Paul Bertoncini drives his Super-Liner 3,000 kilometres every week from Perth to supply the miners at Mt Tom Price. For him, reliability is everything.

Keeping the miners digging

From Gooseberry Hill, east of Perth, Badgi Contracting supply the miners of the Brockman 4 camp, which lies 60 kilometres west of Tom Price, 1,600 kilometres to the north. The company runs a triple road train every week carrying around 110 tonnes of food, alcohol, linen and other supplies to keep the miners fed, watered and clothed.

“We leave on Wednesday with a full load,” says owner Paul Bertoncini, “and return on Saturday with a trailer load of dirty linen to be washed. Then the other truck goes out.”

Essential supplies, long distances

Paul hooks up the three pre-packed trailers—two refrigerated trailers and a drypan—and his Super-Liner and Trident make short work of the long journeys, despite temperatures that regularly head in to the forties in summer.

“The Super-Liner is a beautiful truck to drive,” says Paul, “and the fuel economy is unbelievable. The 600hp MP10 in the Super-Liner averages 1.6 kilometres to the litre, and the Trident’s MP8 manages 1.5, which is a lot better than we were getting from some other engines we’ve had.”

Reliability and service are the key

While Paul welcomes the superb fuel economy of the MP10, he says it’s the reliability of the engine that matters most, as the whole camp is depending on him to turn up.

“There’s about 1,500 people at Brockman Four,” says Paul, “and we’re pinging in everything they need for the week.”

“When our trucks come back in they go straight to Mack to be checked over,” says Paul, “it doesn’t matter what time of day or night, we get 24/7 service every week.”

Experience counts

Paul’s been doing the Tom Price route with Macks for eight years now, and he’s had a good run.

“The new Super-Liner replaced our old one,” says Paul “I like Macks and I like the people we work with. We’ve been with Truck Centre for 15 years, and we’ve got a good relationship with them, we did a head on the MP8 in the Trident once, and 24 hours later it was right back out on the road heading for Karratha.”

No problems

Paul particularly enjoys the certainty that the Mack parts and service warranty gives him.

“I could do the service myself,” he adds “but with the trucks doing 6,000 kilometres a week I don’t have the time to look at them. The maintenance we get on our trucks is spot on, and with that warranty, I know that if something goes wrong with the truck, it’s their problem not mine.”