Ross Vaughan

Ross William Vaughan was born in Busselton, Western Australia on the 20thDecember 1942. His wife, Rita Joy Vaughan was born in Geraldton Western Australia on the18th April 1944. They were married on the 16thApril 1964.

Ross's life in trucks started in 1957. When he was 16 he worked for Ken McPherson carting copper from a mine in Thaduna to Meekatharra, which included a mail run from Meekatharra to Wiluna.

Ross lived and worked on a farm at Northampton for two years before he and Rita were married, during which time he drove a truck carting superphosphate for the farm. The truck at that time was a green 1948 International Dodge.

Ross purchased one of the first Volvo F86's in 1972 and this was to be one of the 74 Volvo Trucks of various models he would own up to the present day. His current fleet of 23 trucks includes Volvo, Mack, Sterling, Kenworth and Freightliner.

Long distance haulage was a specialty of Vaughan Transport with one of his contracts in the early 1980s being a four to five day 4,000 km run from Perth to Darwin and return. This job would last around five years.

From 1985 to the present day Ross's business transports a great variety of loads from Perth to Bunbury, Port Hedland, Karratha and many other destinations. Over this time he has experienced some amazing trials and tribulations, a couple of the more memorable are; being stuck at Fitzroy Crossing with his triple roadtrain and ten other trucks from the 1st February to 20th May 1983 (three months) due to major flooding of the Fitzroy River and having only CB contact with his family and the outside world. They survived by living off the food they were carrying to Darwin.

A major highlight was when Volvo Sweden sent film crew to Western Australia in 1983 to work with Ross to do a documentary on roadtrains, this resulted in an award winning documentary in countries such as Germany and Sweden.