Central Coast container cartage specialist, Freightlinx, has added a new Volvo FH to its expanding A-double fleet.
The business runs a respectable fleet of 25 commercial vehicles including B-doubles and sideloaders mainly across New South Wales.
Managing Director Adam Hale, who founded the company in 2004, runs Volvo FHs exclusively across his Performance-Based Standards applications which can entail the vehicles moving two 40-foot containers from Port Botany to Newcastle, Newcastle to Canberra and from the wharf out to Hanwood near Griffith where the installation of a new solar farm is taking place.
“Volvo has been chosen for the safety aspect and reliability,” he said.
“Though our basic servicing and other repairs is done inhouse we still rely heavily on Volvo for support,” said Hale.
“If something does go wrong, Volvo fix everything. You don’t have to go to multiple manufacturers. They take care of us.”
Freightlinx launched its first A-double in November, 2019.
In fact they started with two high productivity vehicles to be precise.
Swayed, ever since then, by the many driver protective features and accident-mitigating technologies on the trucks, the business has chosen to stick with the Volvo FH opting for the same configuration of a three-metre wheelbase and 600 horsepower engine.
The latest addition delivers Euro VI rated performance with 470 kW peaking between 1500-1900 rpm through the I-Shift transmission, a 12-speed splitter and range gearbox with an automated gear changing system.
“The new truck, even though it is rated to the same horsepower seems to have a better power delivery,” said Hale.
“In terms of its responsiveness in such a heavy-duty application it’s ready to go.”
The truck features the words ‘Comfortably Numb’ in tribute to Pink Floyd fan Cairan ‘Shirl’ Joyce, a much beloved and long time employee at Freightlinx, who passed from cancer in February.
Cairan’s son, Nathan, works in operations at the business.
The remainder of the Freightlinx fleet is compromised by Mack trucks and a lone Mercedes-Benz Actros.
Prior to establishing Freightlinx, Hale was the operations manager for a waste-paper company in which road transport commitments accounted for a large part of the role.
He now heads up an operation with 47 staff and five subcontractor tow operators.
Head office is located at Tugerrah on the Central Coast of NSW.
In three years, the PBS domain has evolved pleasingly according to Hale enabling Freightlinx to service much bigger projects, often found in out of the way places, which had been prohibitive under the original PBS route access network.
“Applying for each individual route, whether it was northbound or southbound was admin intensive,” he said.
“It was heavily regulated when we first started. You had to have a specific route and you couldn’t go off that route,” said Hale.
“As time has gone on and the regulatory bodies have realised how good these vehicles are they’ve opened up the whole PBS network for us up to certain weights. That’s been a really good thing.”
