Ross Partington

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

William Ross Partington from Melbourne is known to most people as Ross.  He joined Mayne Nickless in 1964 when he was around 18 years of age.  He worked in the heavy haulage section earning himself quite a few notches to his belt.
He also tried his hand at tanker work, doing three or four return trips to Sydney a week. Around the age of 22, he changed jobs and went to work for Ernie Whallert.  Most of the time Ernie never knew where his truck was along the eastern coast. At around the age of 23, Ross realized that he could obtain finance to buy his own prime-mover and decided to take the plunge.  There was no holding him back.  He went to Kenworth and purchased the first of many trucks.  A Kenworth was the only way to go with a Cummins motor.  He then started subcontracting with Mayne Nickless on tanker work as he did not own a trailer; but within a few months he had purchased Fruehauf trailer and worked with general freight (NXQ) and transported produce back from Queensland.  He eventually got to a stage where he pulled two trailers. After Cyclone Tracy (1974), he started running trips to Darwin from Melbourne with steel and other rebuilding products from BGJ Tubemakers, Smorgons.  Despite this being temporary to assist with the rebuilding of Darwin this work continued for 25 years and resulted in Ross pulling three, sometimes four, trailers northward.  The Kenworth prime-movers became bigger.  Ross, working with Kenworth, had a hand in the development of the 501 Brut.  He helped build this 904 Kenworth from a wreck, which he still runs today to northwest Western Australia and the Northern Territory, pulling flat-top and drop-deck trailers. Ross Partington's life has been, and still is all long distance interstate transport; a job in which he has earned himself much respect.