Celebrating 100 years of the Gascoyne Trading Company - the trucking operation built up by Kingsford Smith

[onetrack]

Here in the West, we're having a quiet celebration of the 100th year of operation of the Gascoyne Trading Company.

 

This long-lived company, started by aviation pioneers Charles Kingsford Smith and Charles Anderson, came about when Kingsford Smith and Anderson bought a small transport business in Carnarvon, changed its name to the Gascoyne Transport Company and built up a good little trucking business that Kingsford Smith was able to sell for good money, and thus finance his forays into record-breaking aviation.

 

I wrote this piece (below) on another forum many years ago, but I only just found it again. For a short while after buying Tom Carlins business, Kingsford Smith and Anderson traded as "The Kingsford Smith-Carlin Transport Company".

 

"It was while Kingsford-Smith was flying around Western Australia in the early 1920's, that he saw camel teams hauling wool from the stations in the Murchison (W.A.), to Carnarvon.
He immediately realised he could make a lot of money out of wool transport by truck (and other types of haulage, too, of course).

 

He and Keith Anderson bought Tom Carlin's service station in Carnarvon, in 1924, and set about making a trucking fortune, so they could buy their oft-dreamed of, aeroplane (or aeroplanes).
They set themselves up as "The Gascoyne Transport Company". Their letterhead stated .. "General Carrying Contractors" - "Proprietors, C. Kingsford-Smith, Keith V. Anderson".

Their letterhead also announced .. "Local Agents and Service Station for other cars. All Classes of Repair Work. Cars Stored and Driven at Owner's Risk."

Their business stationery clearly outlined their aims, by showing a photograph of a motor truck loaded with about 20 bales of wool with a trailer attached, also loaded with wool.

 

They bought their first truck on hire purchase. They scored a mail contract almost immediately, from Carnarvon to the Bangemall Goldfields, near Mt. Augustus.

The work flooded in faster than they could do it. They bought a second truck. Despite another bloke starting up in competition, with a one-truck business, they still couldn't keep up.
They started employing drivers. Smithy and Andersons popularity and fame, gained them huge amounts of work amongst the pastoralists.
Wool got hauled in to Carnarvon twice as fast as camels, and supplies returned to the Stations in record time - including fresh supplies!

 

However, it was hard going. There were virtually no roads in the Gascoyne .. but there were plenty of huge flat claypans that were easily traversed, and which didn't need grading.
Come a rain, though, and the claypans turned to muddy clay, and the trucks got bogged, left right and centre.
Smithy often remarked later, how trucking built up his arm and chest muscles big enough to easily handle the heavy controls of his Fokker!

 

The camel team owners were on a losing battle. The Gascoyne Transport Co succeeded beyond Smithy and Andersons wildest dreams.

Because Smithy and Anderson were hopeless book keepers and unprofessional as businessmen, they asked their BIL, Bert Pike to become Manager of The Gascoyne Transport Co. He did, and the business thrived, and was kept on a profitable track.

By the end of 1926, all the trucks were paid for, and the business was highly profitable. Smithy and Anderson couldn't bear being stuck on the ground any longer.
They sold out, and bought two Bristol Tourers from West Australian Airways, flew them to Sydney and started up in business as Inter-State Flying Services. The rest, as they say, is history.

 

However, the company that Smithy and Anderson started, went on through several other owners, to eventually come under the ownership of Wesfarmers, and became The Gascoyne Trading Co, in 1935.
That's the same Wesfarmers corporate giant we know of today - and the Gascoyne Trading Company went on to become a huge part of the North-West of W.A., with the some of W.A.'s first roadtrains, and with a regular North-West trucking service from Perth, to places as diverse as Carnarvon, Exmouth, Port Hedland, Broome, Wyndham, and Kununurra."

 

100 years of Gascoyne Trading - ABC News - https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-03/gascoyne-trading-company-100-year-celebration-wa-outback/103286030

 

Earlier ABC story on Kingsford Smith and Gascoyne Trading - https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2014-05-26/kingford-smith-carnarvon-mail-run/5476574

 

Edited February 3 by onetrack

[willedoo]

I seem to remember seeing Gascoyne trucks in the Kimberleys. Here's a Gascoyne Turtle from the early 70's:

 

 

Edited February 4 by willedoo

[onetrack]

They were the lifeline to the North of W.A., especially in the transport of perishable goods. When the W.A. State Shipping Service was operating, a lot of non-perishable freight went North on the State Ships, but as the roads in the North improved and the SSS costs got ever higher - and trucking costs got lower - the trucking operations won out.

 

Gascoyne Trading regularly hauled a huge amount of produce from Carnarvon back to the South, and later on, they went into semi-tippers and ore haulage in the Goldfields. There's a lot of good Gascoyne Trading truck photos on Flickr.

I lived in Bassendean as a kid and the Gascoyne Trading operations were just over the Perth-Midland railway line and I would see "Gassers" Mercs coming and going on a daily basis.

 

They didn't start road-training until the late 1960's or early 1970's, as road trains were banned in W.A. up until then, due to highway safety concerns, and the fact that very few prime movers were capable of pulling two trailers, back then.

[willedoo]

The other trucks I remember up in the Kimberleys were the Buntine road trains carting cattle.

[willedoo]

4 hours ago, onetrack said:

They didn't start road-training until the late 1960's or early 1970's, as road trains were banned in W.A. up until then, due to highway safety concerns, and the fact that very few prime movers were capable of pulling two trailers, back then.

It's hard to imagine with the way things are now. Thinking back, in the early 70's most of our local transport companies around here were still running V8 petrol prime movers. They were doing well to pull an 18 ton load on a single drive prime mover/bogie trailer setup.

[Mr.Vegemite]

On 05/02/2024 at 12:22 AM, willedoo said:

The other trucks I remember up in the Kimberleys were the Buntine road trains carting cattle.

We had those carting cattle to Point Stuart Station in the NT. Four trucks if I remember correcting, but that was in 1984. The driver had a special seat installed for his back 🙂

[willedoo]

15 minutes ago, Mr.Vegemite said:

Point Stuart Station in the NT

I had to look that one up. Crocodile country by the look of it.

[Mr.Vegemite]

12 minutes ago, willedoo said:

I had to look that one up. Crocodile country by the look of it.

Yeah, out Kakadu way but the meat works shut down. Tourist attraction with Shady Camp nearby on the Mary River. I did some pro fishing there as well.