Iron Tester, Denis Todd. When Rotorua Forest Haulage’s (RFH) Kaingaroa Site Manager, Jay McLean, drives up to our meeting spot he has a 60 litre drum of petrol on his Ute for the regraders crew at the Kaingaroa Processing Plant (KPP). Obviously a hands-on boss then.

“I started out logging with family,” Jay says. ”Did tree felling, ran haulers for a long time, then came here and worked at the KPP itself for Timberlands for 10 years before coming over to RFH to manage the unloading of stem trucks, feeding of the processing plant and then handling of the finished product out the other end. Our crew loads out onto an RFH triple off-highway truck which is on a constant loop with the Murupara Processing Yard (MPY) where its cargo is loaded onto the log train for export. We load out highway trucks too. They go to mills all over the North Island”.

The Iron Test team fills out some health and safety paperwork in the second story office overlooking the several hectare yard, then heads downstairs. We jump into Jay’s Hilux for a drive around the yard and arrive at the Wagner L130 we are here to test today. A steady stream of mostly RFH stem trucks is coming through to be unloaded.  

Jay doesn’t seem too keen to expand on his tree felling and hauler days so I note that a lot of the stem truck drivers are older blokes.  

“Yeah we have some great older guys driving. Legends really. One of the oldest is Tippy Olsen – 82 years old and still driving these stem trucks. He is our village Kaumatua. We get him to bless our machines; he’s a priest. He blessed this Wagner when it first arrived. He just lives here in the local village. That guy Brian is another one of the older guys, at work every day. Never misses a day.” 

Jay nods towards a lean, spry and wizened bloke who casually flicks the chains off the stems with barely perceptible moves. The economy of movement shows he knows exactly which muscles are required and how much of them. Plenty there for young blokes to learn about. 

“Most of our operators are from the village here. It’s ideal being only a few minutes’ commute. I hire a lot of people from the village. Our Wagner operator, Dean Katene, is from the village. He’s always done all sorts here, he’s also one of the best bucket operators as well as one of the best Wagner operators. There’s only six stem crews that supply us. Their stems are weighed at the weighbridge on arrival and Dean can see the weight and he knows then if he can take the whole load or if he needs to take a small grab first.”  

Biggest loader 

Everyone knows Wagners are big, but to get up close to them and even ride in one while it is working is nothing short of awe inspiring. Did we mutter obscenities in awe? Yes we did. Heck we even made some...