The Bob Marshall Story: A Life in Heavy Equipment (Part Three)

Continuing our mini series on the life and times of Australian heavy equipment legend Bob Marshall.

Bob purchased his very first American built Mack truck in 1970, and in addition, added a Hymac 580 excavator to his existing fleet of 14 bulldozers, this allowed him to take on more work on larger jobs.

Bob has worked all over Queensland including Kawana Island. The Nicklin Way and the oil pipeline from Roma to Gladstone. He’s also been involved in heavy haulage all over Australia and he shifted a lot of Cat D8’s, D9’s and D10’s all over the country mainly for mining companies.

Around this time, Bob decided, after using a dredger whilst working on the Mooloolaba he would build one of his own, he was convinced that he could build a better one. So, in Bob’s words he got to it and built the dredger.

During construction many people were interested in Bob’s new project and would ask questions as to the plans etc. One of the boilermakers in Bob’s employment had a standard response “Well you would have to get into Bob’s brain to find that out because he’s the only one who knows what we will have when it’s finished”.

The dredger was successfully completed and went on to complete the Mooloolaba Harbour as well as the residential canals behind it. The next job for the dredger was the construction of the canals at the developing Redcliffe seaside estate. The channel was also dredge from the harbour up into the estate with Bob’s machine.

Next, was Yeppoon Harbour in Queensland. A dredger that could handle rock was required and again Bob was up to the task. It was loaded up onto a barge and a big tug towed it up to Roslin Bay.

Whilst up at your Yeppoon, Bob decided to purchase 115-foot tug that the government was selling. However, it was a short-lived acquisition as Bob sold it before he left Yeppoon. The next job was at Spinnaker Sound near Bribie island dredging a channel.

The last work the “Bob Dredge” would do would be at Beachmere where Bob had purchased a property. He used his dredger to create a channel up to his land. Sadly, as has too often been the case with heavy equipment, the dredger was vandalised, so much so that Bob decided to wreck it and brought it home in pieces.

Bob Married Kathy in 1978 with five children between them – Bob’s three and Kathy’s two from their previous marriage, and it wasn’t long before they added a son Robert to their brood.

Bob purchased Leafy Lane, a property set in around 200 acres in the early 1970’s and has slowly increased his holding over the years, buying up bits of land from his neighbours or entire properties when they became available.

The land was a combination of swampland and sand. One particular property was higher than the rest and Bob decided to slowly excavate sand from here to use on other jobs. A local company, Halls Contracting, approached him and asked if he could sell the sand to them, this opened yet another avenue for Bob.

Always a keen waterskier, Bob realised that mining the sand could lead to something else, like forming lakes for water skiing. With that in mind the sand was then quarried with the vision of creating a system of lakes. It worked out perfectly and Bob achieved this dream and spent years happily skiing with his family and friends.

Lookout for the concluding part of the Bob Marshall Story on Monday here on the Digger Man Blog.