FIRST TIME TRUCKERS-24

This is my story about my short career as a truck driver. I was born in 1948 and went to school at Warragul Victoria Australia. Our school was on the Princes highway so it had a lot of truck traffic passing. My main memory of the trucks is that they all seemed to blow lots of black smoke. I vividly remember the Commer knocker 3 cylinder two stroke trucks, from my now dim memory, I think they made the GM’s sound tame.

My father drove a KS 5 International tray truck (body truck) carting logs from the Allambee area to the pulp mill at Maryvale. He also owned a Reo Comet and a 1948 Ford V8 ,all of these truck were petrol engines. The KS 5 International had a two speed diff and it was hand changed with another lever. I have vivid memories of him coming home one evening and telling us that one of the drivers in a brand new International and on his first day was killed with a load of logs onboard, so maybe truck driving was in my blood.

Now skipping forward a few years to about 1961, I helped my father change a clutch in the 48 Ford, and then in 1963 I left school and started work in the Commonwealth bank, lasting until 1969. When I left, I did not know what I was going to do for income so headed west and started with Western mining corporation at Kambalda W.A.

I did not know what to expect but had to eat, and ended up on the 9 th level of the silver lake shaft working as a grizzly man breaking rock all day. If I remember correctly the hammers were22 pounders, what a shock after bank work.

Now back to trucks, when the ore was taken to the surface it was transported to the crushers in tray truck tippers, mostly Fodens and a few Leyland Hippo’s. After it was processed it was then transported to the railhead at Widgiemooltha, so you see trucks still featured in my life. Eventually I returned to Melbourne and obtained a semi trailer licence and soon after started work with Broaway and Frame, the main business was cement delivery and sand and screening deliveries.

Every morning at 7 o’clock a 12 ton load of cement arrived, I took it off the delivery truck by hand. During the day I loaded it back on my truck by hand in various sized batches, and again offloaded it at building sites, all by hand (no fork lifts) 720 one hundred and twelve pound bags every day.

The abovementioned deliveries were done with an International ACCO powered with a 345 Cubic Inch petrol engine, while I was not delivering cement I worked from the northern suburban quarries and restocked the yard with screenings (crushed rock) or sand from the southern suburban sand pits. On most occasions I was about 3 or 4 ton over the limit and never once was I stopped by an inspector.

Let me tell you about Reg Broadway and Ted Frame, as long as I did my work as was expected of me they were magnificent bosses, they were both English and arrived in Australia after the war because the British Government had nationalised their transport business. After arriving in Australia they started a sand and screenings transport business. Initially it was in a backyard then moved to a proper yard in Bulleen. Sometime in the 90,s they were brought by Ready-mix and subsequently Ready-mix was brought out by Cemex of Mexico. As I have already mentioned Reg Broadway and Ted frame were good to work for, on one occasion they gave me a delivery of 8 cu yards of brick sand to Bulleen Road Balwyn, I misread the delivery and tipped it off at Balwyn Road Bulleen, anyhow I had to go back and load it all back on with a shovel. What a job that was, as the sides of the truck were higher than my head, anyhow I learned a good lesson from that episode.

My brother had a B model Mack with a Quad box, and on rare occasions when I had a holiday I would attempt to drive it. The first trip out of Melbourne was to Brisbane, well when I got to the Pretty Sally hill at Wallan my arms seemed to be tied in knots, and I was nearly crying by the time I got over the top, but eventually mastered the gearbox. I was able to do clutchless shifts and compound shifts (if that is what they are called when shifting both sticks with one hand) and on other occasions one hand on one stick and one through the spokes of the steering wheel and shifting both at the same time.

On that particular trip I pulled into a truck stop at West Wyalong and up to the petrol bowser. What a fool I made of myself attempting to back around the holidaymakers in their caravans and getting to the diesel bowser.

On an another occasion I was driving the "B" model down the Cunningham gap, I changed down a few times and then the changes became rough for an unknown reason, my brother was asleep on the floor, he immediately realised the air tanks were empty. He saved the day by his quick thinking, he jumped in the drivers seat and just kept reefing the gears down to No 1 low split, at this stage the truck which was governed to 2100 revs was showing way over the max revs down a steep hill with a heavy load. Halfway down the gap there was a small pull in and some water tanks, he managed to turnaround and go back up the hill and we motored on into Toowoomba to the Mack dealers Westco Motors. Halfway to Toowoomba we came across another truck rolled over, it was totally blocking the road. To get around it we went bush ,the police just looked on in amazement but did not come after us. Eventually we arrived in Toowoomba without brakes. As luck would have it while we were cruising into Toowoomba, I spotted a railway sleeper by the roadside, and grabbed it up, and whenever we needed to stop I jumped out ,ran ahead and threw the sleeper under the wheels. We must have looked like a travelling circus. Once there the apprentice sorted out the problem in about 15 minutes, and we were on our way.

3 days later the centre fell out of the clutch, probably caused of the abuse going down the hill. We replaced the clutch by standing on the chassis rails and letting gearbox down with ropes over our shoulders. What a job that was. I will never forget, not to hard getting the box out but getting it all aligned and back in was a nightmare. My brother also had a TK Bedford with a Leyland 400 Cubic inch power plus (I don’t know why they were called power plus, they could hardly pull the skin off a rice pudding) anyhow he blew up the Leyland and I took him a new engine to Gilgandra, and we changed it over at the side of the road.

We could not get the new engine in until the cabin was removed from the chassis. Eventually when it was going we had the injector pump out by one tooth, well it blew white smoke all over Gilgandra, a local amateur mechanic came to our aid and had it fixed in no time and we were on our way.

In 1974 I got married and decided to move on. I saw an advertisements for Ambulance officers. While I only wanted a job for a short time, the Ambulance was paying $105-00 per week for 40 hours. Broadway and Frame were paying $98.00 for a 56 hour week. I thought that I had gone to heaven. During my second week at the Ambulance I made an extra $40.00 from overtime, so decided to stay on. I am sill with the Ambulance service after 34 years and have been with the Air Ambulance section since 1989. In 1995 the government decided to "clean out" the Ambulance service, the Air Ambulance was targeted and threatened with closure, an administrator was sent in to investigate. When he realised that I was despatching aircraft similarly to a transport service, back loading and using the aircraft economically, he did not bother us again, but he got rid a lot of good people at the road ambulance section.

(Click on photos to go direct to Air ambulance web pages for fixed wing and rotary wing divisions)

With regards to all of the above, my Trucking career was not extensive. I came into the industry when it was hard, while the cement bags now are only 40 pounds as opposed to 112 pounds when I was carting it. I have never driven a truck with a heater, an air conditioner or power steering, and would you believe that I used to take my girlfriend (now wife) out in the International.