Victor Meuleman
Victor Meuleman was born 3 May 1954 at Camden NSW. Victors dad was a truck driver for Rural Grain of Bargo in 1964. Vics dad bought 2 Dodge 318 V8 petrol trucks to do furniture removals on weekends. That’s when Vic got the bug to drive trucks.
Vic was only 10 years old when he got behind the wheel of his dads truck, he would just turn the key off. His first driving job was Tegels of Bargo in 1978, driving a Dodge 318 V8 petrol doing deliveries of day old chickens, ducks, turkeys to farms. He pumped petrol into the truck by hand back then. Vic was there for two years when he wanted to drive bigger trucks and be on the highway.
Vic got a driving job with Cindar Transport of Bargo that his sister (Diane) and brother inlaw (Ron) owned. He would drive either the Acco 3070 or White Road Commander doing deliveries and pickups (products) from Griffith, Newcastle, Brisbane, for five years. Vic then drove for Terry Adams of Colavale driving a Scania 112 or Acco 3070, doing general deliveries from Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide for two years. Vic wanted something different so he drove for George Quinlan of Penrith. That’s when he got his first taste of tipper work, driving a L.T.L. from Jugiong to Port Kembla in truck number six for two years until George went bust.
After that he drove for Fred Missingham (The Lost Pig) in a L.T.L. 350 cat. Doing deliveries and pickups (general freight) from Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide. Then Vic drove for J.R.T. (John Rumar Transport) of Bramar, driving either the Scania, L.T.L., L.N.T. Sterling Freightliner doing tipper work to and from Sydney, Melbourne, Whyalla carrying anything from potatoes, bread, glass, dough etc.
Vic is currently driving a Freightliner Colorardo. He has so far clocked up 21 years with J.R.T. so they gave him and his wife and all expenses paid cruise to Tasmania (2013). Vics son, Chris is also a truck driver and other family relatives are also in the transport industry.
Victor is the sort of bloke who would stop and give anyone a hand if needed. He said he wouldn’t want to do anything else than driving trucks up and down the highway. He has formed many great mateships and sadly has lost some to this industry. There has been 3 generations of the Meuleman family driving this highway.\