Michael ‘Mick’ Molloy was born on the 19th of June, 1960, in Alice Springs. After leaving school at 14, Mick tried his hand at being a
ringer on a station not far out of Alice Springs, Here, they put Mick
behind the wheel of a Commer Knocker and, as he recalls, “it gave me the transport bug right away!”.
By 1981, Mick headed back into town, accepting a role with PMT
Partners, a civil earthmoving company. Starting as a labourer, he was soon driving side tippers for the business and, eventually, their float truck.
The White Road Boss prime mover was used to transport the
business’s earthmoving equipment locally. Mick remembers a trip with PMT Partners where he was tasked with shifting a bitumen tank from out of the Mobil yard on Alice Springs’ Ghan Road to the
Emoleum yard. Although the yards were only 500 yards apart, the only way you could shift the tank was by using two, hundred-tonne cranes to lift it up, sit it on the float and weld it up. The tank was about 10 metres tall when loaded.
After 10 years with PMT Partners, Mick went to McMahons
Construction where he drove a Mack Superliner. With a 100-tonne float, Mick had the opportunity to travel the Northern Territory and the top of Western Australia, carting all of the business’s machinery, camps and demountables.
In 1994, Mick joined McBride Transport. Driving a Ford Louisville, he would be loaded with Woolworths’ dry goods off the train in Alice Springs to head to Darwin. He would do this trip twice a week for
seven years. When McBride Transport sold, Mick began driving for GKT, where he was carting Woolworths’ frozen produce from Alice to Darwin, and Adelaide to Darwin express.
Mick started with Chambers Engineering in 2004 and was with the business for 17 years. Calling on his experience in civil construction, Mick would operate excavators and loaders when he wasn’t trucking equipment from jobsite to jobsite. From here, he carted iron ore out of Roper Valley to the Darwin Wharf with Ostojic.
Currently, Mick works for G&S Transport.
Mick’s involvement with the National Road Transport Museum
started long before his induction. Mick was the first to shift the
Commonwealth Railways train that sits out on the Stuart Highway, bearing the Transport Hall of Fame logo. While with Chambers
Engineering, Mick formed part of the crew who completed the
earthworks and foundation for the Kenworth Dealer Hall of Fame. His
dedication to the transport industry has come naturally. Mick enjoys the unique lifestyle – the balance of solitude and camaraderie that
being on the road offers.
Inducted in 2024
