Cover story: Outback Trucker Steve Grahame
Deals on Wheels speaks with arguably the most popular trucker on the Outback Truckers TV show, Steve Grahame
On the television show Outback Truckers, we see Steve Grahame tackling the most challenging jobs, whether he’s stuck in the middle of nowhere or getting himself out of a jam on rough, remote roads, his Kenworth smothered in red dust.
We know drama makes for good television, but he’s a bit of an outback hero. Steve and his trusty dog Bella, a German Shepherd/Kelpie Cross, are an intrepid team. I was relieved to find out he had a caring partner, Kathy Brennan, back home in Peth, where he returns like a knight from the crusades having completed a long-haul run.
On television, Steve never seems to lose his cool.
"You’ve got no choice. Often the situation is too big for you. If you did your block or got impatient, you’d just hurt yourself. I can be very short-tempered and irritated with people daily, but when I’m out there, and I’ve got a bogged, triple road train, it’s no use getting upset about it. I’ll quietly get on with the job, break it up, split the trailers one by one and then put it back together. That’s the job, and it doesn’t worry me," says Steve.
Road trains
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Steve Grahame
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Steve was parked on the roadside near Leonora in Western Australia the day we spoke in late December 2021. When I asked if another time might suit him better, he said, "No time is ever good; I’m always busy. I just swapped with Slick (his right-hand man). I bought a triple road train up to Leonora, and we’ve swapped trailers. Slick has given me a triple that he’s brought across the Great Central Road from Alice Springs, and I’m going down to Kalgoorlie and will unload one trailer and then back to Perth via Wubin."
In Australia, traffic regulations dictate where road trains can go, so reaching their destination is a tactical manoeuvre.
"The closest we can get to Perth with a full 53.5-metre triple road train (62 wheels on the ground and carrying 10 to 12 spare tyres) is 270km. You do see the triples trundling down the road, but it takes a bit of getting to them from the major centres."
I joke that he probably has a load of Christmas presents on-board, but unfortunately, this wasn’t the case.
"I swapped a big pile of house frames with Slick; they are going to Alice Springs for building houses. He’s brought me broken vehicles and machinery, plus a Portaloo that he tells me is full. They didn’t empty it before they loaded it. The people who own the porta potty will be getting a plumber around to my depot when I get in because I’m not handling it until it’s drained out. That’s not part of our service. Imagine if it broke while you were out on the road, and it started leaking. If someone was behind you in their nice, brand-new car and turned the windscreen wipers on, that wouldn’t be much fun for them!"
50 years of driving
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The Kenworth Brute handles everything chucked at it
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Steve has been on the road for half a century; 2022 is his 50th year.
"I turned 70 last year, but I think I’ve got another few years left. I’ve got no desire to retire.
"At this stage, I’m not planning on buying any new trucks. I think that the movement to save the planet will force us older trucks off the road soon. It’s probably not that far away. Australia will be short of AdBlue next year; there’ll be none to put in the modern trucks. We’ll keep going along, us old blokes; we don’t need that stuff."
Growing up, Steve says he wasn’t too keen on school and was sent away to get "straightened out".
"I worked as a shed hand with my dad on shearing teams, and then, when I got my licence, I moved into mining exploration. I got into trucking through that.
"We bought a little rig and needed a truck licence, so I moved up from there through my classes. When I’ve been short of a licence, I’ve gone away and done a bit of detecting and prospecting and enjoyed it.
"Then I got married at 22 and decided I needed a job close to home. I went back to livestock carrying, but because you don’t stay local for long in trucking, that branched out into long haul cattle carting and general freight. I gradually became a remote area construction specialist, which I do now. The construction industry is a big part of my cartage business."
Kenworth Brute
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All loaded up with building supplies for remote communities
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Steve drives a 1994 Kenworth C501 Brute that he’s owned since 1999.
"It’s on its second engine, and this one has more than 800,000km on it. I’d expect it to get another 100,00 to 300,000km before I look at serious repairs.
"The American trucks are like big Meccano kits; you keep replacing stuff. The European trucks have rivetted chassis, so there’s a bit more involved replacing things, whereas the American trucks bolt together. If I’m out in the desert, 1000km from anywhere, I can get myself out of trouble mechanically. Whereas, If I have a modern truck with computers and electronics and I break down, I’ve got to get a helicopter and a man with a computer, and it’s a nightmare in costs. That’s why I won’t change."
But it hasn’t always been a Kenworth.
"Don’t tell anyone, but I have had a Mack. Once upon a time, Mack trucks were the only trucks on the road, and now they’re just in the road," he laughs.
"You will notice my dog, Bella, is in the cab with me, not stuck on the bonnet where I’ve got to look up her backside as I drive along."
But Steve agrees that a truck is a truck at the end of the day.
"After many years, you build up a bit of a war chest for whatever truck you’re running; you’ve got parts in the shed, and they belong to a particular brand; that’s how it happens."
Steve’s business partner, Slick, who you’ll also see on Outback Truckers (he’s the one who eats raw eggs from a carton), drives Steve’s other Kenworth, 1992 T900. It’s slightly smaller at 118 tonnes.
"Most of our work is in central Australia: The Pitjantjatjara Lands in South Australia and up into the top end of the Northern Territory and the Kimberley’s. We cart a lot of stuff to builders who build housing for indigenous communities, so we get into the remote parts of the outback. I enjoy it. It’s usually a positive experience; people are glad to see other people. It’s old-fashioned, old-school trucking. The roads might be a mongrel, and you get into tricky spots from time to time, but I still prefer it to the mad race and the frantic rush on the highways.
"If you’ve watched Outback Truckers, you’ve seen my days. There’s always something different to look at. Generally, it’s always a good day at the office."
Trailers
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Steve’s trusty companion, Bella
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Steve has a variety of heavy-duty, drop-deck trailers—triaxle, flat tops, and bogey dollies, all from TSE in Perth. His truck has a 142-tonne gross rating.
"We’ve usually got about 110 to 115 tonnes hanging off the end of the steering wheel. I run parallel bearings on all of my running gear. I’ve found them much more successful on the corrugations. We run an oil slurry, packing our bearings with grease and top the hubs up with oil, so they run in the slurry. We found we get a bit more life out of the bearings.
"We do a lot of our maintenance, but my main bloke has just gone to work in the mines. The mining companies steal all our good men; they pay money we can’t compete with. It’s impossible. My last man was with me for four years, so we contract it out when that happens. Slick and I check the wheel bearings and the routine stuff, but we get contractors in for brakes, etc. It covers my backside if there’s an issue on the road. Secondly, it’s a time- thing; it’s hard to keep up with everything."
Long-time Outback Trucker
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With 50 years of trucking under his belt, Steve knows how to get out of the trickiest of situations on roads like these
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Steve enjoys being on Outback Truckers and has been with the show since it began in 2012.
"The television crew from Prospero Productions decided they wanted to be on a trip with me, and it grew from there. Sometimes it gets irritating having a cameraman sitting beside you in the passenger seat asking you annoying questions, but they are good people. They get it if you ask them for a few hours of free time. They get out and get into another vehicle that’s following.
"I take my hat off to them. They work hard; they’ve got to put up with us and run around filming everything we do, walking backwards simultaneously. When I knock off, have tea, and go to bed, they edit their footage for the day. They run a little generator set, and the crew are up working well into the early hours and lots and lots of nights. Then they are up doing it again the next morning.
"Prospero Productions call me fairly regularly to ask where I am going. They’re not interested in coming with me if I’m going on a beautiful bitumen road, say out of Broome. But if I am going out on the Great Central Road or up the Gibb River Road or somewhere horrible, they will want to come along.
"This year we did a few loads into Kalumburu; the first time I was on that road was the late ’70s, and this year, it was worse than it was back then: dreadful. They do the maintenance, but the traffic volume for the road is insane. Because of COVID, they are encouraging Australians to visit their backyard, so there were thousands of vehicles on the road that normally wouldn’t be there.
"On a 70km section, there were nine campervans or caravans banged up, with axles and wheels ripped out of them. Two late model four-wheel-drives had their front wheels ripped out or an axle broken on the roadside. All because they went out there unprepared or were driving too fast. They get in the way. It’s no good getting cranky, but sometimes it’s hard not to.
"Our tourists bring some of their city driving habits, and they want to compete with you for the road. Whereas our outback and indigenous people are wonderful; they give you the road. They wander off into the bush out of dust and let you pass. Most drivers are rushing up and down at 100kph, and you can’t see anything for the dust. It’s madness."
In 2021, Outback Truckers won the TV Blackbox Most Factual Programme award. Steve accepted the award on national television on behalf of Outback Truckers.
He’s proud to be part of it and says, "Outback Truckers showcases Australian truckers, and it also showcases Australia and the outback to the world in a fantastic way. I can’t believe where I get phone calls from; the number on the door of the truck is my phone number. Some people get surprised when they phone it and I answer. Plus, they’ve lifted the profile of us truckies, which is good; people who wouldn’t have approached us before now do."
In 2015, Steve, who has three children and six grandchildren, was inducted into the Shell Rimula Wall of Fame for his contribution to the road transport industry in Australia.
Steve’s family is proud of him: "I’ve got four sisters, and one of them said, ‘it’s a good way to go out Steve when you think about it’."
He’s a fair dinkum bloke, Steve Grahame.
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