Hot Stuff

A civil works specialist in Western Australia is upping its presence in regional areas with a fleet of diverse vehicles.
A MAN TGX prime mover carrying two pneumatic tankers moves down an outback highway in Western Australia.

The acronym SGA is an abbreviation of Safety Grooving Australia, the original remit of the business which was founded around the specialty task of cutting grooves into the tarmac of airports.

The work, which relies heavily on a pair of grooving machines, a water tanker and a vacuum truck, is ongoing but not frequent. A runway grooving project that might be commissioned anywhere in Australia can be completed in under four weeks.

The sticking point is that the next gig might not happen for another three months. Of course, the business supplements this revenue with a range of civil works including asphalting and other infrastructure-aligned projects.

The intention, as company Co-Founder Jason Hind tells it, was never to be a trucking company.

“The trucks were to assist our laying side for the crews we service ourselves,” he says in a clipped Yorkshire accent.

“Laying the hot mix from the plant through the crew. Then we found ourselves getting called by people who wanted to hire a truck and dog — tomorrow.”

The fleet is a medley of mainly European cabovers. Name a leading brand and SGA likely has a model from one of the main series. An 8×4 Volvo FH purchased initially at the request of a customer helped determine the new direction into transport.

That truck had a chip spreader on the back. Then they added a tractor broom and a few other pieces of plant.

A Mercedes-Benz Actros was purchased in Adelaide for work on the Olympic Dam mine, 550 kilometres northwest of Adelaide, where four layers of road base and asphalt were required.

That was SGA’s first semi. Another eight-wheeler soon followed. Purchased second-hand it was fitted with a brand-new body for mainly asphalt work.

Once the job at Olympic Dam was finished a 6×4 UD Quon sidetipper was introduced new to the fleet and then a couple of five-year-old DAF XFs.

“We kept adding and adding and we’ve got over 20 trucks at the moment,” says Jason. “In the fleet there are low loaders, conveyor floor trailers, sidetippers, the list goes on.”

The conveyor floor application recently received a boost with two MAN TGX 540s, a smaller MAN TGS 440 and three new low cab IVECO S-Way prime movers.

New IVECO S-Ways recently were deployed in the SGA fleet.

As something of an anomaly, there is one noisy American Freightliner Coronado 2012 that was purchased on the cheap, off Daniel Ricciardo’s dad, who runs an earthmoving business.

“First time I go to collect it he’s got straight through pipe on it,” Jason recalls.

“We could hear it seven kilometres from the yard coming back on the freeway. We’re thinking about chopping it off and putting a silencer on it. The drivers have earmuffs on. That’s the only American truck we’ve got.”

A majority of the trailers in the fleet are supplied by Jamieson in Adelaide.

There are four livebottom floors with another two on order along with three sets of double sidetippers. Jamieson also builds their end tippers.

SGA also own a AAA tri-axle spread deck, a Jameson quad spread deck with load share dolly, a Roadwest quad dog and a couple of Midland tri lowloaders.

“We’ve seen rapid growth, but we stick to the road building, construction industry,” says Jason.

“We’re up and down the Pilbara and Northern Territory and places like that. We get around a bit. Right now there’s four live bottoms out in the bush at the moment doing shoulder widening for local governments. We cart bitumen for Colas.”

Runway projects are often airfields owned by resource companies whose mines are undergoing major expansions in which they need to fly in executives and FIFO workers.

That includes the Wodgina Lithium Project 100 kilometres south of Port Hedland. Some are strictly commercial airports such as Busselton.

The mine site at Wodgina, as part of a recent expansion, upgraded to give it the capability of landing commercial size aircraft.

SGA were engaged to complete over 50,000m² of runway grooving as well as the line marking package to the runway, apron and taxiway.

In addition to the likes of the Duketon Gold Project in Kalgoorlie and others like it, SGA have also worked on commercial airports like the one in Port Hedland.

The airport currently services up to 50 commercial flights a week including direct services to Bali and Brisbane. It’s also a direct link to the world’s largest bulk tonnage export port.

Recent upgrades to airside pavements and infrastructure to improve safety, security, flexibility and capability saw a new taxiway and full asphalt overlay completed by SGA.

This worked out to be over 105,000m² of runway grooving throughout the night. Runways are not cheap projects. Jason calls them high risk, high reward.

The process undertaken by SGA goes something like this: the airport will have the runway resurfaced. It will be left for three months to oxidise.

MAN TGX in a sidetipper application.

New white lines go down as it is still often in use. SGA will come in with light towers for the night shift. They asphalt the runway which is 45 to 60 metres wide.

The grooving machine is then deployed across the black top, cutting into it in metre lengths. Grooves are 25mm apart and they’re the width of a blade about 7mm deep. The grooves not only help take pools from rain away but also acts as skid resistance and prevent aquaplaning for landing aircraft.

“The runway will have a crown in the middle and have a one per cent fall outwards so water drains either side,” explains Jason. “The crew does 150 cuts a night.”

Water from the cart is pumped under the blades of the grooving machine to keep them cool. The vacuum truck, which is fitted with a screen, sucks up the slop. When the vac truck is eventually filled, they tip off.

As grooving will cut through some of the markers, SGA’s crew come back and white line it again by spraying directly into the grooves.

“The lads are there with hoses helping to wash it. Even though you have got the water cooling it the sock around the machine doesn’t clean it off to my standard so then we’ll have a tractor broom or sucker broom and water cart and give it a thorough wash,” says Jason.

“Then you’ve got to leave it spotless at the end of the night ready for the morning plane to come in and land.”

There’s no official SGA truck spec. The equipment needs to be versatile for the ad hoc nature of the work.

The new MANs have had extra hydraulics fitted onto them. Low cabs were specified on two of the IVECOs to avoid having to reverse into the asphalt plants they frequent. Visually they do have a standard on the truck they like to maintain within the fleet.

“We normally keep it sharp. But with the new MANs that are going into asphalt plants I’ve put high vis on them and dashed it up with a bit of orange,” says Jason.

“We’ve stickered, the rear doors of the trailers. We’ve really decked it out as a safety feature. It’s something I’ve sort of brought out from the UK.” In the United Kingdom, where Jason originally hails, construction tippers and trailers are usually adorned with reflective conspicuity tape.

“It really pops visually and we’re one of the first doing it in Western Australia,” Jason adds. “The amount of comments I’m getting from people who like it on the back of our trucks is very encouraging.”

By his own admission, Jason doesn’t hold back. He specs the vehicles with fridges, bullbars and top of the range spotlights. All of the bigger trucks have hydraulics added with two sets of fittings at an extra cost of around $20,000.

Tankers require a smaller hydraulic fitting.

“Rather than the boys doing the fitting on the back of the truck every time, we decided let’s put two sets of fittings on and then they just plug in and there’s a valve and they turn the valve from the top set of fittings to the bottom and then we put a speed control on,” explains Jason.

“If you’re working bitumen, you want the pressure on around 2000psi whereas the moving floors can be at 3000psi and if you’re sidetipping, they might want it down at 1500psi on the mines so they don’t tip over so fast.”

This way the trucks can swap over much more efficiently as, say, a pair of sidetippers or a triple out into a mine site for an extended period then return for metro work with a live bottom trailer.

“We have spent top dollar on every unit so that it can fit every trailer that we have,” says Jason. “We’re just trying to make it full proof.”

IVECO endtippers on the job site.

SGA runs its own workshop with four mechanics. Because the trucking side is taken off the business is in the process of securing an overflow yard across the road from its headquarters.

Most histories are complicated. The journey to Perth for Jason is an involved one. He apprenticed on a castle in Scotland called Skibo by way of the remote Orkney in the desolate northern isles where Jason’s father had moved the family to build a school having come originally from Yorkshire.

Jason got his taste for construction, operating diggers and excavators, on approach roads that were being built at the spectacular Dornoch Firth. After a move back to England working with a council, he took a job driving lorries for a small company.

It eventually led to driving for trucking and logistics powerhouse Eddie Stobart, which has a fleet of 4000 trucks. That was his introduction to the MAN product

“Coming from the UK, I’ve always liked them. There is another company in Perth that uses them,” Jason says.

“We did a bit of homework and a lot of people rate them for the bitumen process and the way they can be spec’d up and what they can do. We’ve got one as a double bitumen tanker rated to 120-tonne. We’ve had no dramas. It’s working beautifully.”

His brother, Jonathan Hind, who first enticed Jason to come out to Australia, is a manager at SGA and has a couple of trucks of his own. Jason’s business partner is Stephen Hamill, a Scotsman, who has been in Australia for decades and came across from Adelaide.

A key appointment recently was that of Transport Manager Michelle Reedman, who was recruited from QUBE.

The shift into haulage resulted from, in large part, being let down by unreliable transport companies.

“We’d be working nightshifts, and you’ve got a deadline on the freeway and we’ll be laying and we’ll be saying where’s that truck gone?” recalls Jason.

“There would be no answer when we call up and four hours later the truck just rocks up with a load on and then you realise they are sneaking a load in for other companies so they get seven hours minimum.”

Now that work is coming directly to SGA.

“We’re just trying to keep up with the times and growing to boot. It’s leaping off on us,” says Jason.

“We didn’t expect to be a haulage specialist but it’s definitely turning out that way.”

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