<<Rewind 2019: Pauly Regan - Of Trucks & Family

In-depth

28 July

Prologue: This industry is full of great people and great families. I’ve been fortunate over the past fifteen years of meeting many. For a truckie with family, he has to, by and large, bring them along with him. We all know that the job doesn’t finish when you jump out of the cab. There’s the maintenance, there’s the cleaning, all sorts of stuff that has to be addressed. Having the family involved gives a truckie the interaction with them that he misses out on during the working week.

I met Pauly Regan and his family at Deniliquin back in 2019 – you know, when we had truck shows. A chat ensued as is my want, and I was immediately impressed with the bonds that tie this family together.

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Pauly Regan drives a Kenworth T909 for Shanahan’s Livestock Transport. The truck is only about 10 months old. Running Australia wide, the company has depots at Toowoomba and Barnawatha. Shanahan’s runs around 28 trucks. “You’re part of the family working for the company says Pauly. Dom is a terrific bloke to work for. I’ve only been with them for seven months so I’m the new boy on the block there – me and the truck both.

Prior to Shanahan’s Pauly had his own truck but sold out in February. “Coming from a livestock background, the best move I ever made was to go and drive for Dom. I’d just had enough of towing crates for everyone and anyone and it was getting harder and harder. I had a few downfalls. Honestly when I look at it now I wouldn’t go back and own my own. You have to have either one or a dozen. I don’t have the stress anymore. All the blokes I work with are brilliant as well.”

3. One nice truck - and Pauly keeps it that way..jpg

“Shanahan’s roll their trucks over every 4 to 5 years and everything is really well maintained. The fleet is all Kenworth and they are all 908’s or 909’s. Plus there is Dom’s original truck which is a 601 with a standout livery. This truck is a Taj Mahal.

Pauly reckons he’s been home more in the past seven months than he has in the last thirty-two years. “I manage to get home most weekends these days.”

And that is a good thing as his home comprises of himself, his son, Harley, Harley’s wife Maddi and two granddaughters, Ariah and Willow. It is quickly obvious that this is a close-knit family.

Harley is 20 and has just obtained his Heavy Rigid license. “I grew up in trucks with dad. It’s not as though I don’t know how to drive them – I just need the piece of paper. 12 months on the HR then I will go straight to my B-double in September next year. You can jump HC if you go through driving school. I’m so looking forward to it. I go out on a road with dad when I can.”

“He’s been driving since he was nine years old,” says Paul. “So his B-double shouldn’t be a problem.”

At the moment Harley is during agricultural contracting – spraying, spreading, mulching and bailing. “This is the busy time of the year so I make the most of it to support the family.”

**The Regan clan - Ariah, Pauly, Willow, Harley and Maddi.**

“As soon as I get the B-dub license it’ll be straight on the road. That will mean I’ll be gone for most of the week, but that’s pretty much the case now and Maddi and I are used to it. This is the only thing I love,” says Harley.

Harley is a fourth-generation driver in the family, starting off with his great-grandfather who drove Dodges and Fords. “A ‘42 Ford was Grandpa’s first truck,” said Pauly. “I grew up in a 900. We did general then. Then we got a T904 followed by a Western Star then we had the Western Star and now I’m an employee.”

“Dom is really laid-back as long as we look after our vehicles. He is happy for us to add lights or anything we want to personalise the truck. I think he works on the theory that the more you make it yours, the better you will look after it. It’s a philosophy that works.

“It’s so nice to work for someone who gives you ‘Please and Thank you’, and who you can sit and have a beer with at the end of the day. I’ve never had that in 32 years.

“I unloaded yesterday in the Snowy Mountains and old mate said that since Dom has been doing his work it’s been unreal with absolutely no dramas. That’s a good recommendation and make it more important for us drivers to live up to our end of the bargain. In the livestock industry there are drivers and there are drovers and Dom is a driver.”

“I’m actually asked if I would do something - rather than being told, so you’re always prepared to go the extra mile if need be. It works both ways with the family prepared to go the extra yard and look after machinery.

When Paul bought his first truck in 2005, he was in Truckin’ Life as The Driver of the Month in that mags Million Click Club. One of the parameters of being nominated was to be accident free.

“Three weeks after I was in that, I ran up the arse of another truck,” said Pauly wryly. “Shit happens.”

Like Pauly, Harley was pretty well raised in a truck. “I grew up in a truck. There’s pictures of me on dad’s lap in the Inverell Freighters 904 when they first got them, steering a road train and listening to Alan Jackson’s ‘Drive’. I was just tall enough to stand on his lap and press the repeat button on the stereo the whole way to Adelaide from Inverell. I would have been in nappies then. I grew up in the bunk it was my world.”

So in 12 months’ time Harley will become the 4th generation to hop behind the wheel of a big banger. We suspect that the 5th gen will possibly the family’s first female entry into the world of trucking.

Postscript: If you happen to read this Pauly or Harley, give me a shout at kermie@truckinwithkermie.com so we can bring our trucking family up to date.

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