The history of B Cronin & Co Ltd – Part One
One of B Cronin & Co Ltd’s International F1800 Loadstars being loaded by a Payloader wheeled loader.
Article published as part of a series between November 2013 and April 2014
During the 60s, 70s and 80s, the premier fleet in the Waikato had to be the Tamahere-based trucks of B Cronin & Co Ltd. With red cabs and black mudguards, red tipping bodies and green stock crates, these rigs really stood out. Dave Hall looks back at the history of this stand out fleet. He was assisted by Barry Blackford, Barry Blade, Norm Boyle, Gary Chesterman, Marty Greaves, Kelvin Hayward, Kevin Healey, Jim McClunie, Hughie Padlie, Graeme Phillips, Ces Steele, Mike Sullivan, Alf Williamson and Dave Wood. This is the first of several parts of the Cronins story.
Not only were the colours eye catching but the trucks were always well presented and the growling sound of their Detroit GM repowered Internationals was just wonderful. By the mid 1980s there had been at least 27 different models of that make that had worked in the Cronin line up.
It all began in 1959 when Barry Cronin, who had been managing the Hamilton-based carrying business of D Cleave & Co. since 1955, was offered the opportunity to purchase the company from Dorothy ‘Dorrie’ Cleave. Six trucks went with the deal – including a 1946 Ford, a 1947 K5 International, a 1946 Fargo and three R model Commers/Karriers – along with four stock crates, one two-axle and two single-axle trailers. The work was mainly general cartage with some stock work.
D. (Dorothy) Cleave & Co Ltd. 1934-59
The company was originally started in 1930 by Fred Cleave in partnership with Alan McLaren mainly delivering coal and firewood. After he and his wife split in 1934, Fred moved to Te Mata and ex-wife Dorrie took over the trucks in Hamilton. Their son Bob Cleave managed the business 1950 to 55 before he too moved to Te Mata and was himself a carrier there from 1955 to 62. Cleaves worked out of a depot at 98 Naylor Street doing metal, sand, general, fert, stock and carrying tar tanks for Waikato Bitumen Ltd. The trucks remained in whatever colour they arrived in. Thanks to Bob Cleave.
One of the Commers (#1) was driven by Graham Cheeseman and based at Murapara doing forestry road metalling. Barry, Dave Wood and Cedric Brown had all been working for Cleaves and became partners in B. Cronin & Co Ltd. This was a big step for the young men.
The depot was in Naylor St, Hamilton East where Cleaves had been based. Not long afterwards the business shifted to 104 East Street, near the Ruakura Research Centre. There was another move in 1966 to Airport Road, Tamahere, to a depot purchased from Warwick Johnson of House Removal Co fame. Regal Haulage operates from this site now.
The front workshop and Caltex pumps at Tamahere were initially leased to Bill Lane who ran it as Narrows Garage until 1975 when it came back to Cronin’s control.
Over the years property adjoining the Tamahere site was purchased to increase the size of the yard as the fleet grew.
The partners sought and gained more work and bigger, heavier trucks were purchased. The three vehicles from the 1940s were quickly sold off and the replacements were all TS3 diesels – a second hand Mk 2 Karrier tipulator (fleet #6 ex Ian Rorison), a new tipulator pulled by a new Commer (#5) and a second hand Karrier four wheeler (#2). Another new Mk 5 Commer 4-wheeler from McElwee Motors of Hamilton came soon afterwards (#3). Extra crates were borrowed from Cochranes of Cambridge if required.
One of Cronin’s drivers poses with an early Commer tip truck.
Joan Smith, later a carrier at Litchfield, worked for Cronins as a driver on the ex Rorison truck for a short period around this time. Female truck drivers were very rare then. Len Louden, also later a transport operator came over from Cleaves to drive along with Brian Bailey who was a driver/mechanic. Barry Kenealy ran the workshop. A young man named Gary Chesterman started as a driver in 1961 and was part of the company till the end.
A long term job taken over with the business was for J D (Jim) Wright Ltd, a fertiliser merchant based on Te Kowhai Rd, north of Hamilton. Wrights would have a train load of fert shunted onto the Rukuhia siding in the afternoon and Cronins would spend all night with a number of trucks delivering it to the James Aviation airstrip for their DC-3 topdresser to start work at 5am.
The rail wagons would be unloaded with Wright’s clamshell, which was mounted on a Commer tandem drive truck, then taken via Narrows Road (Airport Road was not built until the mid 1960s) to the airstrip where Hamilton Airport is today. The road in to the fert bins went through Larsen’s Scrap Metal yard where hundreds of new engines meant for American WWII aircraft were being scrapped.
A huge project Cronins were involved in the early 60s was the cartage of metal from the Tauwhare and Karapiro Quarries for the formation of Cobham Drive and associated new roads on the south east side of Hamilton. Fleet numbers 3 and 5 were driven by Trevor Discombe and Ernie Stevens.
These units could do five trips a day with metal from the Tauwhare quarry in Scotsman’s Valley Road to the Hamilton City Council tip head in Sillary Street. Ernie’s truck towed a single wheeled two axle trailer, and he was very adept at backing in and tipping the trailer then jackknifing it to empty the truck and being able to close the tailgate on the trailer without leaving the cab.
To get around the 30 mile limit for cartage against the rail between 1959 and 1961 Cronins had coal barged from the loading facility at Riverview Road in Huntly by Roose Shipping Co to Roose’s sand unloading area at the Ferrybank in Grantham Street, Hamilton. There the coal would be unloaded from the barge by a big steam shovel onto Cronin’s Commers and trucked to the boilers at the dairy factories at Hautapu, Monovale, Roto-rangi, Fencourt and Pukekura in the Cambridge District.
The coal for Hautapu factory came 60 tons at a time. After being loaded on trucks at Rooses in Hamilton, it would be taken to Hautapu, where the trucks would reverse up the rail line and the coal would be shovelled by hand over the wall into the coal bunker. Later in the 60s, a Thorneycroft loader was purchased and kept there so that the coal could be tipped off and mechanically placed in the bunker. This loader had been used by James Aviation to load fertiliser into the hoppers of their DC-3s at Rukuhia Airport and was used at Hautapu on the coal for many years.
Coal was also carted in from Hughes Bros Whatawhata mine, which was on the left just before the deviation on the Raglan Road, to the Waikato Hospital in the very early 60s. This coal supply contract changed to the State Mines at Huntly shortly after the 30 mile restriction of cartage against the rail was lifted to 40 miles in 1961 and Cronin trucks could take the coal further.
More to follow, keep en eye out…
Photos: Allan Adsett, Ben Uncles, Brent Knowles, Dave Lowe, Ed Mansell Big Rig Fotos, Richard Freeman Collection, Gordon O’Riley Collection, Grant Willis Collection, Kerry Hill Collection, Mark Henderson Collection, Marty Greaves Collection, Mike Hosking Collection, Rod Simmonds, Rufus Carr, Stu Barnes Collection and the Stu Mitchell Collection