Combine a steep forest road network, erodible terrain, high-cost earthworks and destructive weather events and you’ve got a recipe for finding new log transport solutions. Qube Forestry New Zealand’s East Coast operation (formerly Pacific Haulage), based in Gisborne, did just that, in the form of a fleet of ten Scania G500 8x6 trucks to assist in harvest planning, loading and log transport in these difficult conditions.
With a full fleet of 90 trucks predominantly working for corporate forest companies we “rarely venture outside the region” says General Manager, Campbell Gilmour.
The seeds for the company’s new acquisitions began after Cyclone Bola hit back in 1988. In the aftermath of the cyclone the land was no longer deemed suitable for farming, and was planted in trees instead. The East Coast thus had a large planting boom in the early 1990s, with the catch being that these plantations were on steep, highly erodible areas.
From 2016 onwards this harvest commenced and, being first time rotation, they were, and are, all Greenfield operations with little, if any, roading infrastructure available.
As a result, roading operations became year-round operations to keep ahead of the increased harvesting task, says Mr Gilmour.
Add to that high-cost earthworks wth a limited supply of good quality aggregate in Gisborne, with resulting high metal haulage and supply rates, and the lower quality aggregate tends to get used for the forest roading networks.
That’s when they’re not being eroded and destroyed by severe weather events.
“When these occur, they absolutely destroy the region,” says Mr Gilmour. “A whole hillside will just let go and take a road with it. When this happens, the council will actually park us and ban us from operating. Because the roading infrastructure is so fragile, they can’t afford to take the risk of the heavies working on the road and deteriorating it even further.
“So we could be parked for two to three weeks at a time and just not allowed to operate. During that period we just have to sit with our arms folded and wait to get the green light to operate again.”
Cartage alternatives
No wonder then that in 2019 the company started thinking about some sort of cartage alternative.
“We’ve got a difficult operating infrastructure and these terrain difficulties cost us all – the forest owner with the high establishment cost and maintaining the roads, and us with the difficulties operating in these sorts of terrains. So we needed to think outside the square about what we could do that would assist our customers but also assist us,” says Mr Gilmour.
It was then that the idea of an 8x6 truck was floated, enabling the use of a specialised unit, but still operating within the fleet undertaking cartage duties as normal.
Forestry customers were involved in the vehicle specification and planning of the project right from its commencement, starting with a site visit to the lower North Island at McCarthy Transport where the Scania 8x6’s were operating within the Waimarino Forest...
