Charles Honeycombe
Inducted into the Shell Rimula Wall of Fame at Reunion 2013.
Charles Honeycombe (Sandy) started his driving career in Australia in 1974 at the age of 21 when he moved over from New Zealand. His first job was with Co-ord in Alice Springs where he drove road trains for 18 months carting general freight, cars and cement into Mt Isa and Darwin.
In mid 1976 Sandy started driving for Russell Thomas carting building supplies into the developing aboriginal settlements and in 1979 was part of the team of drivers carting supplies to the contractors sealing Peterman Road into Ayres Rock. In 1980 Sandy took over the management of freight for Plenty River Mining Company coordinating the carting of all freight from Alice Springs to Jervios Station.
After 18 months however the pull to drive was too much and Sandy made the move to Northern Transport, where for 3 years he carted fuel and general freight throughout Northern Territory, until he made the decision to move to Geraldton. It was not long after arriving in late 1984 he had the opportunity to buy Murphy Transport, where his 6 trucks supplied all freight, fuel and beer to Denham, Monkey Mia and Useless Loop and in 1987 he took over the Perth run that carted shell grit from Shell Beach in Denham to Perth.
Wanting to branch out, in 1989 Sandy started to cart general freight and cyanide to Telfer Gold mine for Bellways and then Newcrest when they took over in 1991. Sandy drove a Cruiseliner cab over Mack (Quiet Achiever) and was one of the longest standing truck drivers on the run in the same truck, doing the run himself until the mine closed down in 2002.
In 1992 after he sold Murphy's he made the move to Perth and based out of Welshpool and in addition to the Telfer run started subbying interstate work, carting to Alice Springs, Townsville, Albany and NSW. It was while in Telfer in 1994 a chance meeting with Laurence Newman led to him starting to cart for RUC and once Telfer closed Sandy's main work resided with RUC, carting their drilling equipment and freight to mine sites throughout Australia. A number of yard moves later Sandy now has a main yard in Upper Swan, a distribution yard in Kewdale and yard in Kalgoorlie.
He operates a fleet of 16 trucks, 16 drivers, 1 boilermaker and 4 mechanics. Sandy is known as an old time driver that gets the job done, he expects his drivers to be able to load, restrain and unload any type of freight or equipment and be willing to travel any road that exists in Australia, dirt roads are the norm and no load is too hard.
