John Bain
Inducted into the Shell Rimula Wall of Fame at ReUnion 2010.
John Bain has been associated with trucks and transport since he was about 13 years of age. He was born in Monto and spent most of his childhood in Aramac where he preferred to live and breathe trucks helping his father, Kevin Bain, operate his own transport company.
At the age of 19 years John purchased his first truck. In 1970 John based himself in Sydney where he started sub-contracting for Sydney to Mt Isa Transport carting general freight. His first contract was with Delaney Produce carting produce out of Dalby to Darwin and then another contract with the Darwin Brewery carting malt out of Toowoomba to Darwin. He then decided to move to Toowoomba.
After starting with one truck, which he drove himself, his transport business grew to operating 10 trucks. He also moved into carting oil rigs for a period of time. His hard work and vision paid off and he left driving to become the owner-operator of John Bain Transport carting approximately 50 loads per week of general freight into the Northern Territory. His transport company grew to become a million dollar business and in about 1985 John decided to sell to RTA where he stayed on as manager.
He purchased John Bain Transport back in approximately 1987. In 1992 John Bain secured a contract with Carlton & United Breweries and with 3 new Haulmark curtain-sided trailers he supplied beer to the Northern Territory. This saw the growth of his company and John Bain Transport started operating depots in Toowoomba, Brisbane, Mount Isa and Darwin. In March 1995 he again sold John Bain Transport to Carpentaria Transport (a division of NQX) where he stayed on as manager.
In September 1997 he started another bigger and more successful transport company, Westrans Freighters Pty Ltd. Again John Bain would grow this company into a business that was running approximately 60 - 75 loads of freight per week across Queensland to the Northern Territory and home again with various general and refrigerated freight. After a lot of careful thought and consideration, in September 2OO7, John decided to sell his business Westrans Freighters to Toll Express and stayed on as manager for approximately 18 months.
John has now found interests other than transport and is now retired on the Gold Coast where he still keeps his mind busy by studying for his commercial pilot's licence and has finally learnt how to relax and enjoy the good life with his wife Josie on their Riviera boat, travelling around Australia by sea instead of land.