Howard Brothers
Howard Bros Leyland and Kenworth “Steptoe”.
Article first published June 2016 as part of the history of Steptoe
Simon Vincent spoke to Winston Howard about Howard Bros, the family firm which operated the iconic Kenworth L-924 known as Steptoe. The Howard family, Bruce, and later Bruce and Winston in partnership, were involved in transport from the 1950s until the 1970s initially general carriers and later they became loggers.
Winston Howard told me his brother Bruce started a transport business circa 1949/50. Bruce’s first truck was quickly followed by a second. Winston used to help out by shovelling metal onto the tip truck. Fortunately it had a hoist to tip off the load at the delivery point. “I drove without a licence now and again,” Winston admitted.
His brother-in-law also had a couple of trucks and Winston remembers helping him load on occasion too. The draw card was he was allowed to drive the trucks in the river bed as a form of payment for his assistance.
Bruce Howard’s Bedford OLB loaded with sawn timber.
After leaving school, Winston found a job in an office. This was before the crippling water-siders strike of 1951. With the strike in full swing, Winston’s employer realised that the strike was putting the country in jeopardy and he released Winston, for a few trips, to work with his brother.
Winston recalls Bruce would load out metal in the morning and in the afternoons load cartons of goods out of Watties in Hastings and deliver them Auckland. On the occasions that Winston went, he would drive the first leg to Taupo over the old Napier Taupo road which took over 6 hours to complete. The old road was still a very narrow and windy shingle affair which required a huge amount of care to negotiate. Bruce always let him drive the first stage as Winston knew the road to Taupo.
From Taupo Bruce would take over and drive to Auckland. They generally arrived around 6.30am the next day and would unload at a Watties warehouse in Auckland. Once they had had breakfast they’d head out to Otahuhu to reload at DB Breweries.
His brother would then drive back to Taupo as Winston snoozed in the OLB Bedford. At Taupo it would be Winston’s turn again and he would drive them home. Winston said they generally arrived home at 1 or 2am the next morning. He noted he would be back at his normal job at 8am that day.
An S Model Bedford with another load of sawn timber, this one in Howard Bros livery.
In 1953, Bruce got in to logging on the Taupo Road. Winston initially drove for Bruce hauling native logs back to town, and in 1955 the pair formed Howard Brothers.
Together they hauled from the Rangitikei Plains to a mill at Pakowhai, near Hastings, until the mill burned down in 1956. They went on to haul pine logs to the Tuck Bros Ltd saw mills in Taupo and sometimes native logs to their Tarawera mill. Tuck Bros also had timber yards in Morrinsville and Napier.
The Howard Bros team loading up an S Model Bedord with a crane.
The Tuck Bros offered the Howards work for two trucks carting out of Broadlands into the Tuck Bros mill, in addition to several of the others mills around Taupo in 1957. Winston lived in Taupo during the week and would load up with sawn timber for home (Napier) on a Friday afternoon which would be unloaded at the Tuck Bros yard in Napier.
Another of the early British trucks in the fleet, an Albion flat deck six wheeler.
Some weeks Winston would load native out of the Maungataniwha Forest and cart it back to Napier. Bruce and driver Rusty Bryant were kept busy carting out of the Maungataniwha Forest to the Tawa Timber Co in Napier using S Bedfords.
With more work coming from the Maungataniwha Forest, Winston moved up to the forest in 1958 living at the village by the Maungataniwha native timber mill. He got to drive an old GMC 6x4 with a single axle jinker trailer to begin with.
A hard working GMC heavily loded and ready to set off.
The forest owner, Bill Angus realised the small mill in the forest was not going to remain viable. The Maungataniwha mill was closed in July 1959 and logs were then railed from a nearby rail siding at Kotemaori into Napier to the new Waitane Mill native timber mill.
S Model Bedords were an obvious early choice of truck.
The biggest impediment to getting the logs out of the forest and to the rail siding was a suspension bridge at Willow Flat which only had a 12 ton limit. The Willow Flat road which serviced the forest was also extremely windy and narrow.
To cope with this, full loads of timber were hauled from the forest to the old mill site with the old GMC and a Singapore Hippo “Big Bertha”. Here the logs were cut in two and transferred onto smaller trucks and transported out to the rail head 15 miles away.
The Singapore Leyland Hippo following a British Hippo out of the bush.
Bill Angus’s forest manager, Jim Haulker was keen to trial off heavy duty highway logging which he had seen in operation in the US and Canada. The brothers brought a second Hippo (new in 1962) to begin this service with Winston behind the wheel.
The UK Leyland Hippo hauling a load out of the forest.
They also placed the order for the L-924 Kenworth which would come to be known as “Steptoe” in early 1965 for use off highway. Steptoe would have been a massive investment at the time costing 10,300 pounds. The truck arrived in late 1965 and was picked up in January 1966 according to Winston.
One of the first L Series Kenworths to arrive in New Zealand.
One of the Hippos was sold, and the Kenworth started work on the 21st of February 1966.
The truck was originally ordered with power steering, however it was never fitted prior to the truck going on the road. Winston admitted that once it was on the road, his pride (or fool hardiness) ensured that it was never fitted and the company received a credit for the power steering. It was a decision he acknowledged may not have been the most sound and when offered a truck to drive years later he was glad to be allocated to a different truck.
The truck was originally ordered with power steering, however it was never fitted.
The swing bridge was replaced by a new steel structure in April 8 1967 (several years before the date the local county council had promised).
This opened up the capacity to larger trucks and Winston felt it would be better to just haul straight to the rail at Kotemaori. He suggested they should convert the Kenworth so that the bolsters were 8’ wide (they had been 10’ when used in the off highway operation) and lightening the sub-frame.
Steptoe being unloading at the railhead by an over head gantry.
The Hippo on the other hand needed no conversion as it was already the right dimension for highway use.
Bruce didn’t agree so they continued with the double handling regime.
Steptoe passed to D&R McKinnie Ltd (Reg McKinnie) in February 1972. Within 3 weeks, Winston says Reg had scrubbed the off highway work to concentrate on carting direct to the rail as this was more efficient and cost effective. Winston drove for McKinnies until the end of the year and then left to do other things.
Winston finished up with McKinnie’s in December of that year.
Joe Young took over Steptoe and drove it for the next 14 months.
After passing to Freightways Steptoe was driven by (the late) Murray Yeoman then Bob McLeod had a turn behind the wheel for a while, but he nosed Steptoe over a bank.
An impressive sight, Steptoe hauling a massive single log out of the forest
McKinnie’s were finding it hard doing the logging and sold the logging business August 1973 to Freightways Timbers Ltd which traded as Freightways Road.
Winston returned to logs in late 1973 with Freightways on a Mercedes-Benz 2624. He was later moved to one of Freightways 335hp Kenworth W models.
Logs were measured in log/feet by the Haakon-Dahl feet (HD feet) method during this period. Winston said the trucks would cart 7-8,000 HD feet to the rail as there weren’t many cops around, a legal load was only 5,500 to 6,000 HD feet he recalled.
He said the odd 10-12,000 single logs might have been carried to the rail on a Freightways truck.
Howard Bros later Kenworth contracted to Freightways loading in the forest.
Logging at the Maungataniwha Forest ceased in December 1977as the bulk of the native timber had been harvested. Carter Holt Harvey purchased Willow Flat station and planted it in pine between 1977 and 1984. Winston worked for Carter Holt Harvey until 1997 tending forests.
Photos: Winston Howard collection.