Started in 2021 by husband and wife team Andrew and Lisa Lund, Lund Livestock Transport has just taken delivery of its largest trailer set to date – an AB-triple set of stock trailers, manufactured by Wagga based business Truck Art.
As Lisa explains, the Hay based business was started quite unexpectedly. “My husband came home one day and said he was buying a truck. He had previously worked in the earthmoving industry, driving scrapers, and my family worked on the land – but livestock transport was new for both of us,” she said.
“Andrew has been around machinery all his life so he decided to buy a truck and get started. He bought a Western Star and towed other people’s trailers for about three months before buying our own second-hand trailers.”
Within two years, the growth of the business brought about the opportunity to add a second truck into the mix, a brand new Kenworth T909. Eventually they sold the Western Star and bought a second new Kenworth T909.
For Andrew and Lisa, business was going well and they ran two trucks for six years – then the drought hit and demand began to dry up, so there was a need to diversify.
“We went back down to one truck and got some drop decks. With the drought, we had to be versatile. We carted anything from machinery to hay. But now business has picked up again,” said Lisa.
And that called for a brand spanking new AB-Triple set. Delivered in late August, the combination from Truck Art has 10 decks across the three trailers. It is being used to cart sheep, goats and cattle across the country. Though it’s based in south-western NSW, it travels near and far – running throughout NSW, and into Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia. The company’s work (and its customers) is quite diverse, with the set-up carting into abattoirs, sales yards and doing farm to farm work.
“It’s our first triple, so we’re very excited about it. With recent mass management changes, we can take road trains into Wagga now, so from a lot of our northern farms, we can go straight into Wagga,” explained Lisa, who commends the service received from Truck Art.
“They were flexible with how we wanted the trailers made. They had their own standard spec, but were very accommodating on how we wanted it,” she said.
“We already had a tri-axle dolly we wanted to use with the set; and the load through doors is something we specifically wanted to suit our needs. Because it’s a matching outfit, we wanted to know that we could load right through without having to unhook any of the trailers.
“Truck Art was great throughout the entire build process. We knew that we can ring their engineers and they could call us any time. They also sent pictures and emails to make sure everything was just how we wanted it too.”