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As the war ended, he formed the opinion that if the logistics of war failed to lead to the construction of a railway
through the Territory, road vehicles of train proportions could become economically viable. As the government
began to sell off wartime equipment at big disposal sales in Alice Springs and Darwin, Kurt Johannsen bought
Bren Gun carrier recovery trailers from which he removed the axles and built up bogies for his self-tracking road
trailers which he had designed. He also bought several former tank transporters (Diamond Ts) that he modified and
converted into prime movers to haul his cattle road trains.
As he was in considerable debt at this stage he had the good fortune to win a tender to retrieve 63 000, 198 litre
drums, formerly used to carry petrol, aircraft fuel and bitumen from various defence force sites near Darwin. After
sorting and cleaning, there was a ready market for them with petrol companies that had been unable to obtain
drums for their products during the post war shortage of a wide variety of items. He carted them 1 150 at a time on
three trailers and a body truck (prime mover) and sold them at a considerable profit above the cost of gathering,
transporting and cleaning them.
The drum recovery operation proceeded steadily while the cattle transport side of his business was being
developed. The cattle trailers were designed to be convertible flat tops for general freight cartage. They were also
self-tracking units, similar in principle to the government road train that was used by the Department of Works to
transport supplies to outback Territory stations between 1934 and 1946. Each Johannsen trailer’s capacity was the
equivalent of two railway cattle vans and the prime mover carried sufficient beasts to fill a van.
The first consignment of cattle handled by Johannsen’s road trains was from Murray Downs to Alice Springs
and the second from Ted Dickson’s Waite River Station to Alice Springs.
In 1947 and 1948 road transport of cattle was in its infancy; the transition from traditional droving to the faster
but costlier mechanised movement was slow because station owners had yet to be convinced that their cattle
would arrive at the saleyards in better condition after travelling by road transport and would bring higher prices,
thus offsetting the extra cost. The main advantage of transporting cattle is that young cattle can be transported
whereas they cannot be walked long distances, enabling a much bigger turnover, of approximately 305 more from
a property, which of course is now the normal practice. Cattle are now sent away all year round as soon as they are
about two years old and are fat. Smaller cattle being loaded in double-decker transports is much more economical
with the greatly improved roads of the 1990s.
However, in the late 1940s, the Beef Roads Scheme was not even thought of; the roads that Johannsen’s
vehicles had to use, other than the Stuart and Barkly Highways, were, in the main, only bush tracks and deteriorated
rapidly after a few trips over them by these heavy multi-wheeled units. Boggings were frequent after rain; on some
occasions, a trailer went down in mud holes so deep that it laid over and the beasts walked out of it.
Fortunately, for Kurt Johannsen, the fluctuations in demand for his cattle trains caused by some station owners’
reluctance to accept the new medium, plus seasonal limits on movements in northern districts (confined to the
April to October portion of the year) did not affect him to any major extent. He was able to utilise his vehicles on
general freight transport and carting copper ore from his Jervois mines to the smelting works at Mount Isa.
Although the cattle train operation proved to be quite viable there were problems as operating costs began to
rise and several stations decided to buy vehicles to transport their own cattle as well as livestock from neighbouring
stations at times. Around 1955 there were big increases in wages. Freight charges by the Commonwealth Railways
went up 50 per cent. To meet some of these costs Kurt Johannsen put up his prices by 10 per cent but station owners
and members of the Cattlemen’s Association resisted this.
Johannsen then switched to ore cartage and also contracted to the Commonwealth Railways to move
156 war-surplus rolling stock and locomotives from Larrimah to Alice Springs, as this equipment became due for
overhaul in the southern states and was later returned to the Territory.
In the drought of the 1960s, Johannsen returned to cattle transport for about 10 years, but once more ‘gave
it away’ as hauliers from other states, looking for work for their equipment during the strained economic period,
began carting for very low prices. He sold most of his equipment and pursued his mining interests at Jervois and
later at Molly Hill. Eventually, after having heart surgery, he sold both of these mining operations and retired to
Alice Springs.
In the midst of all his other activities, Johannsen, at one stage, even found time to learn to fly. He acquired a
Tiger Moth shortly after the Second World War and, upon gaining his pilot’s licence, flew the Tiger to all corners
of the Territory, supervising his transport and mining business.
One trip nearly ended in disaster. In February 1951 he was forced down in a remote area near Lake Hopkins,
350 air miles west of Alice Springs, just over the Western Australian border. The aeroplane’s propeller was
damaged in the landing, and rather than wait to be rescued, he trimmed off the damaged ends to balance the prop
and flew back to Alice Springs. He had a passenger with him at the time who had to be left behind with some food
and a condenser, which Kurt made from two petrol cans, using salt water from Lake Hopkins, for a water supply.
The passenger had to be left behind due to the aeroplane’s inability to lift off with two aboard because of the
reduced ‘bite’ of the airscrew. The propeller is now in the Alice Springs Aviation Museum. A film crew re-enacted
the task of trimming the propeller with 20 centimetres missing off each end and the making of the condenser, when
it was filming a documentary series on human survival.
In retirement, Johannsen spent the summer months in Adelaide and travelled around the northern parts of
Australia in the winter months, visiting old friends and seeing some beautiful parts of Australia in remote areas.
He travelled in his Mulga Express, Mk. IV, a much-modified Dodge that ran on wood gas.
Johannsen married Kathleen Rowell in 1940 and they had two children. In 1950, he married Daphne Avis
Hillam but there were no children. In 1958, he married Elsie Dixon, nee Collins, by whom he had two children.