Deals on Wheels #464
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Left to right: Luke<br />
Sheridan with two of<br />
his drivers – Ruskin<br />
and Scott<br />
which quickly became jammed solid in its<br />
frame – it wouldn’t go in and wouldn’t come<br />
out due to the uneven incline.<br />
“I ended up having to reverse the trailer<br />
down the hill with the forklift hanging<br />
out from the side of the trailer suspended<br />
precariously over parked cars, until I could<br />
find some flat ground <strong>on</strong> which to unload it.<br />
“I then ended up breaking up three or four<br />
packs of bricks which I had to re-stack for<br />
delivery. I rang the company, told them this<br />
wasn’t for me, went home, removed the forklift<br />
and frame and placed them up for sale,” Luke<br />
laughs.<br />
Beer backloads<br />
After the false start <strong>on</strong> the brick job, he<br />
secured some work subc<strong>on</strong>tracting to<br />
Deegan’s Transport in Goulburn. Luke has a<br />
lot of praise for Kim Deegan, who gave him a<br />
go and showed him the ropes. “I was green as<br />
green and knew nothing,” he c<strong>on</strong>fesses.<br />
The early days for Southern Star Transport<br />
were spent accommodating a wool boom<br />
with Luke and his trusty Louisville carting<br />
the baled fleece into the Yennora wool stores<br />
in Sydney, and backloading beer from the<br />
Tooheys’ factory in Lidcombe.<br />
The work was hard, loading and tarping<br />
bales, but to Luke it seemed greatly preferable<br />
to the brick work.<br />
“We would load the wool in Goulburn and<br />
drive to Sydney and unload. That unloading<br />
could take up to six-hours, then, when we<br />
would go around to load the beer for the run<br />
back, it could take just as l<strong>on</strong>g to load there.<br />
“It was taking anything up to 20 hours to do<br />
a return run from Goulburn to Sydney.”<br />
Luke started carting bagged cement<br />
products into Sydney from Mald<strong>on</strong>, around<br />
the 2000 Olympics era, which saw steady<br />
demand for these products. Unbeknown to<br />
them at the time this work would eventually<br />
see Southern Star Transport running two<br />
semi-trailers c<strong>on</strong>sistently for many years.<br />
As demand ebbed and flowed the work<br />
fluctuated a bit but is still being d<strong>on</strong>e today by<br />
Southern Star Transport with its 10-wheeler<br />
DAF rigid.<br />
It’s interesting to observe how seemingly<br />
insignificant interacti<strong>on</strong>s over time can be<br />
so pivotally instrumental in the evoluti<strong>on</strong> of<br />
transport businesses.<br />
While carrying out those Goulburn to<br />
Sydney runs for Deegan’s, Luke would<br />
regularly drive past the Australian Rail Track<br />
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