AGAINST ALL ODDS
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Life is made difficult for operators in Western Australia. CM correspondent Charles Gye reports...
ROAD TRANSPORT in Western Australia is thriving, despite several quaint restrictions. For the operator is regarded as a dangerous character and one to be restricted, not encouraged.
So, we work under legislation, basically unaltered since 1933 — a situation that has advantages and disadvantages. But there is too much interference from government.
Western Australia — it is 1,000 miles wide by 2,300 miles from south to north — has no extremes of climate, although the southern part is a lot cooler in the winter than the North. A hot day in Albany would be 95'F, while in Kimberley, temperatures up to 1.10F are usual in the summer.
Too hot and noisy
The higher average temperature, compared with Europe, discourages the use of the full forward-control cab — it is too hot and noisy for long periods of driving, hence the almost universal use of the normal (or bonneted) control prime mover. The fact that the engine is several feet away reduces noise and heat appreciably, and if air conditioning is fitted, it reduces the load on the refrigerant compressor.
Geologically, some parts of Australia are nearly 3,000 million years old; roads can be built cheaply on this hard ground using only a five-inch base before sealing.
Back in 1933, the legislators had no hint of the technological improvement of the past 40 years, so it was stipulated that: An axle with two single tyres is limited to 5 tons gross;
E An axle with two sets of dual
tyres is limited to 8 tons gross: 11 A rigid vehicle shall not exceed 30ft, but its load may be up to 40ft.
Li A semi-trailer should not exceed 55ft.
E Anyone may buy a truck — unrestricted entry — but only operate within a 25-mile radius. El To operate outside this radius, a permit has to be obtained.
Road trains
These are the basic rules; but there have been some modifications, such as road trains. In order to obtain a greater payload, operators add wheels and axles ad nauseum and attempt to lighten the weight by using alloy bo and tubeless tyres.
Some vehicles (strang€ European eyes) have develc from this practice — threesemi-trailers, low-loaders four rows of eight whi sometimes eight rows of e wheels.
Because of road conditior 1933, no one had any thol of restricting driving hours this freedom remains toda man can drive a semi-traile as long as he pleases and a: as he wants.
Distances of 800 to 1, miles non-stop are not unc mon. Recently, I took 4,500gal
bitumen 894 miles to Eucla the South Australian border, 17 hours 40 minutes nonp; then unloaded, had six Jrs' rest and drove back to the )ot. This is one of the rantages of suffering under a -sistent anachronism.
In Perth, metropolitan region ffic density is low — 750,000 )ple live in an area of 700 lare miles — and this leads to average yearly Mileage of ,000 for delivery lorries.
Most deliveries are made by ;n lorries using gates and Da ul in ; frequently, the tarAlin is used to keep out the 1, not the rain. Because Perth lies on the sandy coastal plain with the consequent difficulties of traction on building sites, the large petrol-engined lorry is still used for the delivery of pre-mixed concrete, bricks, sand and aggregate. A petrol-engined vehicle has less weight on the front axle (and, therefore, less rolling resistance) and the very nature of the power unit makes it more flexible than a diesel for manoeuvring on a new building area
Ford and Dodge
Engines of up to 451 cu in are used and the main makes are Ford and International with Dodge trailing in third place. An odd combination for carrying crushed stone (called blue metal) to concrete plants was tried for several years. It was an 8)<4 Foden towing a six-wheeled (all duals) trailer with a gross weight of 49 tons — 25 tons for the Foden and 24 for the trailer — often loaded up to the legal 10 per cent allowed in case of error by the driver, making an on-the-road gross of 53-18-0-0.
These units were difficult to handle in confined spaces and the total weight caused endless transmission problems. Eventually, they were converted to semi-trailer tipper and fitted with Road Ranger gearboxes in place of the epicyclic 12-speed original equipment.
Mechanical unloading became necessary because of the increasing cost of labour.
Local hauls, up to 100 miles radius, include ilmenite at Banbury, wool in the north-west and nickel concentrates in the Kalgoorlie region.
Log haulage
Log hauling for the timber industry in the south-west is also classified as local with load mileage seldom exceeding 70. The large eucalyptus trees can be a problem; for example, a Karri grows to 180ft before the first branch, and a trunk of this size weighs 70:80 tons, so it is cut into three sections and loaded on to pole-type semitrailers (called jinkers here).
There is little in the way of medium-distance haulage, because the Government-owned railways operate in the more densely populated areas. And the railways appear to have a divine right of existence.
Milk cartage from the collecting depots in the south to the Perth treatment plants is interesting, mainly because of the use of 8 x 4s as a prime mover; an extra 600gal tank is placed behind the cab to take advantage of the second steering-axle capacity.
For many years, all milk was carried by Fodens and Leylands with an average annual mileage per prime mover of around 90,000. But these are now being replaced by Volvo and Merc bonneted prime movers.
Penalty
There is an overnight run from Perth to Esperance by a combination freezer-general freight volume van; this is a distance of 454 miles and it is carried out by one driver. There is some backloading from Esperance, mainly farm produce and wool but not a lot; this is the penalty of centralising nearly everything in Perth.
Two companies operate an overnight service to Carnarvon, 600 miles north of Perth. One uses company vehicles and the other sub-contracts hauliers, that is owner-drivers who provides the prime mover and haul company-owned trailers from depot to depot. This is called "relay" work and the driver is paid so much a mile. It is necessary to cover 100,000 miles per year or more to make a decent income as a haulier.
Long distance runs are those of 600 miles and over. Remember that the distance from Perth to Wyndham, still within the state, is 2,400 miles, almost equal to that from London to New York.
Iron-ore town
The nearest centre to Perth under this category is Newman, a new iron-ore town, 740 miles north with only 180 miles of dirt road. Newman is the site of the largest open-pit iron ore mine in the world.
The equipment used to move the ore includes 120-tonne and 235-tonne capacity Haulkpak dump trucks which deliver 190 tonnes of ore per minute to the main crushers, 24 hours a day seven days a week. The original 235-tonne trucks were imported from the USA, but the last 20 or so were made in Sydney, NSW, and transported, in sections, by road. The total distance from factory to site is 3,412 miles; transit time was 11 days.
There is a daily express service to Newman for urgent consignments which leave Perth at 6pm and arrive 131/2 hours later; the ordinary road service takes 1 6-1 7 for semi-trailers and volume vans and 19-20 hours for road trains.
Past its peak
The expansion in the north-west started about 13 years ago and reached its peak in 1969-1970 when construction of the Mt Newman and Tom Price mines was in full swing.
Considering the distance and the then indifferent roads, the amount of haulage that took place was staggering; one Kenworth prime-mover on relay works often with two 36ft trailers and grossing 70 tons, covered 505,000 miles in 21/2 years.
One supervisor made 31 return trips to Port Hedland in five months covering 65,000 miles in a Ford Falcon utility as well as supervising on the journey and at each end.
This type of work needs a vehicle which can be used for almost any type of work. Owing to the curious regulations, a low tare weight is essential for highway work so as to increase payload; but this must not preclude its use for, say, low-loader work up to 140 tonnes gross or even more. The most popular trucks are the Mack — often with a -quad box" two-stick shift — and Kenworth with 15-speed Road Ranger box. Whites, Volvos and Scania are also used and the Mercedes-Benz 2624 normal control has its followers.
Scania
The Mack and Kenworth tare weight is around 8 tons, yet they can haul up to 100 tons or more with ease. To cope with industry conditions, the air intake is placed as high as possible at the rear of the cab with a pre-cleaner and a huge Donaldson paper element filter mounted outside the cab or bonnet.
Similarly, the exhaust pipe must point upwards to prevent dust being stirred up by the exhaust gases. Air conditioning is now coming into vogue because the days are gone when a driver was prepared to sit in a cab for hours at a time in a temperature of 100= F or more. When the temperature in a cab of a Leyland Hippo 680, pulling a 32-ton load from Meekatharra to Newman, was measured this winter, it never dropped below 130' F for six hours.
Petrol-engined vehicles are still used, not only on local work but on medium and long-distance haulage as well. There is a lot to be said in favour of a petrol engine: it's cheaper to buy, much quieter than a diesel, more flexible, lasts well (up to 200,000 miles before overhaul) and with standard grade petrol and distillate being the same price, the difference in economy is hardly worth bothering about.
Maddening
A petrol engine is easier to maintain and semi-skilled labour can be used in servicing, but the diesel is more reliable and less inclined to maddening quirks like being difficult to start. Petrol engines up to 500 cu in will be used here for many years yet, and Leyland is now producing a V8 petrol.
On the subject of labour, generally, I should point out that it is hardly worth employing a driver for more than 10 hours a day on local work. So this precludes using him on medium and long-distance hauls up to 1,200 miles.
A few years ago, one could pay him trip money — a fixed sum for a round trip. But the unions gradually eradicated this practice, demanded the usual penalty rates and killed the scheme.
Single time
Then came another idea: send two off together to the same destination and when unloaded, load one lorry onto another for the return run and, because there were two drivers, only single time had to be paid.
Using this arrangement, it was possible to squeeze in two trips to Port Hedland and back (4,800 miles) every week. The union eventually got wise to this, so next came the ownerdriver complete with semitrailer or volume van who proceeded to take over all the medium and long-distance work.
A logical successor is the haulier who hauls one or more trailers or vans for a fixed sum per mile for all miles covered. Whenever the union movement comes up with a restrictive idea, the industry finds a way round it. Interstate trade, once stronghold of the road transp industry, has now receded int minor role due to the upgradi of government-owned railwi and the building of a stanth gauge from Perth to Brisba Because of the losses incur' by the railways, their freil rates are effectively subsidi from general revenue.
This makes a road operatil except for something the r ways cannot handle, har worth while. However, there two bus or coach lines operati between Western Australia a the Eastern States — all sea lad — using an integral )assis-cum-body built in Jelaide with an GM V8 ipercharged two-stroke engine 291 bhp, Allison transmission id air suspension.
Three drivers cover the 728 miles from Perth to lelaide.
That then, in brief, is how ad freight is operated in this st, sprawling but isolated And what of the future? I can ly guess at possible trends. r example, there is a move Dot for the four iron ore Dducing companies — who spend $15 million per year on freight — to band together with a major transport company to form a service company exclusively for the iron ore industry; all forms of transport — sea, air and surface — would be used and the economies of scale would be tremendous.
This could be applied to any group who could cut costs by pooling transport requirements to use all forms of transport to their best advantage.
Roo bars
Already, moves are underway to standardise on turntable pin sizes (kingpins) up to the 31/2 inch-41/2 inch type, on bumper and tray heights, on animal guards — called roo bars — and a whole heap of minor items.
We are aiming at a minimum of a 700 cu in turbo-blown prime mover for gross weights up to 42 tonnes and 900 Cu in or more for road train work. Prime movers of this power configuration allow commercial vehicles to keep pace with traffic and cut congestion.
There is also a desire on the part of the industry that is most heartening — a determination to reduce government intervention in the form of iniquitous taxes like road tax (not vehicle licences), permit fees and so on.
The future
There are schemes for driver instruction and to teach book-keeping so that small operators do not go broke through lack of clerical ability.
My bet is that the future looks bright for the road transport industry in Australia; because of unity of purpose and increasing efficiency.