Truckie Profiles

SA transport changing fast

Southern-Snippets-issue-23

Our man from the south, Jonathan Wallis, stops to chat with a few truckies for his latest Southern Snippets column.

Memories from long ago

It was great to have a phone call from John Staszynski, ex Van Trans, in Adelaide the other day and to hear that now days he is retired from the Industry and is keeping busy driving the Television remote and occupying his days with “Shed Stuff”. He also told us the sad news that another old mutual friend from our trucking days on the Mainland, Glen Field, had passed away in mid-2018. It is indeed sad to note how many of the old crew are either retiring or have gone on to happier pastures.

Expensive diesel stop

Our wandering “Australia all Over” truckie, Mick Pepper from northern NSW, told us the other day that Jamie, a certain renowned driver, who also worked at ITKM with Mick previously, recently called in to a Broken Hill servo to fill his almost empty Diesel 4 x 4, went in to pay and argued heatedly for 15 minutes with the console operator over the cost of $120. This led to her showing him the CCTV which resulting in his seeing the pump he had used. Well, walking out, red faced with embarrassment, he said to his partner Lorraine, “Better call the NRMA as we have a problem.” So after $500 worth of work from the NRMA, he then had to go back and admit to having used the wrong pump, and fill it up again, but with diesel this time, making this the most expensive fill Jamie has ever had.

Spectacular encounter

We hear from our old mate, Colin Burford from Croft’s Transport in Adelaide, that all is going well over in South Australia and that the Road Transport face of Adelaide is rapidly changing, and expanding, with road train routes now criss-crossing the place, even into Elizabeth. He added that it was good to recently catch up with Mick Culum, another ex-Adelaide driver, who has moved to Queensland and now lives with his son up there whilst contemplating taking up a career in landscape gardening. We were saddened to hear of the passing of Reg Lange in early August, founder of Lange Transport, a legend in the Industry and a highly respected and true gentleman. We would like to join Colin in offering our belated sympathies and condolences to his family. Also from Adelaide, we hear that there has been a spectacular encounter between a truck and a stobie pole from that frugal outfit, sometimes called “Blackbirding Transport”, from Victoria, when one of their B-doubles recently tried to enter a narrow street down Wingfield way. Tight corner, even for a single, resulting in the memorable and very public sight of a truck “resting” against said stobie pole whilst major assistance was summoned.

Tassie bridge project

Nice to hear from Greg Lynd from “Lyndcraft Boats” at Saint Helens telling us he had recently fabricated some newly constructed bridge sections of the Break O’Day Councils “Multi User Track”, which had to be moved to the wharf, positioning them alongside the existing Golden Fleece Bridge up at Saint Helens on Tasmania’s East Coast.  He asked us to express his thanks to the very dedicated and expert Carl Wagner from Wagner Transport who was driving his 2004 T650 at the time, for delivering the three sections to the wharf ready for the guys from Billings Cranes to lift into position for the BridgePro Engineering Pty Ltd crew to secure, In fact that turned out to be nine or 10 sections in three weeks all up. Happily, Carl’s daughter Natasha was on hand to take the enclosed photo!

 

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