First Principles

Conceivably not more than a handful of major transport firms today can directly trace back their origins to the turn of the last century and horse drawn carts.

Nolan’s Interstate Transport is, in this classification, one of a select few. But it’s not just here that the company is in a class of its own.

It cherishes a set of values that it doesn’t feel the need to espouse even though they are integral to its mission. Loyalty. Integrity. Community. And the list doesn’t stop there.

Now into its 12th decade as an enterprise, the business is understandably proud of its heritage and good fortune in having pulled through many a challenge and come out the other side all the stronger for it.

For better or worse, privately-owned businesses that retain their family values serve, whether they want to or not, as bellwethers for many others in the industry who must look for aspirational examples when trying to survive in a rapidly contracting marketplace. They can do worse than to emulate Nolan’s Interstate Transport.

Headquartered at Gatton, the biggest town in what is known in some corners as Australia’s salad bowl, the flattened alluvial plain of Lockyer Creek and valley of the same name, is fertile ground with black soils helping cultivate grains and vegetable growing.

Regarding the latter, the region supports a $160 million-a-year industry mainly through small farms ranging from 100 to 1,000 hectares in size.

Nolan’s Interstate Transport has serviced this area and the attendant farmers with road transport options for well over 100 years.

Primarily a linehaul specialist brandishing a pristine prime mover fleet, one of the biggest in Queensland, in often class-leading horsepower settings, the family business is capitalising on Performance-Based Standards engineered applications especially when it comes to transporting ambient and refrigerated goods.

Because the idea here is to limit materials for moving products from one fixed address to another, by increasing the space with which to do it, the 42-pallet quad quad refrigerated van has become, over time, the go-to option.

Nolan’s runs 27 of these combinations in the fleet. It’s been something of an elixir on its east coast haulage carrying fresh produce and general freight since the first one was deployed in 2021.

Such is its versatility the fleet has rapidly increased its commitment to this trailer configuration ever since then as it fits under a 30-metre approved PBS requirement.

“There’s really nothing specific that we don’t use them for,” says Adrian ‘Flea’ Nolan, Nolan’s Interstate Transport Director.

“A big part of our interstate fleet is now on the PBS scheme.”

Late last year, Nolan’s was presented its 150th Kenworth unit from Brown and Hurley to pull one of these high productivity trailer combinations.

The commemorative Kenworth K220 features a powerful 600hp Cummins X15, automated transmission from Eaton, Meritor axles set at 4:3, a TV, microwave, inverters and other features prone to interstate trucking.

Brown and Hurley equipped it with a bigger bumper bar on the front and some additional customisations in the grille. The fuel tanks have been wrapped. On the top of the ducktail there is a stainless steel plate inscribed with a dedication to Darren ‘Bucky’ Nolan, Flea’s brother who passed away, aged 54, in March of last year.

“It ticks the boxes for a number of our new PBS platforms with its size and durability and length,” says Flea.

“Look, the technology has come a long way. All of the safety features and the Euro 6 powertrain. You can’t do much more than invest in the latest and greatest product. We’re definitely proud to be a partner with the Brown and Hurley and PACCAR group.”

Scott Coleman, Brown and Hurley Sales Consultant in Darra also sold Nolan’s their first Kenworth. The exact date 30th July 2001. It was a K104 — also a cabover.

Part of the initial attraction was that it met the 25-metre B-double rule back in those days. That truck came with a cryptic message inscribed on the stainless sunvisor, “Never Too Late”.

Flea recalls it as being an in-joke, referring to Brown and Hurley finally breaking through with its first Kenworth sale to the fleet.

Scott Coleman, whose idea it was to add the comic touch to the sunvisor naming a truck that he couldn’t have known at the time would be the first of 150 units, remembers it differently.

“It wasn’t actually about the Kenworth,” he says.

“It was about the guy who drove it. He was a bit of a character. When he would go to Melbourne he would get to the other side of Toowoomba, worn out by then, and go to bed. He would say it was never too late for him to get away because he could leave whenever he liked and still always get there.”

With over 200 prime movers in the Nolan’s fleet, Flea estimates 40 per cent of these have a Kenworth badge with another 300 trailers, on hand, from preferred supplier FTE in Melbourne.

While the prime movers in the fleet are rated to 97 tonnes, the quad quads enable gross weights up to 80 tonnes. Every truck is now purchased to be PBS compatible.

Even the T610s, which will eventually become T620s, are hitched to 26- and 28-pallet singles.

“They’re all capable of roadtrains if need be,” says Scott.

“Flea buys a lot of quad axle twin-trailer combinations now. The singles have a steerable rear liftable axle. It’s more efficient for running.”

Scott, who also sold Kenworths to Flea’s father Terry Nolan, appreciates dealing with honest authentic people.

“I can always have a really open and frank discussion with Flea,” he says. “You’re dealing with people who make the decisions and they know trucks intimately. That’s what I love.”

Scott has a framed photo on the wall of the 100th truck he sold to Nolan’s. That truck, delivered in 2019, was a T610SAR with a 28-pallet single.

“They’re a wonderful family to deal with,” adds Scott.

Advocates of the business come in no better shape than other, smaller family operators like Moffatt Fresh Produce and Granite Belt Fruit Freighters, each of whom run their own trucks and have no qualms in singing the praises of Nolan’s and the support they have offered over the years.

Helping smaller businesses is something ingrained in Nolan’s legacy.

“Our family-owned business is fifth generation. We’ve been going since 1908,” says Flea.

“Our philosophy is we love working with Australian companies whether big or small. We like to support local communities and help out where we can.”

The key to the company’s longevity and ongoing relevance is its family culture according to Flea, who notes the industry can be a difficult one to navigate when it comes to understanding the direction it is going.

“We’ve got good people who work for us who embrace our family culture which I think helps immensely,” he says.

“We respect where we come from and having those family values goes a long way when it comes to maintaining trust and credibility.”

Stability has been important in recent years following the intensity of the hyper regulatory environment that COVID supposedly helped justify. In that time Nolan’s has added to its property portfolio investing in depots in Bowen in Northern Queensland and adding a new site to Victoria at Sunshine West.

The scale of the business today is very different to the era in which Terry presided over operations.

“We have technology and systems in place that they never had,” says Flea.

“They certainly had challenges but it’s hard to know how they compare. Did Australia go down the right path with COVID? We all didn’t know what we know today. We did what we had to do — what was asked of us. I think the transport industry as a whole was not recognised for what our staff and our drivers had to do to keep the country fed and watered.”

If there were few benefits to being a truck driver during the lockdowns it would only come in the form of reduced traffic conditions.

One report issued in the aftermath by Monash University claimed the Australian government’s “failure to introduce a nationally consistent or nationally recognised permit system is one of the most significant road transport policy failures of the pandemic”.

These decisions or the absence of, as history records between 2020-22, exacerbated the conditions that made it certain declining workforce numbers across the industry would only be accelerated.

“Our drivers and staff had to be swabbed every second or third day to go interstate to keep people’s food on the table. Most people don’t understand the toll it took on people’s mental health as well as the physical strain,” says Flea.

“At the end of the day those men and ladies that were driving up and down the highways to supply food and essential goods did an amazing job. I think the government and greater society overlooked those fundamental challenges. That’s my view any way.”

It certainly adds another layer of gravity to the historic carrier which has, to this day, remained a family-owned business in one of the toughest industries in the world. That’s no small feat.

“To be fifth generation outfit and in Australia and working as a family is something we don’t take lightly especially in today’s harsh market conditions,” says Flea. “In a nutshell, we’re very proud of that to be honest.”