It’s 2:00am on Tuesday morning and Port Augusta is asleep, but for a depot at the edge of town that lights up the night. I’m standing beside one of the iconic red trucks that keeps this region ticking along.
Cochrane’s signature livery is synonymous with outback South Australia; red rims, red chassis, red body. The company’s fleet of Japanese rigids run express through the night, and have for more than 50 years.
Inside this Fuso Fighter curtainsider, there’s bread for the IGA at Quorn, Vaccines in Coolpac boxes for the hospital at Hawker, cages of mail for the post office in Leigh Creek, parts for a workshop in a tiny town called Copley.
Cochrane’s signature livery is synonymous with outback South Australia; red rims, red chassis, red body. The company’s fleet of Japanese rigids run express through the night. Images: Thomas Wielecki
This is the 500-kilometre return run from Port Augusta to Leigh Creek that driver Damien does five, sometimes six days a week, which runs along the western flank of the Flinders Ranges.
He hits every small town and station gate that’s expecting mail or supplies, taking The Outback Highway all the way to Leigh Creek and sometimes slightly beyond, before running back to Port Augusta.
ROADBOSS’s Cobey Bartels climbs into one of Cochrane’s iconic red rigids on an overnight mail run into the beating heart of remote South Australia, to find out how one company has become the lifeblood of the region.
Read the full story in the Winter Issue of ROADBOSS Magazine, out July. Click here to subscribe.
