Elphinstone Engineering proudly announces a momentous occasion: its founder, Graeme Elphinstone, has been inducted into the Shell Rimula National Road Transport Wall of Fame. This prestigious honour, sponsored by Shell Rimula, is a testament to Graeme’s lifelong commitment and outstanding contributions to Australia’s road transport industry. His name now joins an elite group of trucking pioneers and legends on the Wall of Fame, underscoring the pivotal role of innovators and industry leaders in the success of road transport.
The Shell Rimula Wall of Fame is a cornerstone of Australia’s road transport heritage. Held annually as part of the Festival of Transport in Alice Springs, the induction ceremony celebrates the men and women who have helped shape the transport industry through decades of service, ingenuity, and dedication. Since its inception over 20 years ago, the Wall of Fame has recognised and celebrated over 1,700 distinguished members of the road transport community – from legendary truck drivers to visionary engineers – ensuring their stories become part of our national road transport history. “Our objective with the Wall of Fame is to highlight the contribution that road transport, as an industry, has made to Australia’s economic well-being through the ingenuity of our trucking pioneers,” the Hall of Fame organisers explain. “It shows that road transport is much more than just the men and women who drive the trucks; there are many others in the industry who need to be recognised also.”
Graeme Elphinstone’s induction to this Wall of Fame is a testament to his five decades of innovation in heavy vehicle design and safety. A Tasmanian born and bred, Graeme began his career in the early 1970s and quickly became a problem-solver for the transport challenges of the era. In 1976, Graeme and his brother Dale imported and fitted Australia’s first on-vehicle truck weighing system – installing scales on a Tasmanian log truck to accurately measure its load. This pioneering step revolutionised load management, allowing drivers to know their weight before hitting the highway, and laid the foundation for modern onboard mass monitoring in heavy vehicles. With Graeme’s help, Tasmanian Pulp and Forest Holdings’ woodchip mill in Triabunna introduced a groundbreaking “non-payment for overload” policy that removed the incentive for truck drivers to carry overweight loads. This initiative, a collaboration between the mill, logging contractors and Transport Tasmania, is regarded as one of the first practical applications of today’s Chain of Responsibility (COR) principles in Australian transport. Graeme’s efforts in ensuring trucks were no longer overloaded beyond legal limits improved safety and fairness for drivers and operators alike, inspiring a new era of innovation in the industry.
“Vehicle overloading was prevalent,” Graeme recalled of the 1970s, when recounting why he pursued onboard scales. “One of the biggest problems for truck operators was accurately estimating the weight of their load. For the first time, logging transport had entered a new level of professionalism, with far fewer roadside weighbridge violations and drivers finally enjoying ‘peace of mind’ as they now had a legal load.”
By giving drivers real-time weight information, the Elphinstone onboard weighing system helped improve compliance, reduce overloading, and enhance overall road safety.
Over the years, Graeme Elphinstone has led the way with a series of engineering breakthroughs in trailer design, suspension technology, and vehicle configurations. His ideas, often ahead of their time, have since become industry standards in Australia, significantly improving driver safety, regulatory compliance, and operational efficiency across the road transport sector. Some of Graeme’s key innovations over his career include:
- 1976: Fitting the first on-vehicle weighing system to an Australian truck, enabling drivers to monitor axle loads and gross weight on the go. This was an Australian-first solution that set new benchmarks for load compliance and safety in trucking.
- 1980: Inventing the stretch mudguard for trucks – a longer, flexible mudguard design that is now an industry standard copied by many manufacturers, reducing road spray and debris for improved safety of following vehicles.
- 1983: Designing the world’s first self-loading road train combination, featuring a four-axle dog trailer that could automatically load cargo (e.g. logs) without external equipment. In the same year, Graeme introduced innovative air transducers for air suspension systems to more accurately measure and adjust load pressure.
- 1985: Developing the “Tri-Beam” suspension system – an inventive heavy-duty suspension design that earned Graeme the coveted BHP Steel Award for engineering innovation. This suspension improved load distribution and durability, contributing to safer and more stable heavy vehicles.
- 1986 Built the World’s First folding skeletal trailer, the Fold-A-Skel™
- 1988: Designing one of Australia’s earliest B-double trailer combinations. Graeme’s configuration (tandem-axle lead trailer with tri-axle rear trailer) was the first of its kind, paving the way for widespread adoption of B-Doubles in Australia’s freight fleet.
- 1989: Creating the Easyweigh™ Radio Remote Indicator – the world’s first onboard weighing system with a wireless remote display. This innovation allowed drivers to monitor weights from outside the cab and, crucially, enabled trucks and trailers to interchange without recalibration, drastically improving operational flexibility.
- 1999: Winner “Australian Trailer of the Year” for Easyloader™
- 2005: Designed and built the world’s first self-loading B-Triple.
- 2007: Designed and built world’s first self-loading Road-Train doubled trailer. The advantage of the self-loading Road-Train mean that operators can use short standard routes on the empty return journeys instead of the longer gazetted road train routes.
- 2008: Graeme launched the Easyloader™ Long Logger trailer – an Australian-first, Performance-Based Standards (PBS) approved design that could carry 19-metre-long logs on a 26-metre B-double combination. This innovation, achieved under the then-new PBS scheme, dramatically increased payload capacity for the forestry industry while meeting stringent safety and handling standards, thereby enhancing operational efficiency and profitability for the industry.
- 2011-2013: Developing the Easysteer™ self-steering suspension system. This advanced trailer suspension automatically adjusts and guides rear axles during turns, reducing tyre wear and improving the turning ability of long combination vehicles. Easysteer™ enhanced safety and manoeuvrability for multi-trailer road trains, although it initially required persistent advocacy by Graeme to gain regulatory acceptance.
These achievements – among many others – underscore why Graeme Elphinstone is regarded as a true pioneer in the transport engineering field. His designs have improved driver safety, regulatory compliance, and operational efficiency across the road transport sector. “His pioneering work, such as Australia’s first onboard weighing systems, has left an indelible mark on the industry,” noted the Tasmanian Transport Association when honouring Graeme’s 50-year career in 2024. This recognition from a respected industry body highlights the widespread impact of Graeme’s innovations, with many transport companies today, in Tasmania and across Australia, still relying on the solutions he introduced over the years.
His company’s design and deployment of folding trailers, multi-axle configurations such as tri‑axle, and advanced load distribution platforms have been widely adopted across the timber, mining, and bulk haulage sectors. In fact, Garry Leeson – also recently inducted (2023) – credited Elphinstone’s work in Tasmania for inspiring the mainland’s adoption of folding trailers and other innovations
Graeme Elphinstone’s induction onto the Shell Rimula Wall of Fame is a celebratory moment for the entire transport community. In receiving the honour, Graeme expressed gratitude to those who have supported his journey. “I’m truly humbled to be inducted into the Wall of Fame alongside so many legends of the road,” Graeme said. “When I built my first trailer and fitted that first scale system, I never imagined it would lead to this. I’ve always just tried to solve problems and make trucks, trailers and transport in general safer and more efficient for everyone. To have those efforts recognised by the industry I love is an incredible honour. This award isn’t just mine – it belongs to our whole team and the many customers and partners who believed in our ideas over the years.”
Grant Elphinstone, General Manager of Elphinstone Weighing Systems (and Graeme’s son), paid tribute to his father’s dedication and influence. “Dad has always been a trailblazer,” Grant said. “For nearly 50 years, I’ve watched him push the boundaries of trailer design and challenge what’s possible with unique innovation. He was fitting onboard scales before most people knew such a thing existed. He was building PBS-approved trailers before PBS was even a common term. His focus has always been on making life easier and safer for drivers – and that’s why this recognition is so deserved. Our whole family and team are extremely proud of Graeme. His legacy will continue to inspire innovation in transport for years to come.”
About Elphinstone Engineering:
Elphinstone Engineering, founded by Graeme Elphinstone in 1976, is a Tasmanian‑based specialist manufacturer of heavy‑haul transport and polar logistics equipment. The company’s core product lines include folding skeletal logging trailers (including tri‑axle jinkers, B‑Double and B‑Triple skeletal trailers), custom trailers (such as Easyloader™, Seaskel™, Road Railer®, Port‑A‑Skel, Zinc‑A‑Skel and Sandgroper models), and an integrated suite of weighing solutions, on‑vehicle loadcells, Easyweigh® indicators, air transducers, and transportable weighbridges designed for road freight, forestry, mining and waste industries.
Since 1985, Elphinstone has also pioneered polar traverse and base‑construction equipment for Antarctic operations, supplying traverse trailers, sleds (including Traverse Sleds, Recovery Sleds, Air‑Cushion Sleds and Slave Sleds), modular base frames, walkways, turntables, suspensions, heavy equipment transporters and specialised container mounts. These Antarctic systems are engineered for extreme low temperatures (down to –40 °C), low ground‑pressure travel, modular assembly, minimal maintenance, and compatibility with ISO containers and tracked tractors—many units have logged over 200,000 km without major rebuild.
This breadth of innovation, from foldable log trailers and certified Smart OBM weighing systems to world‑class Antarctic traverse machinery, demonstrates Elphinstone’s enduring commitment to engineering excellence, operational safety, regulatory compliance and productivity in both rugged road transport and polar logistics sectors. Today, Elphinstone Engineering and Elphinstone Weighing Systems continue to lead in innovative transport technology, upholding Graeme’s legacy of ingenuity and excellence in engineering.
