Shaws Iron Test: Bigger than Big

When Rotorua Forest Haulage’s (RFH) Kaingaroa Site Manager, Jay McLean, drives up to our meeting spot he has a 60 litre drum of petrol on his Ute for the regraders crew at the Kaingaroa Processing Plant (KPP). Obviously a hands-on boss then.

“I started out logging with family,” Jay says. ”Did tree felling, ran haulers for a long time, then came here and worked at the KPP itself for Timberlands for 10 years before coming over to RFH to manage the unloading of stem trucks, feeding of the processing plant and then handling of the finished product out the other end. Our crew loads out onto an RFH triple off-highway truck which is on a constant loop with the Murupara Processing Yard (MPY) where its cargo is loaded onto the log train for export. We load out highway trucks too. They go to mills all over the North Island”.

The Iron Test team fills out some health and safety paperwork in the second story office overlooking the several hectare yard, then heads downstairs. We jump into Jay’s Hilux for a drive around the yard and arrive at the Wagner L130 we are here to test today. A steady stream of mostly RFH stem trucks is coming through to be unloaded.  

Jay doesn’t seem too keen to expand on his tree felling and hauler days so I note that a lot of the stem truck drivers are older blokes.  

“Yeah we have some great older guys driving. Legends really. One of the oldest is Tippy Olsen – 82 years old and still driving these stem trucks. He is our village Kaumatua. We get him to bless our machines; he’s a priest. He blessed this Wagner when it first arrived. He just lives here in the local village. That guy Brian is another one of the older guys, at work every day. Never misses a day.”