Oberon Quarries team up with Trout River from MaxiTRANS

In-depth

19 Apr

Within Oberon Quarries’ fleet are a number of recently acquired Trout River Live Bottom trailers from MaxiTRANS, which with their inherent durability and reliability, have proven their dominance throughout some of Australia’s harshest road conditions.

Oberon Quarries has over the last 28 years developed quite the relationship with Australia’s road transport industry and the trailer builders that serve it. The company, based in New South Wales, offers high quality basalt blue metal for various applications such as roadworks, construction, concreting, road basing as well as aggregate, cement, pre-coat and gravel with reserves in excess of 100 million tonnes.

All of Oberon Quarries’ products are also regularly tested by an independent laboratory. Because of this, it ensures its products are of the highest possible standard and will meet even the most stringent of engineering requirements.

Now in its third generation, the family business is still thriving.

“We kicked off in 1995,” says Oberon Quarries Transport Manager, Luke Hargraves. “Prior to that, my grandfather and father just had concrete plants and quarries. They then sold out back in the day and now we mainly focus on basalt. We crush it down to various sizes and supply mainly the Sydney market and the western region.”

Oberon Quarries came across the Trout River product when it began supplying asphalt to one of its customers who requested the specialised trailer. Luke and his family had seen hundreds of truck & dog and tipper combinations in the fleet over the years, but this offering was new to them.

“We were a bit sceptical because our trucks run over the Great Dividing Range every day and out west, and it’s hard going,” Luke says. “It’s not like B-doubles running Brisbane to Melbourne. They get punished pretty hard because the roads are really harsh.”

After reaching out to MaxiTRANS’ NSW dealership, Oberon Quarries gave the product a chance.

“We didn’t have a relationship with them like we had with the other body builders for many years,” Luke says. “But that being said, we didn’t have to go and find them. They were there to sell the trailer and they were there to please, like the old-school salesmen you used to get.”

Oberon Quarries purchased its first Trout River Live Bottom trailer in 2015, and after being convinced of its capabilities due to its impressive performance and longevity, Luke recently went back for another one.

“It’s just a good thing,” Luke says. “I thought they would wear out a lot quicker than what they did. There is a lot more moving parts in them, but I can’t fault them.”

Opting for the Trout River trailer specifically, Luke says, was purely due to their simpler design and their renowned durability.

“It looked stronger, and with the work we do over the hills and the rest of it, we need them tough,” he says.

The latest unit since its delivery has clocked up over 156,000 kilometres in some of Australia’s most demanding operating conditions. The Trout River units mainly travel to the runways at the Western Sydney Airport for CPB Contractors, but they also go from Oberon down into Badgerys Creek in and out of Oberon Quarries’ concrete plants. Throughout these freight tasks, Luke says it hasn’t missed a beat.

“I can’t fault it,” he says. “The drivers love it because it lessens their workload. Plus, it’s safe, and safety is the main thing. We have a lot of council jobs out west that they request these trailers for, purely because they go under powerlines. We’ve also had them requested when we’ve done trotting tracks because you can run it out perfectly.”

Oberon Quarries’ latest Trout River arrived with several enhancements on the first one. Luke explains that the latest Trout River was redesigned for better insulation.

“When we do asphalt, it holds the heat a lot better,” he says. “They’ve improved the rear tailgate compared to the previous models as well, but the simplicity of these units is what we like.”

“The airbags are easy to change too, and the Trout River units actually have a catch tray which stops all the residue when you’re carting asphalt from spilling down into the suspension. It’s just the little things that have made it 10 times better.”

However, the most important aspect of the overall experience, Luke says, has been the service delivered by MaxiTRANS’ NSW dealership.

“We didn’t know them from a bar of soap, we just rung them up and they were more than helpful,” he says. “I think they’re the wave of the future, and we look forward to dealing with them in the time ahead.”