When you first see this combination of the road, the question is, is it a triple quad or a quad triple? In fact it’s a quad axle triple road train running for the Emerald Carrying Company and Tim Giles checks it out.
A large yard on the outskirts of Townsville is the home to the fuel hauling branch of Emerald Carrying Company (ECC). From this base the operation services fuel customers all over North and Western Queensland, covering the biggest runs across to Mount Isa, 896km to the West, and beyond.
The business uses over 100 trucks and employs over 200 drivers, and is a family-owned business. ECC was established in 1965 in Emerald Queensland by Bill and Joan Haylock. Originally, it grew from supplying Central Queensland with freight which was brought out to Emerald by train and distributing it further. The fuel side of the operation grew out of that business and now runs depots in Townsville, Mackay, Gracemere, Emerald, Geebung and Lytton, all in Queensland.
The business services mining, commercial retail and agricultural customers and has now grown to operate a fleet of 100 trucks from body trucks all of the way up to triple and quad road trains.
The core values held by the business are written on the truck doors
- Pride, in our workplace, our culture and partnerships.
- Care, for our staff, ensuring a safe and prosperous workplace and future.
- Respect, fairness and integrity in our dealings, providing sustainable outcomes for all parties.
- Excellence, in striving to achieve a safe working environment at all times, being innovative in our approach to problem solving whilst being aware of our social and environmental obligations.
As in any business on the highway and especially one hauling combustible liquid, safety is paramount and the business ensures appropriate health, safety and environmental policies, guidance material, documentation, procedures and training contribute to the target of ‘nil harm’.
ECC runs a well presented fleet and is proud that it’s involved in the NHVAS Mass, Maintenance and Fatigue Accreditation. sections of the fleet are operated under Performance Based Standards (PBS), Intelligent Access Program (IAP), and GPS tracked.
The longest runs with fuel are those where the highest productivity vehicles are needed and ECC have been pushing the envelope on trucks running out of the Townsville depot to achieve those gains. The most productive combination on the road is a typical triple road train, with one major difference, instead of triaxle trailers and tandem axle dollies, it used quad axle trailers and triaxle dollies. The prime mover used to pull the set-up featured here, is a tri-drive Kenworth T909.
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