As Mark Rodwell explained, “I finished school in ‘84 and went into the bush – the only trade I knew was hard work – chainsaws, loaders, bulldozers. Just getting multiskilled in most things that needed to be done. I don’t know that you could call it a trade, but you could put your hand to most things.”
And that’s served Mark admirably, as he reflected on 40 years of work in his family’s timber harvesting, haulage and earthmoving business which is based in Bombala in southern New South Wales.
Mark, along with older brother Peter, have carried on the business started in the 1950s by their late father Merv ‘Bluey’ Rodwell. Today the operation includes a fleet of three Kenworths and a variety of earthmoving and forestry machinery – along with a restored Leyland Beaver and an International Transtar parked up in retirement at the Bombala depot.
With the family’s roots at Lower Bendoc just over the border in Victoria, Merv Rodwell started out in the 1950s with livestock and general transport.
Mark Rodwell proudly shows off the family’s restored Leyland Beaver, ‘Old Timer’. Image: David VileAs Mark explained, with timber harvesting a mainstay of local industry, the opening of the Harris-Daishowa mill at Eden in the early 1970’s was the catalyst for growth.
“Dad won a job with Harris Daishowa in 1970-71. They were a good company to work for and we kicked on there until 1998. We did both hardwood harvesting and haulage, working out of south-east NSW, up to the Monaro and Brown Mountain and down to the Victorian border, carting into Jew’s Head at Eden. It was good work, and it put a lot of people on the map.”
Looking back to 50 years ago, the work was a lot harder, and the gear was what would today be called primitive, but the business evolved, with Peter joining the ranks in the mid-1970s and Mark a decade later.
Along the way the Rodwell family has operated a variety of trucks, from the Leyland Beaver, through to a bogie drive UD, a Ford LNT and Mack Superliner and now the Kenworths that are in the fleet today.
[L-R] Peter, the late Merv (‘Bluey’), Shirley and Mark Rodwell. Image: David Vile“A lot of the harvesting was hand work, and there were a lot of fitter blokes in the bush back then. But we persevered. As you went along, you upgraded the gear, either a new truck or piece of equipment to make things a bit easier.
“I remember Dad saying back in the early days you could buy a ‘44’ of diesel at the chip mill for $10 and a Michelin drive tyre for the same amount – it certainly has changed, and the gear has got bigger,” Mark said.
After working in the bush for a few years, Mark first got behind the wheel of a Kenworth T650 in 1989, and at its peak the Rodwells had five trucks in their fleet along with subcontractors working on log haulage.
After four decades in the family business, Mark Rodwell shows no signs of slowing down. Image: David VileMoving out of the hardwood operations around 2008, the family scaled back their fleet, focusing on earthmoving and float work before taking on a softwood loading and haulage contract with Forestry Corporation NSW in 2016, which finished up in mid-2024.
Today the company’s T909, driven by Troy Rankin, is hauling pine for a private customer. Mark’s C509, built to his specs, has a rating of 185 tonne and handles all the machinery movements with a float. The third Kenworth, a 1994 T950, spends most of its time hauling a water cart.
“Currently we are running the T909 into Visy at Tumut, it’s a good 12-hour round trip via Canberra and a lot of highway running. At present there’s a hell of a lot of traffic over the mountains with the Snowy 2.0 truck movements up there,” explained Mark.
“In the past we would also run pine to Canberra, and the Dongwha mill here at Bombala but the main part of our work when we had the Forestry contract was sawlong, so that meant a lot of trips down the Imlay Road to the export yard at Eden.”
The restored Transtar features a wonderful tribute to Merv ‘Bluey’ Rodwell. Image: David VileThe Leyland Beaver, complete with Freighter log jinker and the International Transtar at the company’s depot have been meticulously restored, with both trucks having their place in the company’s history – with the Leyland especially having proved its worth in the early days on log haulage.
“The Beaver has a 680 Powerplus engine, around 200 horsepower. It would pull 24-25 tonne, single drive with a bogie pulp tailer – in the early days of the chip mill it was all billet timber – short lengths of 8-10 feet long.
“Dad reckoned coming up the hill from Eden he could count the shots in it as he changed gear, it would pull with a big load – it would just make it. He always reckoned if it ever stopped he wouldn’t have been able to hold it backwards. It did have air brakes but no maxis or anything like we have today,” said Mark.
“We started the restoration around 1996 and tinkered along with it over four or five years. We still had this one, it had been sitting down the yard for years, so we rebuilt it and put the jinker on it a few years later.
“Originally it had a wooden pole, I remember when we did it Dad said, ‘It has to have a steel pole in it, not a wooden one. I broke two of them in one day!’ We got it registered, and he drove it to a show in Bega. It was just second nature to him. They are a lot different to today of course, no suspension seat in it, not a lot of room and you would cook yourself on the hot days and freeze on the cold ones!” laughed Mark.
The Transtar was Bluey’s last truck. Image: David VileThe Detroit-powered Transtar 4200 was ‘Bluey’s’ last truck, with an overhaul finished just prior to his death in 2022.
“Dad got crook and slowed down and stepped away from the core business. He bought the Transtar off Taigs and did a bit of float work and gravel with a belly dumper tipper. We sent the Transtar down to Terry Whelan to get restored and we got it back in November 2021. He passed away in June 2022, so it was good that he got to see it,” said Mark.
Today the Transtar has a mural painted as a tribute to ‘Bluey’ on the bonnet, with both the International and the Leyland carrying the carnation red, silver and white Rodwell fleet colours.
“Dirk Rampling did the paint. We have had those colours since 1989. When we got a truck Dad said we would paint it that colour so we have painted them the same ever since,” added Mark.
The Rodwell brothers have also had a role to play in forest fire fighting over the years with machinery and float work and have created a fire tanker which can be deployed on a timber forwarder.
“Summer 2019-2020 was quite bad for fires here, so we have developed a fire tanker for a forwarder – they are a wasted tool in a fire, but they are an all-terrain vehicle with capacity for 18,000 litres of water. We went to Kennedy Trailers in Bairnsdale with our ideas and they were happy to take it on and we have developed it since then,” said Mark.
Having scaled back their operation to its current size, the Rodwell brothers still have plenty of work to keep the wheels turning. Mark has some plans to give the T950 a bit of an overhaul down the track.
“It is the best bush truck I have driven, the visibility and ability to get around in the bush is really good.”
And it one day may take its place alongside the Leyland and the International in retirement. The ‘r’ word is something that might not sit well with Mark Rodwell just yet, even after 40 years of toil both on the road and in the bush, “I don’t smoke, and I haven’t had a beer for 30 years, I just work and then I come down here to the shed and tinker away. It gets in your blood. It’s more a passion than anything.”
[signup]
The post Four decades of timber and toil for hard-working logging operator appeared first on Big Rigs.