Road train operated by Camrandale Transport, Quilpie QLD

DURING the course of our research for Beef Central’s Top 25 stock transporters feature, we spoke to almost 70 operators Australia-wide.

A number went close, but ultimately fell just outside the 51 decks (one time uplift capacity) required to make this year’s cut.

These are substantial trucking businesses nonetheless, so we’ve decided to provide some brief details, set out below…

Sweet-spot in size

There appears to be a ‘sweet spot’ in terms of enterprise scale which provides business advantages for larger transport operators. Somewhere around eight to ten trucks provides opportunity to spread fixed costs further, establish better-equipped maintenance facilities, employing mechanics, admin staff or scheduling managers, while also allowing the business to compete for pastoral company-scale work, where larger uplifts are required.

That partly explains why there is a log-jam of operators either just inside or just outside our Top 25 list, who operate 8-10 trucks and 35-50 trailers.

Just missing this year’s Top 25 cut (one time uplift of 51 decks required) was Calomba Transport, located just north of Adelaide, South Australia. Calomba operates fleet of eight prime movers, hauling mostly road trains, totalling 50 decks one time capacity.

Camrandale Transport out of Quilpie, western Queensland operates eight prime movers with capacity for 48 decks, putting the business just outside the Top 25 list. Watch this space for upcoming news.

Rohan Welke’s Welke Transport, operating out of Blyth, South Australia, was another close contender, running a fleet of 12 prime movers with total uplift capacity of 47 decks.

Also in South Australia, another operator who asked not to be named operates a fleet of 14 prime movers able to haul up to 42 decks at one time.

Zambonetti Transport based in Napier, Western Australia runs a fleet of 17 prime movers with capacity to haul 45 decks at one time. The trailers can be converted to any configuration for cattle, sheep and pigs.

Jason Pepper’s Peppers Livestock Transport operating out of Katherine NT runs a fleet of seven prime movers with one time capacity for 45 decks. No far away is Tennant Creek’s Lachlan Manns, who Manns Transport business operates seven prime movers with capacity for 42 decks at a time.

Schubert Livestock Transport based out of Katherine is another large northern operator which handles a large amount of work transporting stock for northern pastoral companies, hay to northern stations and cattle to northern ports for live export, with seven prime movers capable of hauling 42 decks.

Further west, Bowman Transport out of Broome, WA operates eight prime movers hauling up to 24 decks, mostly live export work, plus general freight.

In South Australia, large lotfeeders the Rowe family from Princess Royal, with yards at Burra and Sedan, run a fleet of ten prime movers hauling up to 40 decks, mostly feeder cattle heading to, or finished grainfed cattle heading from the 25,000 head feedlot business to slaughter.

No  far away from Princess Royal, also active is Peter Edmonds’ Edmonds Livestock Transport out of Naracoorte, South Australia, running ten prime movers and up to 33 decks.

Glen Innes NSW based BeefTrans Livestock Transport runs a fleet of ten prime movers  with capacity for 24 decks, mostly covering the New England/ Northwestern NSW region, plus interstate cattle transport work. A little further south in NSW, the Maloney family’s Maloney Livestock Transport out of Tamworth have built a large fleet of 10 prime movers in just seven years, and after collecting their latest new B-triple set of trailers from Byrne Trailers at last week’s ALRTA conference in Canberra, now have a one time uplift capacity of 47 decks – one of the closest to the 25th entry on the list with 51.

Southern Queensland’s Condabri Beef was just shy of becoming the third company to feature on both the 2023 top 25 Lotfeeders and this year’s top 25 livestock transporters lists. Condabri was number 22 on the lotfeeders list, but its growing fleet of seven prime movers, 16 trailers and capacity of 27 decks meant it fell a little short of the livestock transporters list.

HLE Smith Transport operating out of Harlin in southern Queensland operates a total of 16 prime movers, ten of which are used for livestock transport, with total one-time uplift capacity of 33 decks.

Operating out of Roma, Queensland, for the past 14 years, Henry Livestock Transport rune a fleet of five prime movers, with one-time uplift capacity of 30 decks.

The Maloney family from Maloney Livestock Transport at Tamworth – Tara, Isaac, Alex, Braydon, Mick and Carolyn – travelled to Canberra for last week’s ALRTA conference the family also picked up their latest brand new B-triple trailer combination from Byrne Trailers – pictured behind them – taking their total cattle deck numbers to 47 decks.

Some of the 2013 Top 25 entries have dropped off this year, because other operators have grown at a faster pace, pushing them off the list. Other from 2013 have gone out of business, been sold to others, or retracted in size to the point where they no longer qualify this year.

The Australian Agricultural Co appeared on our 2013 list with nine prime movers capable of shifting 48 decks, but dropped off our 2025 list, due to scaling down the company-owned fleet to six trucks, with greater use of contractors now taking place.

Gilbertsons Transport in Queensland made the list 12 years ago with ten prime movers, but has since been sold.

Richardson Brothers Transport in NSW was running 17 trucks in 2013, but the fleet was sold in several parcels in 2018.

Barkly Transport in the NT was running 15 prime movers in 2013, but was later absorbed into Road Trains of Australia.

Rodney’s Transport Service in NSW ran a fleet of 20 prime movers back in 2013, but was later bought by Shanahans Transport, Number 8 on this year’s list.