Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 299 i Owner Driver

“The name Kenworth has been synonymous with quality in trucking since 1923” THEY CALLED IT THE ‘GREY GHOST’. The year was 1971 and the first all Australian made Kenworth rolled off the production line in the quiet, outer-eastern Melbourne suburb of Bayswater. It was the cab-over K125CR and its launch was the first step in what was to become a famous Australian manufacturing success story. The name Kenworth has been synonymous with quality in trucking since 1923, when two major shareholders, H.W. Kent and E.K. Worthington, combined their names to create the badge we know today. The first trucks to be imported into Australia from the United States (courtesy of George Blomfield and Ed Cameron) hit our shores in the early 1960s. Post Second World War had been an important…

OWNER//DRIVER CAUGHT UP with Andrew and Tanya, who have been running two-up for 10 years. They currently drive a 2016 Kenworth K200 with 2.8m cab for Utchee Refrigerated Transport of Brisbane. The couple were on their way to pick up their A-trailer and load at Virginia, just north of Adelaide. Andrew has 30 years and Tanya 28 years behind the wheel of a truck. “This is our first trip with Utchee after spending 10 years on and off with Jarac driving one of their big purple ones,” Andrew explains. “Two-up driving works well for us, we know each other and most importantly trust each other. “When it’s your turn to have a break and catch some sleep, it is essential to know that the person behind the wheel is a…

IT’S A QUARTER OF A CENTURY since Owner//Driver came into existence and that, in itself, is a huge achievement. Publishing truck magazines, much like the truck business itself, is a tough enterprise full of fierce competition driven by the endless pursuits of profit and market might. As in most undertakings, though, survival and success are ultimately determined by passion, experience and service. In effect, giving customers what they need and want. Anyway, after almost 40 years writing about trucks and road transport, the worst thing for me about a stroll down memory lane is that the lane nowadays stretches a fearfully long way. Yet while some may rue the endless passage of progress, the pace of change was well and truly on the boil by the time Owner// Driver first…

“I got the first letter requesting a B-double in 1979, and the original request was for a Canadian B-train” AUSTRALIA IS HOME TO SOME OF THE WORLD’S largest truck and trailer combinations, from road trains through to the ubiquitous and once game-changing B-double. A low-density population, expansive sunburnt lands and a hefty freight task forced the forward-thinking Australian transport industry to squeeze every bit of productivity out of its trailer combinations. The famous Aussie road train was born back in 1945 when the late, great Kurt Johannsen used an old US Army tank transporter and as many trailers as he could hook up to move livestock across the red centre. That first road train, affectionately known as Bertha, now sits in the Alice Springs Hall of Fame – a tribute…

OflP#ä$ê#³»#e$ÅeP#l»ä#d$µ#³lP#pflGÅ÷³µê has come with technology is to talk to one who has worked up to a top position after starting as a driver. Mark Anderson was a truck driver when starting out in the industry and, by 1992, he was experiencing the first wave of communications technology sweeping over the industry. ä›››#››#›››#››››››¢#››››#››#››››››¢#›››››››#››››#››# course, a different age. Often armed, in his case, with a Cat engine, trucks did what they did, by themselves and without electronics. Digital was manipulating things with your fingers. That year saw him make the move from the cab to the office but already the markers for the future 25 years were in evidence, if somewhat primitively. ›ä›››#››››››#››››››#›››››#››››#››››#›››#›››››››#››››#››››# fixed units, and a call-out phone was a ‘brick’ that you put beside you on the restaurant chair and…

THE TOTAL PROPER ROAD TASK should be measured in gross tonne kilometres (gtkms) as even empty trucks, or just their tare weights, do a modicum of road damage. But more often than not the road task is measured as a net tonne kilometre task, which many economists subscribe to. Even rail pricing is based on gtkms as it is recognised that empty trains do track damage, so why not measure the road sector in the same way? Total gross tonne kilometre road task Although data is limited to almost the last 20 years, there have been some surprising consistencies over the 1998-2016 period for the road transport task. Firstly, despite some hiccups, both rigid and articulated truck gross tonne kilometres have had growth of around 3.4 per cent per annum…

IN AUGUST 1992, a small independent Brisbane-based newspaper and magazine company, Publishing Services Australia (PSA), notified the Australian road transport industry of the impending launch of a brand-new publication. PSA already had Australasian Transport News (ATN) in its portfolio of publications, a highbrow magazine which started life as Queensland Transport News in the mid-1980s. However, PSA recognised the need for a monthly newspaper that would recognise the pride, professionalism and concerns faced of the men and women who represented the industry from the most important level – behind the wheel. Hence, in mid-September 1992, Owner//Driver was born. Founding editor Andrew Stewart says the newspaper’s agenda was to highlight the “professional owner-drivers and the way they do things as an example to the whole road transport industry”. “It’s all designed to…

“Most of the trucks in the fleet had ‘generous’ speed limiters” THERE’S A NICE SYNCHRONICITY to looking back over the last two-and-a-half decades of trucking. It also happens to be almost 25 years since my professional involvement in trucking began. Which makes me feel kinda old. Sure, electronically controlled engines were already a thing, but there were still plenty of smoke-belching mechanical bangers plying the roads. I’d thrown my hat in the ring for a career in trucking. As a fresh-faced country boy starting out as a driver in the big smoke, it was a baptism of fire. I was starting at the bottom, at the wheel of a little Isuzu FSR. On the plus side it had power steering and an AM radio. On the minus side it had…

Electronics and emissions: no two words better encapsulate the last 25 years in engine and powertrain development. To my mind, dramatic change started around the mid ’80s when the hugely powerful state of California decided it had had enough of a polluted, soot-soaked atmosphere, and subsequently mandated its own clean air bill. Any truck travelling through the state had to comply or don’t bother coming. Suddenly, the emissions ball was rolling and it rolled all around the world. Still is! Diesel engine makers were on notice: clean up |rxu#dfw#ru#Èqg#vrphwklqj#hovh#wr#pdnh1# There were nerves aplenty but research and development programs went into overdrive and, rightly perhaps, an entirely new era in diesel engine development was born in America’s automotive heartland. Detroit by name and Detroit by design, it was called Series 60.…

RM: What wider economic national and international trends have coloured the development of trucking in the past 25 years and what has it meant for drivers, small to medium operators and larger concerns? BR: All the popular visions of the future of transport had one thing in common – a world where we moved beyond oil, but the reality was quite different. As oil became more expensive, the resource became more accessible and technological breakthroughs became more rapid. Oil, gas and coal were readily converted into transport fuels and other petroleum products. Combustion engines became more efficient. So even with massive growth in transport demand, what everyone thought would drive the future of the Australian transport industry – moving away from oil – turned out to be…

“Road freight has always been part of Australia’s economy, creating a vital link between our widely spaced cities” AUSTRALIA IS A NATION CHARACTERISED by vast distances, large uninhabited areas and seemingly never-ending roads. For close to a century, road freight has provided a vital link between the nation’s cities. Trucks have acted as an economic artery, carrying goods, livestock and agricultural products throughout the land. The ability to transport goods by road has fuelled export growth and cemented Australia’s position in the global economy. To this day, road freight remains vital to the economic success of our nation, and is expected to haul in $42.6 billion in revenue in 2017-18. Over the decades, small operators have been the dominate force in road freight transportation, with non-employers accounting for approximately 50…

THE TRUCKING INDUSTRY was under intense scrutiny when the first issue of Owner//Driver went to press in 1992. A tragic truck and bus crash at Grafton in 1989 had killed 21 people and caused a public outcry. Governments were determined to rein in the cowboy element of the industry amid revelations of illicit use of ephedrine and widespread disregard for fatigue regulations. Looking back, driver Barry Grimson says the public’s concerns were warranted, but the industry has changed a lot since then. “I probably owe the reason that I’m still behind the wheel to the changes made,” says Grimson, 74, who drives interstate for Unanderra Tanker Hire. Grimson was driving for Comet Overnight when he first started reading Owner//Driver at Hume Highway truck stops in the early 1990s. In the…

KEITH HERRON WORKED IN THE TRUCKING INDUSTRY for 52 years before retiring at the end of September, 10 days before celebrating his 70th birthday. “I loved two things in my working life – transport and timber,” says Keith, who lives in Birregurra near Colac, Victoria. He spent years pulling logs out of the Otway Ranges. “I’ve probably been from one end of this country to the other, but I’ve always come back here to logging again.” Keith spent the last years of his career averaging about 800km daily in his 2006 International Eagle 9200. His last job was hauling timber out of the Pyrenees Mountains, near Avoca, Victoria. Trucking in 2017 is much easier than when Keith began driving in the mid-1960s. “It’s a bit different to when my brother…

CASTROL RX SUPER has protected Australian livelihoods for more than 35 years. This year, inspired by a customer’s engine which ran for in excess of 2.5 million kilometres, solely serviced using Castrol RX Super, we’re telling the stories of the people that have made the brand the choice of protection for truck drivers, fleet owners and farmers alike. The final RX Super chapter for 2017 takes us to Mt Waverley in Victoria and the fleet operation of Navarone Transport. Navarone Transport Con Ikonomopoulos is the founder and director of Navarone Transport based in Mt Waverley, Victoria. Starting off his trucking business with an 8-tonne 1982 Isuzu tray truck in the early 90s, Con has grown his fleet operation into eight prime movers comprising of Kenworths, Western Stars and Freightliners. Specialising…

“Almost one in 10 trailers on the road carries the Moore name, something the company is immensely proud of” PITTSWORTH-BASED MOORE TRAILERS on Queensland’s Darling Downs is marking 30 years in business this year with plans to double its manufacturing capacity with an all-new factory. Almost one in 10 trailers on the road carries the Moore name, something the company is immensely proud of 30 years after the first tipper rolled off the factory floor. Back when Lionel Moore founded the company in 1987, he began by offering customers a 36-by-six-foot grain tipper that wasn’t just functional but looked the part as well. “I designed a steel tipper that looked good as well as doing the job, because back in those days the ones on the market were very rough…

“Aligning the data dictionary with international standards ensures Australia keeps pace with global trends” IT IS NO NEWS THAT THE TRANSPORT INDUSTRY has seen unprecedented technological changes in the past 25 years, but the rate at which these changes have occurred have accelerated over the past decade. One of the biggest changes on the technology side is the use of telematics in the industry. Telematics is said to allow improvements in heavy vehicle compliance, enforcement outcomes, chain of responsibility (COR), and responsive regulation. The use of in-vehicle telematics and effective management and reporting mechanisms have improved the level of regulatory compliance, which has not only increased accountability and self-regulation within the industry but also allowed more targeted enforcement of high-risk operators, the National Transport Commission (NTC) states in its paper,…

HISTORY IS THE STORY OF EVOLUTION, which makes reviewing a particular timespan quite arbitrary. Back 25 years ago, the Grafton bus crash was still a recent memory and the National Heavy Vehicle Road Safety Summit even more recent. More recent still was the Inter-Governmental Agreement for Regulatory and Operational Reform in Road, Rail and Intermodal Transport, which was to see the National Road Transport Commission, formed in 1991, become the National ³››››››››#A›››››››››››fl³A›#››#››››› They were some of the driving forces that pushed into the last quarter-century the impact of which the industry feels still. What might be said of that latter year is it marked a concerted push in government and industry, separately and together, towards national approaches to trucking and logistics issues. Few developments involving the trucking industry in the…