Truck & Driver UK – August 2019

106

TEAM T&D

Summer 2019 Truck & Driver

A

ustralia, owing to its vast

size, has a variety of

climates. Up in the north

there’s no such thing as

a summer or winter. It’s a tropical

climate, so there is either a wet

season, running roughly from

November to March, and a dry

season, from April to October.

The wet season is very hot

and humid, with frequent

downpours of rain, all of which

make handling cattle difficult.

Unlike in Europe where sealed

roads mean cattle can be moved

any time, the dirt tracks of the

Outback can become

impassable, especially for

roadtrains once the wet season

is in full swing.

Biding my time based out of

Perth, I was waiting for the cattle

season, which takes place during

the ‘dry’, as it’s called, to

commence. Last month I detailed

the adventure of driving from

Perth to Broome in a new

Kenworth C509. Given that the

mining boom was in full effect, I

got the chance to try out yet

another new C509, this time

delivering a full load of bagged

cement from Perth to Port

Hedland, a distance of 1600km.

Readers will notice the nicely

sheeted load (top picture, page

109), something I can’t take credit

for as this was mostly the work of

one of the senior drivers! Tri-drive

trucks in Western Australia are

mainly used in quad side-tipper

and tanker applications, so a new

shiny one pulling roped and

sheeted flat trailers drew a few

looks on the highway.

Kenworth T904

After completing a few more

livestock jobs in various

Kenworths, including a K100,

K104 and a T604, I was finally

allocated my own T904 for the

upcoming cattle season up north.

The T904 model is a bit of an

iconic truck in Australia,

superseding the T900 in 1998,

until the badge was changed to

T908 in 2008. Power came from a

Cummins Signature Generation 2

15-litre engine producing about

550hp. Although that doesn’t

sound like much compared to

European trucks, especially when

grossing 120 tonnes, she pulled

well and rounded up some of the

newer trucks in the fleet.

I often heard it said that

American horsepower is different

to European horsepower,

although I don’t know how true

that is [yes, it is true; in Europe,

PS (pferdestärke, horse-strength

in German) is 98.6% of brake

horsepower – Ed].

Number 97 was the last of the

‘class of 2002’ in the fleet and is

still held in high regard around

the RTA yard, even in 2019, as a

spare truck. The gearbox, as with

all the company’s trucks, is an

Eaton Fuller Roadranger

18-speed non-synchromesh – a

Happy to be off the highway, Paul poses with number 97, a Kenworth T904

Aussie adventure Part 3

Coping with Kenworths, cattle and cement on the Great Northern Highway; next stop, Darwin

PAUL O’CALLAGHAN