Huon Hauler

At the Southern most tip of the continent, it was cold, bitterly cold and spring rain drizzled down again, soaking the already muddy track. Yet for logging operator Mark Pike and his 4900 Western Star it’s all part of the job because that is how it is in this neck of the woods.

Story and Photography by Howard Shanks

Mark Pike wasn’t that impressed, after all, he’d spent most of the night before washing and polishing his red Constellation for the photo shoot. He had just arrived at the port in Hobart with his first load for the day with mud from the bush track sitting heavily in the polished alloy rims and dripping down along the chassis.

A little over half an hour after arriving at the port, Mark notched up the control on the heater and started stirring the stick, “swapping cogs”, in the 18-speed transmission behind the finely tuned 620-horsepower Signature engine under the hood. This time of day the traffic heading south out of Hobart is relatively light, and a string of green lights made straightforward work getting out of town. Even with the back trailer folded up on the front trailer the steep climb on the Southern-Outlet of the A6 Highway out of Hobart makes the Signature earn its keep. 

Way over to the south west, dark clouds swirled low around Mt Wellington. Further to the south a small break in the dark clouds revealed a hint of blue sky, teasing that there might be some relief to this bitterly cold wind and icy rain pounding the south east coastline this morning.

Mark and his father Lindsay share the driving in this Constellation. Mark’s been logging the south east of Tasmania for more than a decade, his father for over three. Time and experience in the game has revealed some enduring lessons of what sort of gear is required to get around the steep countryside at the southern most tip of the continent.

Mark does one short trip from the bush to the port in Hobart then returns to the bush and collects a load for his home town of Triabunna another hour or so further north up the East Coast past Hobart. His father then climbs in the cabin in the late afternoon and does a round trip back to Triabunna.

“It’s a good combination having a father and son team,” Mark revealed. “We work together well and both have the some philosophy of how to care and maintain the truck so there are no arguments.”

The 4900 Western Star is owned by logging contractor Richard Terry, yet the responsibility of it rests solely with Mark and his father Lindsay.

“I look after all the servicing and maintenance,” Mark explained. “It’s more or less like having my own truck. We use to have our own (trucks) a few years back, but they changed the tendering process and we didn’t feel it was viable to simply operate the trucking side of it anymore. To be competitive you really need to have all the harvesting equipment as well. So this really suits Dad and I operating this Western Star for the boss who relies and values on our input and experience.

This is the second Western Star Mark’s operated in logging and so far he can’t fault its performance, citing Western Star’s ability to custom build the truck specifically for their needs from the ground up, the rugged construction, the proven performance along with good resale value as attributes that attracted him to the brand. He adds that the performance of the Cummins Signature isn’t too bad either, but even so he was sceptical about it at first.

“We’re traditionally Caterpillar fans,” Mark said. “But this truck came with the Cummins and so far it has been okay but only time will tell if it proves it match the Caterpillars for reliability. The old Caterpillar powered Western Star we traded had over 800,000 kms on the clock and we’d not had one problem with it. We’d only ever changed the oil and filters, it was a really terrific engine.

The number of other Western Stars operating in logging applications in the same area only reiterates Mark and owner Richard Terry’s comments about the durability of the product.

From Huonville to Geeveston, the highway follows the banks of the spectacular Huon River, even through the misty rain the view along the foreshore was spectacular and the hour or so that it took to reach Geeveston from Hobart passed quickly. In the middle of town Mark eased off the throttle, dropped a few gears and flicked the indicator to the right. From here the road winds its way further inland up through fertile farming land, and not far out of town the bitumen gives way to a narrow dirt track that winds its way up through the coastal mountain range.

Mark picked up the UHF-radio hand piece and called his position when he poked the Western Star’s bonnet up the narrow dirt bush track. A reply came back from an outbound truck leaving the landing. Mark acknowledged the driver and made arrangements to pull off the track at a junction, a few corners up the track.

“It is essential for safety to call your position up here,” Mark explained as he looked out the windscreen for his mate. “There’s not much room for error on these tracks.”

There was the customary wave as the trucks passed and brief conversation about the weather before the radio signal faded.

A short time latter Mark, backed into the landing, and stretched out his trailers.

Outside the cabin, the wind howled and the air chilled through to the bone. Mark climbed into an excavator parked in front of the log stack and began loading the front trailer. This load of pulp was bound for the chip mill at Mark’s home town of Triabunna.? On average it takes around forty minutes to load himself then chain up and today was no different.

Mark reckons this is where you really get to see the Cummins engine work to its full potential.

“The engine braking on these Signature’s is really magnificent,” Mark admitted. “That’s pretty important in this country and it makes a considerable saving to the life of your service brakes.”

“You only have to see how it holds the load on these steep declines,” Mark adds.

Power wise Mark has no complaints with the Signature, but he admits the fuel economy is a little heavy but concedes that steep grades do eat up a lot of horsepower and the only way to get the horsepower is to feed it fuel.

It would take Mark another three or so hours to get to Triabunna to unload, before he’d head home for the night. “Typical”, Mark said, with a shrug, as the weather report predicted finer conditions tomorrow.

In terms of driveability the package of smooth ride from the wide cabin of Western Star Constellation, the power of the Cummins engine under hood and rugged durability of the truck’s construction make it an all round versatile logging unit.”

Ends.