Bulk is Best

Berrigan is a town located in the Southern Riverina region of New South Wales, around 30 kilometres north of the Murray River.

Kel Baxter started out farming in the district and quickly saw opportunities in transporting his own produce, consisting mainly of sheep and grain.

Kel’s understanding of the freight requirements from a primary producer’s perspective meant that the transport operation soon became in demand by other growers.

“We started hauling the grain we produced on our own farm,” says Kel Baxter.

“That led to taking grain to end users in Melbourne and other areas. I saw an opportunity to increase efficiency with roadtrains, which would help reduce supply chain costs and so, the transport business started heading in that direction.”

Kelvin Baxter Transport was founded in 1990, with two second-hand Kenworth trucks. As the business continued to expand Kel acquired additional second-hand trucks, with the first new truck, another Kenworth, joining the fleet in 1997.

The Baxter family continues to be involved in farming and the transport operation has today grown to 60 trucks, predominantly Kenworths, connected to various trailer combinations including B-doubles, roadtrains, B-triple, AB-triples and PBS roadtrains. 

The nature of the bulk transport business means there are no set runs, and clients vary from growers, grain agents and mills located throughout the Eastern half of Australia.

Due to seasonal demand some of Kel Baxter Transport’s vehicles have previously been dispatched to the west to assist with the Western Australian grain harvests.

Farm work, by its very nature, is seasonal and when they’re not picking up from farms the trucks are kept busy throughout the rest of the year carting grain from depots to ports, mills or to end users’ facilities.

Vital fertiliser products including gypsum and lime are transported back into the agricultural regions.

An emerging area of seasonal business is transporting bulk almonds which are increasingly being grown in the Murray Valley.

“It’s all about the value of water, which is a tradable commodity,” says Kel. “The return per mega litre of water is what drives where it goes and which industry can pay the most for it.”

Other seasonal agricultural transport work includes carrying grapes, cotton seed and cotton modules from the irrigated cropping areas of NSW to wineries and gins.

The majority of the fleet has always been Kenworth, but Kel has also occasionally utilised other North American brands which have been built with similar specifications. Kel still owns the original first and second Kenworths he ever bought — a pair of T650s which have now been semi-retired to carry out farm work.

“They’ve been great trucks,” says Kel. “The latest version of that cab is the T659 and we have more of those here than T909s. My favourite truck is the Kenworth T659. Drivers might like T909s, but you can’t beat the T659 for turning circle and vision. They are very durable trucks.”

In early 2025 Kelvin Baxter Transport reached a milestone when Kel took delivery of his 100th Kenworth truck and is currently trialling a Kenworth T610 equipped with an automated manual transmission which, according to Kel, the driver is very happy with.

“He actually stepped out of a fairly new ‘nine-oh’ into this new T610,” says Kel. 

This particular truck is also trialling a lithium battery-powered auxiliary air conditioner for the sleeper rather than one powered by a diesel engine. 

Kel Baxter’s trucks are noted for their subtle yet classy presentation and presence on the road.

“People do pass compliments on our fleet, which are appreciated,” says Kel. “We work them over a wide area and some of them don’t get home too often to get washed. We do ‘old school’ trucking where they might go away for a week or longer.

“We have our own washbay with vertical brushes which rotate and clean the sides of the trailers, but the prime movers are basically a hand wash job. In recent years I’ve probably opted for a bit more ‘bling’ which helps to attract and keep drivers.” 

The trucks are now fitted with many features with driver comfort in mind. 

“We also opt for practical things like roadtrain mudguards which are stronger and heavier, because we run in ‘roo’ territory quite a bit,” adds Kel.

When ordering a new prime mover Kel is mindful of specifying components that have proven performance and durability. Safety is a cornerstone of the company’s operations. It begins with the specifications of new trucks when the order is placed.

“I run disc brakes,” says Kel. “I mean, how long since you had drum brakes on your car? Dana can supply the full kit. They stop well and they last well. Discs need less attention and there’s no adjusting and I just think a good area to spend some money is on good braking systems.”

It’s not just the brakes which are sourced from Dana.

“Dana can offer a parabolic spring front axle with disc brakes, whereas right now the others can’t,” says Kel. “They’re rated to seven tonnes, and we run super single tyres on the steer. Dana supplies our rear axles as well and the pricing has long been competitive.”

During the past five years, Kel has ordered and taken delivery of almost 40 new Kenworths equipped with the Dana D46-170 rear axles. The inherent engineering in these units provides extended trouble-free highway operation coupled with practical ‘on farm’ features such as driver-controlled diff locks to ensure maximum traction on unsealed surfaces.

For more than a decade the fleet has specified the D46-170 product with a full Dana driveline. In heavy duty applications, the D46-170 single-reduction tandem drive axles have accomplished 1.2 million kilometres without issue and in one instance 1.6 million kms. The move to changing the diffs over at 1 million kilometres follows a recent update to its preventative maintenance policy.

“Everything wears out in the end so it’s better to be proactive before getting to that point,” says Stu McIntosh, Operations Manager Kel Baxter Transport. 

“The reason for that is we are increasingly pulling bigger gear. A lot of triples and upwards of 70- and 75 tonnes in payload. It takes out that uncertainty. That’s something you always are looking to do in this game.”  

In the workshop they will change a lot of things on the diesel engine well before it is actually needed. The same now applies to their rear axle assemblies.

“But we find most times it stops them from breaking down on the road because as soon as you’ve got to get a tow truck out it’s thousands of dollars,” says Stu.

“So, under that new policy we’ve incorporated doing diffs at a million kilometres. But we’ve never had any trouble with the Dana product.”

The Dana D46-170 has proven a versatile option across operations considering the different high productivity combinations in the fleet. Gross weights, swept paths and centrifugal force will naturally vary from, say, a legacy B-double to its more modern equivalent the A-double.

Other components such as alternators, starter motors, batteries, turbos, compressors, water pumps and air dryers are also routinely replaced at set intervals.

“When an alternator reaches 300,000 kilometres I change it,” says Kel. “They might last half a million, but then they mightn’t, and they usually break down at night.

“I can buy replacement components in bulk at wholesale prices, whereas out on the road they’ll charge full retail, plus a call out fee and a minimum charge for three hours labour. We could lose a time slot and then we don’t get job done on time.” 

It’s hard to argue against Kel’s maintenance rationale and the costs of changing out components regularly is considered a very worthwhile investment in servicing convenience and reliability.

“With all the new configurations available to us such as B- doubles, roadtrains, and triples going from, say, 68 tonnes gross to 85 tonnes and then to 112 tonnes it takes a toll on diffs, so we have a schedule for changing centres,” says Kel. 

Kel is deservedly respected in the industry, achieving his place on the Wall of Fame at the National Transport Museum in 2015 and he was celebrated as a Kenworth Legend in 2019.

Kel has long been active in industry associations and in recent years has provided significant practical input and support for the Livestock, Bulk and Rural Carriers Association (LBRCA) Heavy Vehicle Rollover Awareness Program, an initiative aimed at reducing heavy vehicle rollovers and crashes on Australian roads.

Kel was an early adopter and advocate of the modern road train combinations such as B-triples and AB-triples and has been instrumental in securing wider access for road trains in the Riverina, which benefits other operators, farmers and the communities by reducing the number of truck movements required to get the harvests to market. 

Read about the ATA lobbying for fuel tax credits.