20 minute read
Teletrac Navman Fleet Focus
Story Brian Cowan Photos Gerald Shacklock
One of the latest additions to the McLellan Freight lineup – a 2021 Kenworth K200. The simple fleet colour scheme is enhanced by the bold company logo on the curtainsiders
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An Isuzu 530 and quad-axle reefer semi head over the distinctive concrete bridge spanning the Clutha River at Balclutha
ALCLUTHA TRANSPORT OPERATOR ALEX
McLellan reckons that starting his own trucking business helped uncover his true passion – after years spent doing this and that. Trying to find THE job. He started out as an apprentice diesel mechanic, doing a little bit of truck driving. Next, he moved on to operating a wheel loader….then he did another stint driving trucks. Spent a year off the road, operating a forklift. And then….back to driving trucks.
To be clear, despite this to-ing and fro-ing, he reckons he had actually “known” from an early age that his future lay in trucking.
“My father worked for the Clutha Carrying Company, which later morphed into Wilson Transport. We lived next door to the depot, so it was natural that I started working there part-time after school.
“Later, when I left school, they were kind enough to take me on as an apprentice mechanic and taught me my trade. During that same period I picked up my heavy licence and did a certain amount of driving, though my time was primarily spent in the workshop.”
The truck lineup at Clutha Carrying included Leyland Comets, Kew Dodges and the ubiquitous D-Series Fords, one of which Alex was assigned to drive during his apprenticeship.
The D-Series made 125hp in standard form. Alex recalls uprating one: “I couldn’t believe it when I hung a turbocharger on it and got 140hp, I thought I’d cracked it! I had sunburnt nostrils from wandering around with my nose so high in the air!”
“In my early 20s, after I finished my apprenticeship, I was put into the office on dispatch, but found I was too young for the task, so I left to go and work for LW McKee at Clinton.
“There I drove a Cleveland wheel digger during time I spent as a plant operator...though to be quite honest I was more of a plant driver than a true operator.
“Oh, I can handle a digger or a motor scraper no trouble – but getting a surface fully finished and level calls for a higher level of skill than I have. I thought at the time it was what I wanted, but found out quite quickly that wasn’t the case, so it was back to Wilson Transport. I was there for several years, broken by a year when I drove a forklift with Rosebank Timber.”
Then, in 1989, happenstance finally brought him to the realisation of what he’d really been meant to do all along: “I got the opportunity to start out on my own. There was a company in Balclutha called Vickers Gazelle Bus Lines, that also had a few trucks and operated a general freight service for the town.
“However, its major activity was in operating bus tours, and following a significant downturn in tourist activity in 1988 the company went into liquidation.
“I put in an offer for the freight business, but there was a condition – that I would need to employ the existing staff. That wasn’t an issue, as I needed staff anyway.”
Thus he found his dream existence: “It’s not just a job – it’s my life. A vocation if you will.
“If I was down on my hands and knees on the floor playing with toy trucks, people would wonder if there was something wrong with me! The ones I have are just bigger and noisier, but still something to play with.
“I’m very comfortable that this is my life. I get out of bed each
Above: Just a few of the McLellan classics. From left are: A ‘73 Commer, a 1970-vintage Austin WFK, a 1980 International ACCO fire engine, a ‘65 Inter F1800D towtruck, a ‘51 Leyland Comet, a 1980 Kenworth W924SAR, a ‘64 Leyland Hippo and a ‘63 Leyland Super Comet
Right: Isaiah McLellan, “living the dream” at the wheel of his Kenworth T904
Middle right: Older brother Travis spends more of his time behind a desk in his role as company operations manager
Far right: The company has a busy freight operation servicing Balclutha and the South Otago region
morning looking forward to the day. I’ve met so many wonderful people in this industry (and a few scallywags as well, but you’ll always get some of those) and it’s continually rewarding.”
Alex and wife Kim Unahi’s McLellan Freight isn’t your conventional rural carrier, looking after an agricultural client base. Instead, it has two relatively disparate areas of activity – on the one hand looking after the freight needs of Balclutha and the surrounding South Otago district….
On the other, servicing the meat processing industry over the southern part and east coast of the South Island, carting everything from frozen export through to the whole range of byproducts destined for further processing at various other locations.
There’s a wide range of brands in the McLellan fleet, including Isuzu, FUSO, Kenworth, Western Star….and, remarkably, every now and again, also featuring the likes of a 31-year-old Kenworth W924 SAR…
Maybe even a 1951 Leyland Comet. Or perhaps a 1973 Commer. Could be, in fact, any one of 15 classic trucks that are kept in full working order – rego-ed and with current CoFs.
They’re part of a big McLellan collection of classics (Alex and Kim prefer to say only that it comprises a “significant” number of trucks), ranging from a 1980 ACCO International fire engine, to a treasured ’64 Leyland Hippo.
Of course, they’re not really regarded as stand-ins for the modern trucks on the fulltime fleet (much as he loves the classics, Alex for instance generally drives an 8x4 Kenworth K200 tractor)…..
But those with the regos and CoFs are intermittently put to light work – sometimes to plug a temporary gap in the main roster….more often to give them a short run to keep them ticking over.
Alex admits the classic trucks can’t match the modern stuff for comfort, but when they’re pressed into service the drivers quite enjoy them...albeit in small doses!
The trucks run by Clutha Carrying were obviously a factor in his fascination in restoring classic trucks, he says – though he can’t pinpoint any single one that triggered the obsession: “Everyone needs a hobby. I’ve just got one that swallows a heap of money!
“There is a large movement in New Zealand, with a lot of wonderful people in it, devoted to restoring old trucks. Some have the ability to do only one, some four or five, and others quite a few more!
“I’ve got a Leyland Hippo that is very special to me, but we’re also doing up a 1988 Mack Ultra-Liner, which made the company a lot of money in its time. It’s powered by a Mack 350 six cylinder, the first of the company’s four-valve engines.
“We have a really good group of tradespeople in the town who help out with the projects. They all really enjoy being involved with the classic trucks.”
Over the years the freight division has developed a close association with many of the major freight companies, including PBT, Mainfreight, Mainstream, Toll and TIL.
McLellan Freight itself runs a five-days-a-week service between Dunedin and Balclutha that also services the company’s other
Main picture: McLellans has a range of trailers to cater to the variety of meat industry products it handles. Here, the company’s 2012 K200 is hitched to a tri-axle reefer semi Above: A fleet lineup from the 1990s, when freight was the primary activity
depots in Milton and Mosgiel. But, in addition, it regularly carries freight for these other operators, and picks up and distributes on their behalf in Balclutha and the surrounding areas.
To this end the company has several of what it calls “the midgets” – vans and 4x2 and 6x2 trucks that handle local deliveries and collections.
The freight work and accounts is looked after by Alex’s wife Kim Unahi, supported by Karen Arthur and Rachel May. At work, Kim prefers to be known as Kim Unahi because, she explains, she’s known for herself – not who she’s married to.
It also helps, she adds, in identifying the less-aware types one sometimes encounters: “When people walk in the door and don’t know I’m the other half, I get a better feel of them as a person because they’re not pre-judging. In this industry there are a lot of wives, daughters or nieces working in the background, making decisions on all manner of subjects within the business to keep things running smoothly.
“They also usually have their hand on the chequebook, meaning that if you think you have a deal made because you talked to the husband, please think again!”
Kim says she gets a little ruffled when people make a distinction about a driver’s gender: “We need to promote the industry overall. It’s nothing new that women are working in transport – they’ve been doing that for ages in all types of roles. But when all’s said and done, a professional driver is a professional driver.”
In one way or another many of Kim’s family have been involved with the transport industry. In his younger days her father
worked for trucking firms in Dunedin and Bluff, before spending 14 years with DT Kings at Pukemaori. He then worked in the logging industry, before going back to driving a freight truck for Kim’s brother Craig till he retired.
Of Kim’s five siblings, older sister Tania works for Open Country as a tanker driver, brother Stephen as a consultant with a forestry company, Jason is with Fonterra, Craig works for port logistics company NFA and youngest brother Dwayne has his own heavy haulage business.
Kim and Alex’s boys Jade, Travis and Isaiah have always been involved in the business in one way or another, says Kim: “The thing is when your family own trucks you end up doing what your family does, as it’s part of your everyday life when growing up. You all live and breathe it. The boys would go in the truck with Alex and they learnt the business.
“Our oldest son Jade worked at McLellan Freight after school, driving vans and midget trucks, and after leaving school went into forestry – but he also went on to get his Class 5 truck licence, and helps out now and again when we need him to.
“He and his wife Carolyn run their own farm, along with an agricultural business – which also requires him to now and again drive trucks.”
Travis too worked after school at McLellan Freight and before he finished high school gained an apprenticeship in roading with local firm Andrew Haulage. By the time he was 21 he’d completed his apprenticeship and worked a few more years with them.
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Left: The old Inter towtruck has still been earning its keep, even recently, keeping trucks moving in the depths of winter
Above: Alex McLellan reckons trucking is his life, says he gets out of bed each morning looking forward to the day ahead
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Top: The Kenworth T904 driven by Isaiah McLellan is specced to the max...and spotless Above: A couple of decades in operation, and with the addition of the meat business, the fleet had grown considerably
When the time came to move on from Balclutha he found a job with Paul Smith Earthmoving in Timaru.
Travis gained good experience there, before spending some time overseas. After his return, Alex and Kim were thinking of succession planning and jumped at the chance to offer him a job with the company as operations manager, a role he’s held now for five years.
In Isaiah’s case, there were never any intermediate diversions. As his mother says, he was born ready to drive: “How else do you explain a kid, barely a toddler and not yet speaking, pushing a toy truck across the floor and going ‘Vroom, vroom?’
“By the time he was speaking he knew the name of every driver in the fleet. His car seat had to be placed in the middle at the back, so he could see the oncoming trucks. When he recognised them he’d call out the name of the driver. Because Alex often took him on classic truck runs he also got to know a lot of the drivers from other companies, and their trucks.
“When Isaiah reached secondary school age we enrolled him as a boarder at Otago Boys’ High. Before he started we had a ‘getting to meet you’ interview with the rector...who’d obviously not done his research.
“He was talking with Isaiah – and Alex and I were sitting listening – when he asked Isaiah what he had in mind as a future career. Quick as a flash the answer came back: ‘A truck driver.’ Well, that’s all he’s ever wanted to do.
“But the rector was quite flummoxed by that, and went on about all the famous sportsmen and community leaders the school had turned out over the years – not knowing, or ignoring, that Isaiah planned to work with McLellan Freight, the company owned by his parents and a company that had been always a backdrop to his life. He just didn’t get it.”
Today Isaiah is, in his words “living the dream,” at the wheel of
Clockwise from top: Thirty years in business, the fleet had grown yet again....the then brand-spankers T904, with Southpac Trucks Salesman Steve Herring, an excited Isaiah and Alex posing in front....Alex and Isaiah, relaxing with some reading. We can’t fault Isaiah’s choice of reading material
a 2009 Kenworth T904, bought new by McLellans when the initial purchaser had to cancel the order. Powered by a CAT C-16 and fitted with a CAT BrakeSaver, there’s nothing better on the road, Isaiah reckons: “It’s been a dream truck of mine from day dot – ever since Dad got it.” The unit is rated for 54 tonnes in certain trailer combinations, but typically the maximum load is around 46t, often hauling meat in a B-train layout.
The truck is immaculate, and won the top award in the truck show associated with the 2019 Alexandra Blossom Festival, Isaiah says proudly: “I go to places and people ask: ‘Is that a brand-new truck?’ And when I tell them it’s 12 years old you see their jaws drop.
“There was never any doubt that driving was what I wanted to do. All my way through high school I wore a viz jacket and steelcapped boots. Everyone thought I would be the first one to leave school, after Year 11 – so they were quite surprised when I went right through to Year 13 and then on to university, where I was studying business management and marketing.
“COVID-19 has got in the way though, because it meant we were short of drivers – so I’ve taken up driving fulltime.
“Most people, when they leave the job at the end of the day, that’s it – they don’t think about it until the next morning. With me, I’m thinking about trucks all the time – even dreaming about them when I’m asleep!”
The expansion from a local freight service into the meat industry came, quite unexpectedly and suddenly, in the late 1990s. As Alex explains, it was one of those “ill wind” situations: “When Samson Transport in Dunedin – who were servicing the meat industry – went broke, they simply made the decision to close their doors on the coming Friday night and never told anybody.
“When I read the news in the paper that morning I thought to myself: ‘There’s a great heap of work going west!’ So, over the course of a couple of hours, I’d rung the receivers, leased the trucks and contacted the staff, so that on the Monday morning things were carrying on as before.
“We took the opportunity and ran with it, but I couldn’t have done it without the support of our client companies in the meat industry. They have been absolutely fantastic all the way through. I couldn’t have asked for better backup and support.
“It is a two-way street though. I have a theory that when a client rings me with a problem, by the time they put the phone
Clockwise, from above: One of the McLellan Freight’s near-new Isuzu bulk units on the road. The Japanese brand is well represented in the fleet... Alex and one of his treasured oldies, a 1951 Leyland Comet 75..... Jade and younger brother Travis grew up in and around trucks
down they don’t have a problem anymore – because now it’s my problem.
“I can’t speak highly enough of our clients who believe in us, and our staff who stick with us. A perfect example on the staff side is Karen Arthur, who came to work with us 28 years ago. She began part-time by doing a milk run we had at that time, then went on to driving a freight truck.
“But then her back started to play up from a past injury at another job and she had to have surgery. She was out of action for several months and even when she got back to work, because of some lingering nerve damage, the only way she could get around was a sort of wobbly walk. “That’s where she got my nickname for her – ‘Wobbly.’
“But she got back to the driving, then some time ago we had an opening in the office, and now she works alongside Kim – looking after the freight side of the business.”
In its work for the meat industry, McLellan Freight’s brief is wide: At various times, the trucks can be carting all manner of products, large and small, as the company services the majority of the meat processing plants in the lower South Island.
As Alex explains, the product is handled according to strict criteria: “We have to be accredited with MPI and are audited twice a year to ensure compliance. It’s all about ensuring the client gets the best possible service.”
Travis adds that the work is an ever-changeable process: “We do have scheduled runs, but because the output of the plants is
Clockwise from top left: For several years the McLellan fleet had a predominantly white colour scheme, as seen on this Mack....the 2012 K200 tractor unit in a different configuration, here seen with a five-axle B-train loaded with tiedown bins for meat byproducts....Hino 700 tanker unit....beautifully restored 1972 Mercedes-Benz L1418 is another in the classic collection
quite seasonal the scheduling varies across the year. Everything we cart goes to further processing, so in many cases we’re shifting (product) between various plants, with variable demands from the destination companies because of their own production schedules.
“The phone is never too far away from my ear, that’s for sure. And because you can never avoid plant breakdowns there is often the need for last-minute changes to plan – and this is where you have to be able to think on your feet.
“Quite often clients will call us to work out their problems for them. We certainly don’t just shift their stuff from A to B.”
Alex gives an example of the kind of on-the-fly thinking often dictated by outside circumstances: “Some time back the main road was cut by flooding at Maheno. We had a load destined for Oamaru that had to get through, so the driver turned back to Palmerston, then went way up through Central Otago, adding a huge distance to the trip. Because it would also run him over his hours, we drove another driver up to take over from him.”
This can-do mentality also shows up in the relationship with other trucking operators, he adds: “We have great relationships with other transport companies all over NZ, way it works closely that have grown over many years in the industry.”
Kim agrees: “If everybody in the transport industry worked together, imagine what a force we would be when it came to dealing with the government!”
She says that McLellan Freight has always welcomed younger people to the industry: “Because we have small trucks and vans, we have been able to offer young people a job – even if all they have is a restricted car licence – and help them all the way through to a full Class 5.
“Alex tried for years at the local schools’ career nights...but, the sad thing is, he would turn up at these and parents would direct their children away from the career – as in their minds they would see a truck driver, not the owner of a substantial business who had built it up after leaving school with few formal qualifications.
“We are always on the lookout for young people to come through the ranks, and when we do find them we put them through their training and licences and hope that we have impressed on them to stay with us. It is never guaranteed but we keep persevering.
“I see myself as the realist in our partnership. Alex is more a glass-half-full personality, and is always hopeful of people reaching their potential.”
Alex agrees that it can be an uphill battle getting people to appreciate what the industry can offer, but sees the good side of having staff who’ve been trained in the company culture.
In common with many operators who have trained people from scratch, only to have them leave, McLellans often finds that they’ll return after a time, he says: “Generally it’s because they find that elsewhere isn’t quite what they thought, and they prefer to be back here in familiar surroundings. And often they have picked up other skills – which works to our benefit in the long run.” T&D
