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City to country: Dixon loves the Katanning run in his K200

Spending his day hauling general freight along the three-hour route between Perth and Katanning, Karl Dixon can’t wait to pull his Kenworth K200 out of the suburbs and onto the country roads

 

Located 285 kilometres from Perth, Katanning Logistics provides a daily freight service into the Western Australian capital.

Behind the wheel of the newest truck in the Katanning-based company’s four-truck fleet – a 2014 Kenworth K200 – is Karl Dixon.

Owner//Driver caught up with Karl in Katanning’s depot in Kewdale after he had finished tightening the buckles on his curtains.

Karl has always been around trucks his whole life, as his father Allan Dixon drove trucks and later ran transport yards.

“It has always been around,” he recalls. “I’d take the school days off to help him out.”

“School holidays were spent in or around trucks. For as long as I can remember I’ve been close to trucks,” he adds.

“It has changed a lot since then, but I still love it. I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t.”

Karl lives in Perth, where he gets to go home most nights, but loves that his job takes him out into the country.

“It’s about three hours south east of Perth, I’ll head down every couple of days,” Karl explains.

“I usually spend a day in Perth unloading and loading, and the following day I’ll head down to Katanning to unload and reload.”

The trip means that he does sleep in the K200 occasionally.

“I do sleep in the truck, sometimes once a week and other times more, all depends on the week really,” he says. “I’m not bothered if I have to sleep in the truck, it’s fine with me. It’s all set up and ready to go.”

If it sounds like Karl is happy with the truck, it’s because he is.

“I have been with Katanning for four and a half years and had the K200 since November 2014,” he recalls.

“It has the E5 AdBlue engine with 18-speed Eaton Fuller transmission, it’s nice to drive.

“There is no cowl in the middle, no fridge to climb over, and it suits the job.”

See the full story in the April 2016 issue of Owner//Driver magazine.

 

Photography: Peter and Di Schlenk

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