Trucks in Action 1998

Trucks in Action is held every two years at Ladner Park, Warragul, East Gippsland and is the best place to see the machinery of the transport, forestry and construction industries, some of it in action, like it says.

The site is divided into three parts - at the top of the hill is the mainly on-road transport industry from light commercial vehicles to the biggest road-trains and B-doubles. At the base of the hill are the specialist forestry and construction-site makers of off-road trucks, excavators, tractors and the like. Farthest away, on the other side of the small lake, is the play-pit were excavators, graders etc. can dig holes and make a bit of a mess; fortunately a courtesy-bus shuttles you to and from the latter area.

A small test-track allows four-wheel drive trucks to show their stuff and the rather nice Iveco TurboDaily four-wheel drive van (right) was running happily around. The Iveco features independent front suspension and a part-time four-wheel drive system. One version is rated under 4.5 tons so a car licence is sufficient to drive it - it would make a nice 4WD camper. It makes an interesting competitor to the Volkswagen Transporter Syncro van. Iveco also have the much heavier International Trucks name now.

Mitsubishi Canter 4x4's were present in various forms, one example also using the test-track. An Oka 4x4 tour-bus held up the Australian 4WD flag.

Getting a little heavier, Man had a number of medium-mobility four wheel drive trucks rated from 11,000kg to 18,000kg GVM which would make a nice fire-tender or other specialist truck (they do bigger trucks too). There had been some talk of Man's high-mobility off-road trucks being at the show - but not this year.

A large part of the show concerns trucking parts and accessories, from engines and gearboxes, suspensions, seating, loading systems, tools, wheels, tyres, to communications and lighting. So if you want to see the insides of a Caterpillar diesel, a Roadranger 18-speed gearbox or a tandem-drive bogie unit with inter-axle diff' lock, then this is for you.

The forestry equipment shows some mind-boggling ingenuity with tracked and wheeled devices that can cut, pick-up, trim, and transport what were trees into logs all at the touch of a few hydraulic control levers. Some of the gadgetry looks like creations from a science fiction movie; it could give a "T2" Terminator a hard time.

- 13-15 February 1998 - 4wd.sofcom.com/4WD.html

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