Russell Transport’s truck fleet is now pushing 200 strong to match the demands of the work it undertakes. This isn’t even to mention the cranes, forklifts and other gear that are required for the numerous jobs.
They don’t stick strongly to any one brand, but the heavy haulage side of the business is entirely Kenworths.
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In the fleet business, there’s a mix of Mack, Kenworth, DAF and Isuzus in the prime movers. But for body trucks, it is 100 per cent Isuzu models.
Ken Russell says that figuring out the best truck for each task is more valuable than sticking solidly to one brand due to the diversity of the jobs required of them.
“That’s one thing I can say that dad had to teach me, is getting the specification of the vehicle for the application right,” he says.
“There’s no point over-specifying it, because then no one will pay you for it.
“But if we stuff it up and under-spec it, it’ll cost us a fortune to run.
“Sometimes we’ve got it right, and sometimes we’ve gotten it wrong.
“We have premium vehicles that are for high hours and arduous applications. If it’s on the highway doing 50,000km a year we’ll run a Hendrickson HAS suspension. We’re trying to match the cost profile that our customer is prepared to pay for the right piece of equipment for the task.”
With a large fleet of trucks also comes a large fleet of trailers. This is similar in that they don’t stick to only one brand, with trailers including models from Drake, Haulmark, Krueger, Freighter and Vawdrey.
The performance of the equipment is the most valuable part to the Russell crew. As it goes — you don’t fix what isn’t broken.
Phil even has a trailer that he’s held onto for much longer than you would typically think wise in a 200-plus fleet of trucks.
“We still have a trailer that we bought back in 1974 from Haulmark,” he says.
“It goes out with a load of steel on it every day with trailers that have been supplied in the last 12 months doing the same work. It’s just had its 50th birthday up!”
Ken says that he’s never been one to make bulk orders, which he carried down from Phil’s mindset. Each truck should be geared towards its job, while looking to get as much use out of it as possible.
“Imagine a clown juggling when it comes to me trying to work out what equipment to buy,” Ken says.
“It’s honestly a moving target. I place the order when I can — either I have a contract to facilitate or it’s a no brainer the old truck needs to be replaced. We’ve been very fortunate to be able to give trucks multiple lives. Sometimes we can get 15 to 20 years out a vehicle across the different businesses.
“The business has been around for 100 years, and I learned in 1999 that being on the bleeding edge of technology is not where I want to be. I want to be on the other side — we had issues with automated transmissions when they came in for instance.
“I believe we were built off International, having that modest approach, I grew up around that. We had the Kenworths, but they were our premium trucks.
“If International was still building S-Lines, we’d have a mountain of them in this fleet.”
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