John Tyrer
Inducted into the Shell Rimula Wall of Fame at Reunion 2010.
John Arthur Tyrer was born at Balranald in 1928. John married Faye in 1951 and they had 3 children. Most of his life has been spent living and working in Balranald.
During his early working life John worked putting up windmills, completing fencing and putting down wells. His first truck was an army Blitz which he used to travel dusty outback roads between Balranald and Ivanhoe collecting rabbits from trappers and bringing them into the chiller at Balranald. When the chiller was full he loaded the frozen rabbit carcasses onto the back of the army Blitz, tarped them down and began the 12 hour drive to Melbourne. After the war John bought his first truck, a Chevy 3T which was followed by a Ford Thorton, an Alvian, 6 Inters and a few Scanias.
John had an Ampol fuel depot from 1965 to 1978 and carted fuel to Balranald from Williamstown, Melbourne in 44 gallon drums to his depot and local service stations and delivered fuel to outback country stations.
His love affair with Scania trucks began with an 80 series Scania 150HP motor fitted into an Inter AB 180 prime-mover. In 1972 he brought his first new Scania truck, a LB80 single drive with a fold-down sleeper bed in it. This beauty was followed by several more new trucks up to a 142V8 420HP drive, his pride and joy. John now has a Scania 113T 360HP prime-mover and at 82 years old is still driving during grape and grain harvest although he has given the stock away.
In his trucking career John has travelled through Vic, NSW, southern QLD and SA carting a great range of freight such as rabbits, kangaroos, grain, grapes, fruit, wool, fuel and rig shifts. John has worked with his son in latter years in livestock transport carting sheep and cattle. Much of this was carting in deep mud out of Yelta saleyards,
John feels that the industry has gone from bad to worse with the charges and laws applied nowadays. Trucks are a lot different and so are the roads. No- one today would drive the trucks that he used to drive.