as an axe to cut people, it was a forthright Jansson who remarked: “We kept all staff.” Then, a few minutes later, in response to a question about Scania’s rising prominence: “We now employ 500 people, so 25 per cent (100 people) more than when I came here, plus we’ve started Scania in New Zealand where we employ 150 people.”

Nonetheless, COVID-19 wasn’t the only constraint in 2020. In fact, he adds: “I was a bit surprised that COVID was not impacting the market as most thought it would.”

However: “Order intake for us last year was very strong [but] we lost market share because we had supply issues, so we ended just short of 900 trucks.”

The official number was 880 deliveries for 8.3 per cent of the market and fifth spot on the heavy-duty leader board.

Meantime, while he insists the strong order intake is continuing in 2021, so too are the supply issues, which are certainly not peculiar to Scania alone. As Jansson explains, the issues are two-fold: “One is the shortage of semi-conductors [essentially the micro components of the electronic control systems at the heart of almost every automotive product in the world today].

“That is a global problem but how much it will impact us is somewhat unknown, but it is a big challenge for everyone.”

Critically, however, it’s a challenge accentuated by the high level of international demand for Scania’s NTG range.

“So it’s a fight to get capacity from production, but the ramp-up to get higher volumes at the factory is impacted by suppliers in Europe who, in this COVID time, can’t ramp-up at the pace we all want,” he explains.

Consequently, it’s a sincere and gratefully candid Scania chief who says: “We will not get the supply this year that we want from Europe.”

On the positives though, he firmly suggests it’s a short-term issue. Demand for the NTG range is, however, not peculiar to Europe alone.

“We have an order book now we have never seen before,” says a positive Jansson, predicting a strong market for heavy trucks this year and, potentially, another record for Scania.

“The heavy segment was 10,600 [trucks] last year but I think it will increase by at least 10 per cent and, if we get the supply we want, I’m confident we will get to 1,200 sales.”

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“If we get the supply we want, I’m confident we will get to 1,200 sales.”

Thoughtful for a moment, he continues: “The supply issue may stop us from reaching that figure but, from what we know at this moment, we will deliver over 1,000 trucks this year. The order book is just so strong.”

Asked if Scania’s rise comes at the targeting of any one competitor, a serious Jansson replies: “Mercedes-Benz and Volvo are the two main competitors normally [but] I don’t care. We are not focused on who we target.

“It’s a tough market, especially with big fleets where you can get a lot of volume but it’s important for me to have a profitable business, so it’s not just about volume.”

Yet, when subsequently asked if 10 per cent market share is still Scania’s target, an unequivocal Jansson said simply: “Yes!” At this point in the discussion, he confidently stated he was looking forward to the end of March (see footnote on page 82) when Scania’s strong performance for the first quarter of 2021 would be revealed.

As the numbers soon demonstrated, his confidence was entirely justified, finishing the first quarter with 218 deliveries and notching 8.9 per cent of the market. Biggest news of all, though, was that Scania’s performance for the month of March alone was exceptionally strong, finishing third in the heavy rankings with 10.3 per cent and just five units behind the other Swede, Volvo.

Talk of ‘the other Swede’ brought a wry smile to Jansson’s dial and an unusually sharp snipe at his competitor’s corporate leadership in Sweden.

“At the top executive level, Volvo has brought in a number of Scania people. Scania has not found the need to entice Volvo people into its executive realm.”

Yet, asked why the two Swedish brands historically change Australian leadership so often, it’s a somewhat evasive Jansson who retorts: “I can only talk from a Scania perspective [but] there are still things to do here and I am very keen to continue that journey.

“Stability,” he contends, “comes from a Scania way of working [but] you need to understand the local market, so it’s the people who are our asset and driving the changes.”

Has Australia been a tough learning curve for him? The answer is immediate: “No. This organisation was already working to Scania’s way of thinking but I quickly learned to like working with Australians. They are direct, but in a positive way. They

Below: A serious Mikael Jansson considers a question on COVID. “It was important to keep our competence [and] it makes me proud we were able to do that.”

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“Scania has not found the need to entice Volvo people into its executive realm.” tell you want they think and they understand that, if things go wrong, it’s how you deal with problems that’s important. It’s a mentality I like.”

At 62 years of age and still with plenty to achieve here, it’s a convincing Jansson who declares there are no plans to go anywhere else.

More muscle It’s no secret, of course, that Scania is nowadays a vital part of the ambitious Traton Group, effectively the global commercial vehicle conglomerate of automotive giant Volkswagen, which also includes MAN and, most recently, Navistar (International) in the US. Asked what influence Traton may have on Scania in Australia, Jansson just shrugs and says the conglomerate’s impact here is likely to be minimal, suggesting the main effects will be in global research and development programs on future product, and greater production efficiencies.

On the possibility of a closer commercial relationship with MAN and its association with the Penske organisation here, he says there has simply been no contact or discussion and, moreover, expects none.

“For me, MAN is just one of the competitors,” he says.

Far more important, he asserts, is the continuing evolution of the NTG range, not least the recent introduction of a 540hp rating in Scania’s 13-litre line-up.

While declining to comment on Scania’s reasons for limiting its top 13-litre rating to 500hp in the initial launch of the new models, he quickly contends: “We now have the horsepower more in line with the competition and that will be good for us. The 540 is filling a gap that is important.”

There will, however, be no lack of power in a refreshed V8 range headed our way later this year, with Jansson confirming a top rating of 770hp (574kW) and a stump-ripping 3,700Nm (2,730lb-

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Above: People power. “We now employ 500 people, so 25 per cent [100 people] more than when I came here, plus we’ve started Scania in New Zealand where we employ 150 people,” explains an earnest Mikael Jansson

ft) of torque, accompanied by 660, 590 and 530hp (492, 440 and 395kW) settings.

All four ratings will be Euro 6 models coupled to a significantly updated Opticruise automated transmission designed to work more efficiently with the big bore V8 and capable of producing fuel savings up to six per cent, according to Scania.

Consequently, it’s an upbeat Jansson who cites a powerful future for Scania Australia, in more ways than one.

“With increased volumes, we also need to increase our retail network and that is creating a lot of new jobs,” he says enthusiastically.

“We have started to build a second workshop in western Sydney and a new national parts warehouse [in Melbourne] and a supporting warehouse in Perth.”

Meanwhile, plans for coming years include more service centres in other cities and regions, and, as is the Scania custom, most will be company-owned.

“Our strategy is to have company-owned facilities in the main cities and non-captive in the regions, which means 90 per cent of all workshop operation is captive. That’s important for us,” he continues.

“It’s a huge investment, of course, but you are in control of the service you’re giving the customers.”

All up, the future for Scania has never looked brighter?

“Yes, but if you stay still in this market, you will lose,” a definite Jansson concludes.

FOOTNOTE: SCANIA SOARS IN APRIL

If Scania was happy with its market share in the month of March, it must be ecstatic with April’s barnstorming performance.

Scania’s take of the heavy-duty sector in April was a potent 14.1 per cent, second only to absolute market leader Kenworth and notably ahead of arch rivals Volvo and Mercedes-Benz.

April’s numbers pushed Scania’s year-to-date slice of the sector to 10.4 per cent, putting it well within range of forging past Volvo and Benz in overall standings.

Meanwhile, the 2021 heavy-duty market remains defiantly strong and, if current momentum continues, the sector will deliver around 12,000 trucks this year.

ownerdriver.com.au

26/05/2021 10:49:53 AM

model report: Scania seven-litre P280

NEW BJORN BABY

I

N A SHORTHAUL rigid truck market so thoroughly and fiercely dominated by Japanese models, it can be curious why local European brands bother to throw a slick and highly advanced contender into the mix when the likelihood of significant sales is perhaps as slim as the potential profit margin.

Then again, why not? Any new model does, of course, add another string to the business bow, and, moreover, a high-tech ‘round-town toiler may even prove to be just the thing for some applications and individuals who might require significantly more than a relatively standard, off-the-shelf workhorse.

Scania, it seems, is figuring on just such a scenario for its new and extremely well equipped seven-litre P-series truck, because there’s no doubt that when it comes to top-shelf componentry in shorthaul and regional distribution roles, nothing comes close to the brand’s new baby.

The specification of a P280 6x2 demonstrator doing the promotional rounds recently was an excellent example of just how far Scania has gone in an obvious quest to needle its way into applications ruled by Japanese makers.

It all starts with the new seven-litre – actually, 6.7litre – engine, which is, in fact, the culmination of another development project between Sweden’s Scania and North American engine giant Cummins. These two powerhouses are long-term partners who have worked closely on a number of major engine and component exercises over many years – not least the well-proven XPI high pressure fuel injection system – so it’s no coincidence that the smallest engine Scania has offered in decades shares exactly the same displacement and dimensions as its Cummins equivalent, the 6.7-litre ISB engine.

Yet, Scania refutes any suggestion that its engine is simply a Cummins clone. All monitoring and control systems have, for instance, been developed by Scania, along with a fixed geometry turbocharger and an SCR

BRING

emissions system for Euro 6 compliance. Accordingly, Scania says there are around 100 different parts in its version of the six cylinder 6.7-litre displacement, which comes in 220, 250 and 280hp (164, 186 and 209kW) variants, with peak torque of 1,200Nm (885lb-ft) in the highest power rating.

As Scania is equally quick to point out, though, the introduction of the engine known as the DC07 definitely does not mean the end of its current and more powerful five-cylinder nine-litre engine, which comes in Euro 5 and Euro 6 variants up to 360hp (268kW).

“We will continue to offer our nine-litre in the P-series, which is ideally suited to heavier twin-steer and 6x4 applications,” says Scania Australia director of truck sales, Dean Dal Santo.

However, what the addition of the 7-litre engine

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“The road manners and steering of the P280 were exceptionally sound in all conditions.”

Above: Around town, the P280 was a delight and throttle response from the seven-litre engine is impressive. Out on the open road though, undulating conditions highlight the modest displacement’s shortage of gritty determination Below: All in the family. Scania’s P280 shares the same high standard of build quality and operational features as its bigger brothers. There’s a lot to like for shorthaul and regional work

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does mean is that it is able to contest much the same two-, threeand four-axle rigid configurations as its nine-litre brother but with a significant weight saving up to 360kg and a 95mm lower engine hump between the seats in the P-series cab. Additionally, Scania says the lower floor “allows the fitment of the same storage compartments as in [bigger] G-series cabs, plus there are new options for layouts with rear storage and bunks”.

With the seven-litre only available under the P-series cab and with a gross combination limit of just 30 tonnes – meaning the engine’s potential for prime mover duties is purposefully negligible – Scania’s target market for this addition to its New Truck Generation (NTG) is obviously shorthaul and regional work in rigid configurations. The way Scania sees it, the smaller, lighter engine will enhance the brand’s appeal in those delivery applications where a rigid truck might start the day at a gross weight around 20 tonnes but soon be down to 12 tonnes or so as deliveries are made.

Predictably, the engine is matched to a suitably tailored, direct-drive version of Scania’s sweet-shiftin’ Opticruise 12-speed automated transmission that, like its heavier-duty brethren, comes with two additional crawler gear ratios for slow manoeuvring as well as ‘economy’, ‘standard’ and ‘power’ operating modes.

With the box driving into a relatively quick 3.08:1 rear axle ratio, it’s a driveline that can comfortably cruise along a freeway – with 100km/h reached at a twitch under 1,550rpm – or calmly creep through metro mayhem.

Indeed, when it comes to piloting a six-wheeler rigid through choked city and suburban traffic tempos, it doesn’t come much smoother or easier than Scania’s lightweight specialist.

Ridin’ on air The demo truck’s 6x2 configuration came as no surprise. The singledrive three-axle configuration has been something of a Scania specialty for decades and it’s no exaggeration to suggest the Swedish maker has been arguably the biggest promoter of the 6x2 (and now 8x2) layout in both rigid and prime mover roles since the brand’s earliest days in Australia.

Sure, some early mechanically sprung versions didn’t quite

light the fires of excitement when a truck became stranded on a gutter or the like, but the arrival of electronically controlled airbag suspensions that allowed axle height to be raised and lowered has done much to nullify the initial negatives.

Nowadays, airbag suspensions are the norm and, in the P280, Scania has taken the evolution to its full extent with airbags on the steer axle as well as driven and non-driven rear axles. Typically, ride quality on everything from chopped secondary roads to slick highways was second to none.

Yet, it’s worth mentioning that while earlier airbag designs on steer axles didn’t always deliver inspiring handling, the road manners and steering of the P280 were exceptionally sound in all conditions, with none of the wallowing or dipping in corners that limited the acceptance of some previous airbag steer axles.

Furthermore, the all-air Scania layout provides an individual axle weighing system that displays on a digital readout in the cab.

In the case of the demo truck, it was simply a case of scrolling the dash screen to the readout showing axle weights and instantly seeing that the front axle was loaded to 5.6 tonnes, the drive axle to 6.3 tonnes and the tag axle to 7.3 tonnes, for an all-up gross weight of 19.2 tonnes for the day-long test drive. What’s more, it also revealed a load weight of 7.7 tonnes, which meant that tare weight of the 6x2 with a sturdy Austruck curtain-sided body and full fuel (320 litre) and AdBlue (47 litre) tanks was 11.5 tonnes.

Nor was it surprising that the smallest Scania offers a long list of highly advanced standard safety systems. As the company states: “Like all Scania trucks sold in Australia, the seven-litre specification includes a steering wheel-mounted driver SRS airbag and dual side rollover curtain airbags as standard, along with advanced emergency braking, electronic traction control and lane departure warning systems. Brakes are by discs all-round.”

LED lights all-round, including daytime running lights, are a similarly standard feature as is the hugely beneficial auto hill hold feature.

On the inside, and typifying the high level of build quality in Scania’s NTG range, the day cab demonstrator was a superb workplace for shorthaul and regional duties; immensely comfortable and well-appointed with even a small fridge between the seats, and all controls and switchgear in easy reach and, equally, easily understood.

Likewise, it took little time behind the wheel to be fully at ease with the Scania’s road manners and appreciate the truck’s attributes in smoothly coping with the suburban slog. In other areas, though, the smallest Scania wasn’t quite as convincing.

On a wickedly wet day and with almost 29,000km on the clock at the start of our run from Scania’s Prestons dealership in Sydney’s south-western suburbs, the P280 was run along the Hume before turning east and dropping down Mt Ousley for a short jaunt around Wollongong’s industrial backblocks. Then, up Ousley for a run into Sydney’s southern suburbs and a meander through peak hour metro madness on the way back to Scania’s dealership. All up, a 200km mix that probably typified the model’s likely workloads.

Around town, the P280 is perfectly at ease – smooth, quiet, agile and with enough response from the seven-litre engine to comfortably keep pace with erratic traffic flows.

On undulating open roads, though, the small displacement engine’s lively throttle response is not matched by an inherent propensity for pulling power.

Admittedly, peak performance figures of 280hp (206kW) at 1,900rpm and 1,200Nm (885lb-ft) of torque on tap from 1,050 to 1,600rpm suggest a wide and reasonably tenacious fight but, as numerous climbs showed with the transmission in auto mode, the powertrain rarely utilises the full extent of the torque band. Instead, it was quick to drop a gear at 1,400 or 1,500rpm rather than dig deeper and utilise more of the available torque output.

On more demanding climbs, manual mode at least allowed the full torque band to be utilised before making a single downshift or on sharper pinches, taking two gears to use more of the rev range.

When it’s all boiled down, Scania’s seven-litre is simply a small displacement engine with a typically high level of throttle response but an equally typical lack of gritty pulling power.

Likewise, exhaust brake performance wasn’t particularly inspiring. According to Scania’s figures, maximum exhaust braking effect is a modest 88kW at 2,500rpm, which is again indicative of a small bore engine.

Overall though, there’s a great deal to like about Scania’s P280 6x2, not least fuel economy. At the end of a demanding day, the truck returned an entirely acceptable 3.2km/litre, or 9.1mpg.

Just as Scania says, its new seven-litre rigid model is ideally suited to shorthaul delivery work or regional runs. However, if the regional runs have plenty of hills, it’d probably be worth stepping up to the nine-litre engine.

Sometimes, you just can’t beat cubes.

ownerdriver.com.au

26/05/2021 10:50:35 AM

WILKIE’S WATCH Ken Wilkie

Thankless occupation We’re said to be an essential service, but try telling that to the bureaucrats and road authorities

T

HE LATEST bit of rubbish to stem from the shiny pants is a suggestion that people like me should be saddled with a massive increase in registration fees to encourage us to update to the latest in technology – to improve safety and protect the environment. I’m not one of those who are disbelievers. The earth’s climate has been subject to change for centuries – long before there was an explosion of homo sapiens polluting the environment; long before homo sapiens were even present on the globe.

Virtually each and every one of us is taking advantage of the God-given earth’s natural bounties. I doubt if we can do a lot to reverse the current situation while the earth’s population is multiplying at such a rate.

Just recently I read a report that America’s oldest living person had just passed away at 115 years of age. The lady had direct descendants numbering close to 200 – in just over 100 years.

My concerns regarding the loading up of charges against older vehicles in an effort to create a safer more environmentally friendly fleet is: what happens to the discarded vehicles?

And what of the environmental cost of manufacturing new stuff to replace the old? Would the hoped-for savings warrant the wastage of current product? And I think it a reasonable assumption to consider that operators of older vehicles, such as me and my truck, will be replaced by a generally less experienced and probably less motivated operators.

ANOTHER BLITZ It has been announced that the enforcement people are conducting another blitz against this industry in the name of safety no less. Of course the suits will have difficulty in arguing against such a lofty ideal once the word ‘safety’ has been mentioned. And I doubt the suits even care about the difficulty truck drivers have in accommodating such persecution.

Truckies cannot win. We are saddled with a set of regulations in the name of fatigue that are totally irrational. And bureaucracy cannot ignore that because they have demonstrated they know it to be the case. Every page in the work diary bears the directive: “Do not drive if you are impaired by fatigue.”

I don’t want to see a situation like that of Olympic athletics where the fittest and fastest wins a gold medal (read: biggest pay cheque). There has to be

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OWD_341_085_COL_Ken Wilkie_GB.indd 85

some consideration of a fair amount of time spent working to gain a respectable income for those of us rewarded with mundane capabilities. And there has to be some thought put into the work situation of long haul drivers who can’t really gain an advantage in stopping to appease the work ethics of a bureaucrat.

Truck drivers do not go to work to be irresponsible.

It has even recently been acknowledged that ours is an essential industry. So why the persecution of truck drivers?

I remind readers and – particular NatRoad supporters – of the results handed to that organisation when it and industry in general was pressing for uniformity of state regulations. I quote in part from that report, Securing a National Approach to Heavy Vehicle Regulation: “Border crossings are a high stress node in the transport network. According to industry sources, drivers who cross borders experience considerable compliance stress, with attendant health risks.” I do stress that the report was in relation to establishing a national approach to Australia’s transport regulations.

It is no secret that I, for one, am critical of the failure of that since-created bureaucracy to fulfil its obligations in that field. But the comments made in the report to NatRoad in relation to compliance stress and attendant health

risks are equally relevant when policing authorities are hell bent on chasing breaches to fulfil an ambition to justify the authority’s existence.

Did I ever mention the phrase 'Truth in breach reporting'? It’s oh-so-convenient for policing to list breaches in their neat little headings. Brakes, fatigue, speed limiting, non-conformance and so on. Let the Australian Trucking Association (ATA) demand a full and public breakdown of every breach, then the public might have a better understanding of how we really perform.

Let the ATA demand truth in breach reporting to raise the image of so many decent honest people performing a crucial task for this society.

MASSIVE KILOMETRES KEN WILKIE has been an owner-driver since 1974, after first getting behind the wheel at 11. He’s on his eighth truck, and is a long-time Owner// Driver contributor. He covers Rockhampton to Adelaide and any point in between.

His current ambition is to see the world, and to see more respect for the nation’s truckies. Contact Ken at ken@rwstransport.com.au

“Truck drivers do not go to work to be irresponsible.”

A spokesperson has claimed that trucks are over-represented in accident statistics. Again, I suspect bureaucracy are using figures that suit their aims.

And I have no doubt that at the end a set of figures will be released to justify their actions. Trucks over-represented?

So what figures are used to justify such comments? Not the National Transport Insurance’s consistent findings I’m sure.

Are they using registered numbers with no thought to the massive kilometres travelled by trucks in comparison to light vehicles?

At some point in my recent existence I have come across a request that police be divorced from policing the (not) National Heavy Vehicle Regulations.

I wish them luck on that and for the record I don’t support the ideal. It’s been said to me that the not-NHVR personnel are more prone to issue warnings and education lectures to offending operators as opposed to breaching.

Yeah, when it suits that officer maybe.

A much better approach to my mind is getting regulations in place that have a real purpose instead of the current stuff that is the result of industry prejudicial persecution.

In the good old days when the National Road Freighters Association was interested in getting a better outcome for the industry as opposed to pandering to personal ambitions, considerable effort went into developing a position on fatigue management. Again, much effort went into developing a position on registration charging that would have delivered a much fairer outcome.

Those works are still relevant if anyone can be found to propel them to the public eye. Maybe the ATA could put its bias against small operators and the general ranks of truck drivers on the back burner and focus on a culture of fairness to be included in its call for a just culture. And I’m very lukewarm in relation to ATA’s bragging in relation to the ATA’s Safe T360 project.

So the ATA wants to impress Senator Jacqui Lambie and discuss road safety. I’d be red hot in support if the discussion was in regard to getting the federal government to endorse national driver training in the nation’s secondary school curriculum. Otherwise I ask the ATA just what percentage of the driving population will benefit from the chest beating?

My required reading for the month: Anzac and Aviator by Michael Moikentin.

JUNE 2021 85

26/05/2021 10:28:30 AM

tech briefs

Iveco’s dual control Eurocargo IVECO HAS announced the addition of a new dual control variant to the mediumduty Eurocargo range, which it says is designed to meet the increasing demand for more compact waste removal vehicles.

Available on the 4x2 Euro5 (EEV) ML160 platform with shortened 4,455mm wheelbase, the new Eurocargo is manufactured at Iveco’s facility in Brescia, Italy, and features

‘predisposition’ for dual control, which allows more efficient fitment of the additional system componentry in Australia.

Components to engineer the dual control Eurocargo are from Iveco-sourced parts kits, which the manufacturer says provides seamless integration of the system, resulting in a high quality, factory finish and a more efficient fitment process.

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The ML160 dual control platform is designed to be compatible with a number of leading side loader compactor bodies with volumes of up to 15 square metres; an optimal size that delivers considerable payload benefits while still offering strong manoeuvrability and a lower gross vehicle mass (GVM) compared to traditional 6x4 refuse collection vehicles.

Iveco ANZ product manager Marco Quaranta says the new model was ideal for work in gated communities, many of which had private access roads with GVM limits.

“There’s a growing trend in Australia towards higher density living and it’s changing the way waste needs to be collected,” Quaranta says.

“Load restrictions on some roads, and more restrictive infrastructure as a whole, means that operating a full sized compactor in these areas can be a challenge, which makes the more compact Eurocargo an ideal platform for a dual control model.

“The Eurocargo already has smaller dimensions than many compactors in the market, but with a shortened wheelbase of 4,455mm, this provides exceptional manoeuvrability while

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The truck is powered by a 5.9 litre, sixcylinder Euro5 (EEV) engine producing 280hp (209kW) and 950Nm of torque and is coupled to a five-speed Allison S3000 full automatic transmission. Iveco says this is the preferred option for refuse collection work thanks to its ease of use and durability.

The dual control Eurocargo features rear electronically-controlled air suspension (ECAS), while the rear axle includes a driver-controlled differential lock should additional traction be required.

Braking on the vehicle comes courtesy of front and rear ventilated disc brakes with electronic stability program, antilock braking system and anti-skid regulator.

Other reported benefits of the model include a European-designed and appointed cabin that places a high emphasis on ergonomics, including reduced noise and high comfort levels.

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ownerdriver.com.au

26/05/2021 10:15:48 AM

More light for the road ahead IT WAS BACK in 2017 when Narva launched its Ultimate LED 215 range with a hybrid beam pattern. However, over the last several years, Narva says its engineering team has worked hard to develop a worthy successor to the range.

The result is the Ultima LED MK2 range, which is offering 30 per cent additional light over its predecessors, as well as a 20 per cent longer beam.

Narva says the improved lighting performance is complemented by a range of bold new bezel colours to keep up with new vehicle trends. Engineered to be brighter and bolder, Narva points out that its new Ultima LED MK2 range is initially available in the 215 and more compact 180 variants.

To achieve the extra performance, Narva explains that each light benefits from higher output Osram LEDs (24 x 5 Watt for Ultima 180 MK2 and 33 x 5 Watt for Ultima 215 MK2), producing 15,000 raw lumens and one lux of brightness at up to 812 metres per pair in the Ultima 180 MK2 and 21,780 raw lumens and one lux of brightness at up to 1,093 metres

per pair in the Ultima 215 MK2.

As well as achieving this output, the Ultima MK2 range is said to benefit from improved colour rendering index (CRI) performance, leading to more natural light output (5,700 deg. colour temperature), which improves depth perception and reduces eye fatigue. Both lights also include an LED front position pipe for added visibility and safety during daylight hours.

Both Ultima MK2 lights feature pressure die-cast aluminium housings, Gore-Tex breather vent and active thermal management system that Narva says offers superior heat dissipation.

Also standard is a hard-coated UV-resistant and virtually unbreakable polycarbonate lens and lens protector, as well as a pressure die-cast mounting bracket incorporating convenient three bolt mounting with stainless steel hardware.

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The lights are available in ‘Stainless Satin’ single lamp packs that include a 180 or 215 MK2 light with stainless steel trim and interchangeable slate grey, red and yellow trim options, plus clear lens protector. Black Edition single lamp packs are also available for both size lights.

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tech briefs

Hino EV boasts ultralow floor SCHEDULED TO BE released in Japan in mid-2022, the Hino Dutro Z EV is Hino Motors Ltd’s first fullscale electric vehicle (EV) and, as the Japanese manufacturer states, is designed for the ‘last mile deliveries’.

This variation of the Dutro (known in Australia as the 300 Series) is a walk-through van style, battery electric vehicle with an ultra-low floor.

The Dutro Z EV features a compact 50kW electric motor mounted under the cab, which drives the front wheels.

“A lithium ion battery is smartly packaged and is mounted under the floor of the cargo area in between the chassis rails, while the electronic control units and other ancillary equipment are

located under the cab,” says Daniel Petrovski, manager of product strategy for Hino Australia.

“The walk-through structure of the van and its targeted cruising range of 100-plus km is particularly suited to the multi-stop delivery

characteristics of the last mile delivery challenge.”

In addition to the walkthrough van, Hino has also developed a traditional light truck-style cab chassis version that customers can mount their

application specific body to.

“This is an exciting product and Hino Australia is currently in discussion with Hino Motors Ltd regarding a release date for the Dutro Z EV into the Australian market,” Petrovski says.

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FREIGHTLINER ARGOSY 101 2008, low kilometre 2008 Freightliner Argosy 110, bisalloy Hercules Tipper with sleeper cab. This has done genuine low kms - 227,000 - Build date: 11/08. This unit is in excellent condition, tipper has done little work and is in excellent condition, no. QLD. DIY1074560.

0410 630 261. $82,000 Ex GST

59

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ISUZU F SERIES 2018, Almost new, only 11000kms, XQ57BU. NSW. DIY1073768. 0407 787 675. $98,000

2012, Iveco Pantech, IVECO STRALIS 360 WJMA1VPH404393068. QLD. DIY1066449. 0417 712 754. $76,890 incl gst neg

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MITSUBISHI FS 8X4 2007, FS52 FUSO 8x4 Crane Truck with 36002 Palfinger in Cert Crane & Remote. Very reliable *Powered By a 395Hp Turbo Diesel Engine with only 330,000ks. *18 Speed Road Ranger. *PK36002 crane (2 x hydraulic extensions) inc 4 x stabilizer legs (ie 2 per side), a steel tray approx 8m L x Overall 2.4m W, yes. QLD. DIY1083333.

0438 596 748. $181,500

KENWORTH T404 SAR 2006, Cummins ISX engine, RTLO18918B trans, 46-160 (4.30) diffs, 79132765. NSW. DIY1060582. 0409 706 430. $148,500

IVECO ACCO 2350G 2003, White Crane Truck, XV48KI. VIC. DIY1062749. 0422 705 669. $40,000

OR CALL 1300 362 272 ARGOSY AIRLINER 2006, Argosy rear cut 46-160 4.1, Airliner 1, both diffs lock, full ABS harness and computer for retrofit, 7ab4v2600000zzzzz. QLD. DIY1062745. 0409 355 662. $6,600 Argosy rear cut 46-160 4.1, Airliner 1

The publisher accepts no responsibility or liability for any losses incurred by a buyer responding to an advertisement in this magazine. Buyers are solely responsible for their own negotiations and transactions with advertisers. Are Media Pty Limited advises buyers beware of negotiating by email only; of paying deposits to private advertisers for goods unseen; of transferring money (for example via Western Union) interstate or overseas. Buyers should contact Are Media customer service on 1300 362 272 if they suspect an advertisement may be fraudulent. In the event that a buyer suffers financial loss as a result of responding to a private advertisement in this publication Are Media Pty Limited (The Publisher) shall not be held liable or responsible.

MERCEDES-BENZ 2653 2018, Mercedes Actros with Freightliner 45' flatop top trailer and introduction to work, WDB96342420203089. NSW. DIY1052322. 0418 780 402. $319,000 ONO incl GST

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24/5/21 10:28 am

MC TIPPER DRIVER DTS

CAREER OPPORTUNITIES

Douglas Transport & Spreading

Since 1970, Hardy’s Haulage has evolved from a single unit, operated by the Founders Ross and Elaine Hardy out of Pottsville NSW, into today’s fleet of modern, reliable 25-metre B Doubles and Tri-Axle single tippers providing prompt, efficient delivery of bulk products to our customers.

Douglas TS Pty Ltd - DTS is a family-owned business based at Young NSW. We have an opportunity for an experienced MC Tipper Driver to join our team.

Immediate start for an experienced B Double driver with tipper experience. The applicant is required to have a current MC license, be mechanically minded with good presentation and customer service skills. The driver is required to have a current RMS driver’s history and references.

From our Head Office and main depot in Pottsville as well as our depots in Warwick and Yatala in Queensland, our operations take us from Emerald and Bundaberg in Qld, down the east coast as far as Victoria, throughout central-western NSW and up to Toowoomba, Dalby and Kingaroy in Queensland. We have weathered the ups and downs of the Australian economy to emerge as a solid, industry accredited, and well-respected member of the Australian Transport Industry.

Hardy’s Haulage is SEEKING PROFESSIONAL HC AND MC DRIVERS to join the team for regular runs into Qld, NSW, VIC and SA. All positions available are Permanent Full Time based at our depot in Warwick Qld.

BENEFITS OF THE ROLE

• Be willing to undergo a formal interview and practical driving test • Spend nights away • Have a HC or MC licence • Provide a current licence printout and provide current medical paperwork • BFM accredited • Tipper experience preferred but training available for the right person If you think this position sounds like you, then you can apply in the following ways:

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Career Opportunities • Ph Nigel on 0431 504 639 • Ph Laeton on 0427 761 276 Resume: logisitics@hardyshaulage.com.au

Please send your resume to fionakdouglas@gmail.com or contact Darren 0418 957 049.

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AD-590264649.als - Base Edition 93

• Consistent work • Excellent earning potential – above award wages paid • Permanent & secure – full time position • Immediate start • Well maintained equipment • $0.50 kilometre paid • $35 paid for each load and unload

visit www.ownerdriver.com.au NEWS & REVIEWS

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24/5/21 12:06 pm

Senator Glenn Sterle

FOR THE OWNER-DRIVER Frank Black

The fight to be united The recommendations from the Senate Inquiry into road transport are not far away

B

EING AN owner-driver can be lonesome work, so it’s always good to take time out and meet with other drivers and people from other sectors of the transport industry, and other industries.

The Transport Workers Union’s (TWU) annual national council this year achieved just that. It brought together industry representatives from different states as well as the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), politicians, academics and business leaders.

It was great to listen and talk about how to tackle the issues that still plague us drivers and owner-drivers: pay that forces us to drive unsafe hours, shabby truck stops and poor health among them.

These are things we talk about dayin, day-out. But getting everyone into a room (some that have the influence to make significant change) focused us on how to get things on the right track.

It was also interesting to learn from folks in other industries. I didn’t think I had much in common with pilots or Uber Eats’ delivery riders, but our struggles are strangely similar.

Take the gig economy. It’s a ‘new frontier’ in road transport, but you’ve got companies like Amazon and Uber doing whatever they legally can to rip off workers. It’s not going to stop there

94 JUNE 2021

OWD_341_094_COL_Frank Black_GB.indd 94

if we’re not careful. These giants will encroach on our side of the industry; we are not immune from their greed for profits.

Then there’s aviation, where 10 people doing the same job can have 10 different rates of pay (sound familiar?).

You can bet the companies at the top, like those in trucking, are trying their best to lower wages and conditions even more.

We can’t sit back and let these guys do what they like, driving down our pay and standards whether we are ownerdrivers, drivers or from any other sector.

This year the TWU’s going to be kicking it up a gear with mass industrial action, and it’s our chance to stand up and fight back right across all sectors of industry.

If we all get involved we can make a real difference, nothing can beat the power of unity.

SENATE INQUIRY

One of the industry’s greatest advocates, Western Australian Senator Glenn Sterle, meant business as he reported back from the Senate Inquiry into road transport. Not only a former truck driver but the son and father of truck drivers, he knows what happens on the road and the challenges faced by drivers and operators every day.

Glenn’s inquiry took place over two

FRANK BLACK has been a long distance ownerdriver for more than 30 years. He is a former long-term owner-driver representative on the ATA Council.

“I’d like to see improved rest areas on our freight routes.”

years even with the hurdle of COVID. He heard from dozens of drivers, operators, associations and other industry players giving their evidence and sharing what’s wrong with the industry. I gave evidence myself in Adelaide, and heard from many others.

What was absolutely clear from the Senator’s report is the same thing I hear from fellow truckies every day: something has got to give. Enough of operators struggling to keep their businesses going, drivers trying to earn a decent wage, and enough of the ‘take it or leave it’ attitude of customers.

The recommendations from the inquiry are going to come soon, and I hope they’re going to put more pressure on retailers and the government to act.

I’d like to see improved rest areas on our freight routes and a system to improve standards and conditions for owner-drivers and drivers. I’d like to see us drivers consulted more on how to improve things, rather than being continually constrained by red tape.

BUREAUCRAT SPEAK

I had the chance to appear at the final hearing in the road transport inquiry in Canberra at the end of April. It was a solemn day, because it not only coincided with International Workers’ Memorial Day, but with the fifth anniversary of the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal being torn down by the government.

I watched as the Australian Trucking Association (ATA) and NatRoad gave evidence, which to me made it clear they are not for drivers or ownerdrivers. Even if they’d tried, they could not have sounded more like bureaucrats who don’t understand our industry, though they continue to meddle in it.

But the ATA is the exception and not the rule. When we engage with other industry players we find we have far more in common than what divides us, and this year in particular we need each one of us to get on board and help change things for the better. This especially includes the grassroots of the industry: we need to stand up and be heard.

Whether that’s joining a protest or a strike as the industrial fight kicks up, or sharing our stories from the road, we need to show we’re a force to be reckoned with.

ownerdriver.com.au

26/05/2021 10:10:59 AM

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