Home town. Dalby is the service centre for a lot of grain, cotton and cattle country, and containers here work for a living — they hold spare parts, chemical, tools and feed on properties where the nearest supplier is an hour away and closed by the time you find out you need something.
Around Dalby it's mostly header and tractor spares kept out of the dust, spray chemical in compliant bunded units, seed and fertiliser on pallets, and secure storage on the transport and engineering yards along the Warrego. The order of operations is always the same — work out the grade the job needs, then the size, then how the truck gets in. Ten minutes on the phone covers all three.
| Container | Used from | New from |
|---|---|---|
| 10ft Containers | $4,350 | $6,400 |
| 20ft Containers | $2,200 | $3,300 |
| 40ft Containers | $2,600 | $5,500 |
Guide pricing only, ex GST — what you pay delivered depends on where you are and what's in the yard that week. Ring (07) 4516 5999 and we'll give you a real number, not a range. The delivery to Dalby is priced with the unit, not billed separately afterwards.
The reason so many containers end up on properties around Dalby has nothing to do with looking tidy and everything to do with downtime. When a machine stops mid-harvest, the difference between a two-hour delay and a two-day one is whether the part is in a box on your place or on a truck from somewhere else. A 40ft with shelving down one side and a bench at the end is the cheapest workshop store anybody has come up with, and unlike a shed it turns up finished.
The other half of it is chemical. Broadacre cropping runs on drums, and drums sitting in the corner of a machinery shed are a problem waiting for an audit. Compliant dangerous goods units — ventilated, bunded, lockable — are ordinary stock for us rather than a special order, because out here they're ordinary demand.
There are plenty of outfits that will sell you a container for a Dalby address from a screen in a capital city. What they can't do is tell you that the pad you've picked is the low corner of the block, or that the grid on your front track won't take a loaded sidelifter, or that the week after a big fall is the wrong week to book a delivery onto self-mulching soil.
That's most of what the phone call is for. Grade, size and price take about four minutes. Working out where the thing should actually sit and when the ground will carry a truck takes the rest, and it's the part that decides whether you're pleased with the purchase in ten years.
Town deliveries around Dalby are mostly easy — the street grid is generous and there's room to work. The thing that decides a Dalby-district delivery is almost never the truck, it's the black soil. Dry, it carries anything. Wet, it turns into something that will hold a loaded sidelifter by the axles and keep it, and the recovery costs more than the container. If it has rained in the last few days, ring us and we'll move the drop rather than make it a rescue. Grid ratings and the last two hundred metres of paddock track are the other two things worth checking before we load.
The universal requirements are simple enough — ground that will carry the weight, a straight approach, and clear air above. Where any of those is doubtful, a few photographs answer it faster than a description does. There's a full rundown in our delivery access guide.
Cargo-worthy used 20ft from $2,200 and new single-trip from $3,300, ex GST, with freight quoted alongside it. Being on the Downs already means the delivery component into Dalby and the surrounding district is short. Ring (07) 4516 5999 for a delivered figure.
Usually yes, and we do it constantly — but the ground has to carry the truck. Black soil after rain is the one that stops us. Tell us when it last rained and how the last stretch of track is formed, and if it's marginal we'll wait a few days rather than bog a sidelifter on your place.
Tell us what's going in it and where it's going — you'll get one number, not a range.