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Norm Durham pushed heavy-haulage boundaries in the good old days with some impressive equipment and hauls. BY GAVIN RILEY
Even George Yelavich, an industry pioneer in the Auckland area, was impressed. “Norm knew his stuff when it came to heavy haulage,” he said. Durham founded Durham’s Transport in Christchurch in 1945 after wartime service overseas with the Tank Brigade. He was always looking for more efficient ways of doing things, and when he landed a contract to cart wool bales over the Port Hills to Lyttelton, he built in his yard two low-slung semi-trailers, each 28 feet long (8.53 metres), which was the largest permissible size at the time. He built all the decks and painted the new trucks. He carried what were considered impressive loads in the late 1950s, including 80-foot-long (24 metres) concrete beams using “S” model Bedfords as artic and trailer. In the early 1960s Durham’s Transport contributed to some major construction jobs. These included carting thousands of tonnes of concrete panels and overdimension loads such as giant air ducts to the Lyttelton tunnel project, and transporting 80-foot prestressed concrete beams and supplying tip trucks to the Durham’s also carried thousands of tonnes of concrete beams and panels used in the building of QEII Stadium, scene of the 1974 Commonwealth Games. In 1963 Durham persuaded a local engineering company to build him a trombone semi-trailer, opening from 30 feet (9.14 metres) to 42 feet (12.8 metres). It was the first such trailer in the South Island. In 1968 the Ministry of Works could not find a company willing to shift from Otematata to Mt Cook a bridge which comprised several large complete concrete sections and two massive steel structures. Durham, always one to think outside the square, decided to tackle the job. He had designed and built a six-axle rear jinker trailer, with the front two axles providing the steering. The complete bridge sections were bolster-mounted at the front to an eight-axle transporter and the rear to the six-axle jinker unit. It was a massive undertaking as the loading was done by manual jacking and, after going off the sealed and shingle roads, the load had to be hauled several kilometres up the riverbed glacier and negotiate one river crossing to reach its destination. Still looking to improve, Durham decided in 1972 to build a huge low-loader unit. He bought a new 8x4 ERF and mid-mounted a fifth axle and a four-speed auxiliary transmission to build what was for many years the largest tractor unit around. During this era trailer manufacturers were not seriously building big trailers, so Durham had his ex-army trailers chopped, extra axles fitted, and re-engineering carried out to boost payloads from the original 30-odd tonnes to 90 tonnes plus. These big units carried heavy gear to the large hydro-dam projects of that era – Benmore, Twizel and, later, Clyde. Durham’s drive and appetite for difficult work meant his company undertook many challenging jobs over the years, such as hauling a 50-tonne-plus ball from Lyttelton to Westport cement works. This had to be unloaded, put onto small dolly wheels and pulled through Hawk Crag by the tractor unit – a very tricky manoeuvre. The company also negotiated several massive loads through Evans Pass to and from Lyttelton, such as container-crane components, coal-hopper units, large boilers, and transformers. Opposition firms said some of those jobs couldn’t be done, but Durham and his team proved them wrong every time. Why did he take all those risks over so many years, trying to extend the boundaries of what was possible? The answer is disarmingly simple. “Norm enjoyed being a pioneer in heavy transport,” says son Brent, who now heads Durham’s Transport. And the big man’s pioneering spirit lives on. “We recently had built the largest transport trailer operating in the South Island,” Brent says. Contractor Vol.32 No.4 May 2008 |
When Norm Durham died last month at the age of 90, mourners at his funeral in Christchurch were surprised to hear the extent of what he had achieved in his early days as a heavy-haulage operator.