John “Wally” Day

Inducted into the Shell Rimula Wall of Fame at ReUnion 2005.

Wally Day began his trucking career at the age of 14½ of age in 1958 when he started working with his father, Ted and brother, Pat. The company was formed as EW Day and Sons and was one of the oldest privately-owned transport companies in the southern Riverina, in the small town of Oaklands. At that time it had two F600 Fords.

Wally's first job was carting bagged wheat from local farms to silo, then fruit from Cobram to Melbourne backloading drum fuel and fertilisers. Being only young, Wally worked as his father's side- kick for quite some time before the local policeman suggested to Ted better see about getting this boy a licence. During the 1950s they built two stock crates enabling them to go into sheep and cattle. Many a mile was driven and a lot of country was seen with this job. A trip to Homebush in Sydney took 17 hours in the F600 and pay was £110.  Pay was £55 to Newmarket, Melbourne. During the 1967 drought, 22 000 sheep were moved from Nowranie Station, Oaklands, along with sheep from several other places, to better feed in northern NSW and Queensland. There were also truck loads of cattle. Not much later, the drought broke so the stock was returned. Over the years, the business went into bulk fuel cartage as it was originally an agent for COR, later going to BP then to Mobil. In 1977 the company was appointed agent for Pivot Fertilisers.

In 1983, Wally's father, Ted, retired leaving Wally and brother Pat to take over the business. In 1996 after a lot of hard work, and having two sons each, it was decided to split the partnership and they went their separate ways with Wally and sons, Andrew and Craig, trading as Days Freightliner starting with two trucks. Ill health, forced Wally into semi-retirement.  His fleet today consists of six Kenworths, five B-doubles, tippers, tautliners and flat-top combinations and is managed by his sons, Andrew and Craig.