Cork’s abnormal load specialists
25/07/2024
Established since 1997, Nixon Haulage Ltd stands as the top abnormal load specialist throughout all of Munster. Irish Trucker touched base with its Managing Director David Nixon to hear more about the recent additions made to the company’s fleet and the overall state of business at the moment.
This year marks 27 years for Nixon Haulage Ltd and, right now, business is good for the Co Cork concern as it continues to provide its customers with a top-class service.
Employing four full-time staff, it’s a business which holds a reputation for carrying out a professional job for its clients each and every time its lorries take to the road.
Services that Nixon Haulage provides include everything from permit procurement to escorting, along with heavy load management.
The company works nationwide, with a particular focus on the Munster region, and, as David Nixon himself told Irish Trucker, business is ticking along quite nicely down in Ballymore, Bandon, Co Cork these days.
“It has been busy for us. There has been a little bit of a downturn but not much, to be honest,” the Managing Director outlined.
“Like last year was very busy for us here. I think there probably is a crash coming, but it’s just a case of trying to get through it, basically.”
Back in ’97, David discovered a niche in the market for a transport business down south which could move portacabins/prefabs, boats, mobile homes, steel chemical toilets, refrigerated units, shower blocks and changing rooms.
Since that time, Nixon Haulage has undoubtedly become experts in abnormal load transportation and it had been the vision for its founder from ‘Day One’.
David and his team are presently operating with seven trucks in the fleet, including three crane trucks (one of them a 700 Volvo with a 62-tonne crane on it) and one rigid along with eight trailers. Three of the trailers are extendable while one has full power steering and is a double extender.
At the moment, the company is on the look-out for another crane lorry to add to its yard in Ballymore where a state-of-the-art shed also sits having been erected four years ago.
“We’ve six lorries and added a Scania 580 to the fleet here and we bought a new four axle extendable trailer last year. They’ve been going well since,” said David, who is also joined by his brother Stephen in the business.
“We do wide loads here and we actually bought a new Transit van as well for escorting, so you’d have 90 percent of our stuff there would be wide stuff.”
As well as the four full-time staff that it operates with, Nixon Haulage brings in more drivers to cope with the demand from customers during the peak season of its business.
The busiest times tend to be between March and August and see the company’s trucks constantly hitting the tarmac all over Munster and beyond the southern province’s borders.
Indeed, the success story which Nixon Haulage has become isn’t up for debate, as the Co Cork firm is perhaps as busy as it has ever been some 27 years after its inception.
So, what has been the secret behind this continued success?
“I suppose it’s the fact that we give our customers a service that they want and the fact that we’re reliable as well,” David stated plainly.
“A lot of it is that the gear has to look clean and has to be good. People don’t want to see their stuff going around in scrap, so appearance is everything.”
Nixon Haulage is a transportation business which has earned its excellent reputation through decades of delivering work for customers that is second to none.
It is the number one abnormal load specialist in the south of the country and things don’t look like changing in that regard, especially when you consider the consistent upgrading of its fleet and the state-of-art premises from which it operates.
So, what’s next down the line for the company?
Looking at the months ahead and towards 2025, David says he is confident business-wise for what’s around the corner.
However, the Corkonian knows the challenges that are currently out there for a business like his and hopes that it can continue to meet them head on as it nears closer and closer to the 30-year mark.
“Hopefully, business will stay as it is for us. I think it will,” said the MD. “It might slow a bit, but the whole thing needs to slow a bit. I mean the price of diesel is scary, tolls are scary, insurance too, everything has gone up.
“You’re constantly fighting that. If you have five lorries going to Dublin, you have six tolls and that’s 30 tolls. That’s the go of it and you just feel that something has to give.”
Nixon Haulage Ltd
Ballymore,
Bandon,
Co Cork
Telephone: (023) 884 9368
Mobile: 086 239 9716
First published in Irish Trucker magazine June 2024, Vol 27-3
