For Luke Keam, running a rural transport operation follows the fluctuations of farming and the weather but he has built up an impressive fleet of trucks over the last 10 years from his base at Wangaratta in north-east Victoria.
Luke had made the short trip to Rutherglen with 10-year-old daughter Josie on the Anzac Day weekend to the Rutherglen Rumble where two of his newest trucks, a Kenworth SAR Legend and Mack Super-Liner were polished up and on display.
Having been around farming and trucks all of his life, the newer model trucks are a long way removed from those Luke first climbed behind the wheel of.
“Originally I worked on a farm up around Hillston and drove a Mack Value-Liner. I moved back home and drove log trucks for my father out of Wangaratta, started off in pine and then into hardwood. I had an International S-Line day cab, which was a good honest truck,” he said.
Moving away from logs into grain and fertiliser haulage, the Keam fleet has expanded and now features models from Western Star, Kenworth and Mack, with a second Kenworth SAR Legend about to join the fleet.
A mix of A-doubles and B-doubles make up the trailing equipment along with a drop deck trailer for machinery cartage as required.
The fleet is kept on the go with plenty of on-farm and port haulage work across a wide area of southern Australia, with things gearing up especially around harvest time.
“We go where the work is, from central NSW around Condobolin and Griffith back down south and also run around north and western Victoria. We do a lot of port work into Geelong and Port Melbourne and bring fertiliser back,” said Luke.
“Generally, we also go away to Queensland for the grain harvest every year and work our way back down.”
While the Kenworth has been on the road for some time, the Mack hit the road earlier this year and was somewhat of a special project and one Luke is especially proud of.
The Super-Liner build sheet was fairly detailed from the get-go and the results speak for themselves.
“I’m very proud of this one – there were a few nervous phone calls to Mack about it when it was getting built.
“We changed the style of the bonnet so it’s the same as on the 100-year model; it changed the look of the whole truck and gives it a tough look. It was 99 per cent done up there in Brisbane – Bling Man did all the stainless.
“It was also painted up there, and with the paint scheme we tried to go with something a bit old-school. On the SAR we went white and green, but we flipped the colours with the Mack and added a bit of gold as well. I spent a lot of time sitting drinking beer with the pens and paper out working out the design!” he said with a grin.
The Super-Liner features a 58” mid-rise sleeper and has also been well appointed inside. With the MP-10 punching out 685 horses the Mack handles its A-double trailer set without any fuss, and Luke is impressed with driveability of the truck, given it was the first one with an automated driveline he has owned.
“With the m-Drive it took a minute or two to get my head around it as I have always had a gearstick in my hand – I was a bit nervous. This is on an A-double tipper set all day and it’s amazing how simple it is to drive – it makes life easy. It pulls like a freight train, and it turns on a dime too.”
The Keam fleet will soon be bolstered with the addition of another A-double set, and Luke reckons the various tipper configurations work well for his line of work without having to split trailers to load or tip off that often.
“Delivering grain generally we just drive over the pits, so we have to split them rarely. The way places are set up these days makes it easy and if you have to split its easier to split an A-double than having an a-trailer with a slider.
“With the fertiliser we looked at having a quad dog set up for smaller customers, but we view the A-doubles as essentially two singles. We have a couple of stags as well so we can generally accommodate all our customers. There are a lot of smaller farms which we handle and obviously the further north you go with the larger acreages, it’s all road trains and doubles. They go for the big tonnages.”
With three fertiliser spreaders part of the operation, Luke also spends a fair bit of time pounding around the paddocks.
“We do a bit of everything – in this industry you have to be on the job, it is a bit of a gamble. We do not mind it being a little bit drier as we don’t get bogged as much but we are at the point where we need a bit of rain.”
The company has two JCB Fastrac units but a modified Kenworth T350 is Luke’s weapon of choice for getting the fertiliser from the stockpile to the paddock.
“It’s an ex-agi truck and the spreader body has been done by Comspread Engineering in Violet Town. It pulls a quad axle dog trailer and loader and has the big floatation tyres on it with an Air CTI system. It sure gets a lot of looks from people, and I reckon it is a pretty cool bit of gear,” he said enthusiastically.
Like a lot of operators, finding drivers can be a challenge with Luke on the hunt for another driver or two to allow him to get out of the seat and in the office a bit more as the business grows.
“We have got a good bunch of blokes on at the moment but could probably do with another one just so I can step back a bit. I try to spend time in the yard delegating but come harvest time I am the first one to get into the seat,” he said.
Given the presentation of the Keam trucks at Rutherglen, if given the choice of driving a desk or either the Super-Liner or SAR, that would not be a hard decision to make.