Monday 25th June 2007.
0615 Start.
I tried my luck this morning, I was booked to load at 0730 at Romford but I thought I’d get there at 0700 and see if there was anyone about or if I had suitable keys to load myself. Unfortunately I had to wait until 0730 and then waited a bit longer whilst the bloke took the cab covers off his machine and waited a bit more until the forkie arrived and moved his machine. My magic keys were no good here today as both machines had immobilisers and it was nearly 0800 before I’d got the 5½t digger on and ready to go. Although the machine was only going a fairly small straight line distance to Blackheath, SE London getting there involved either the Blackwall Tunnel or the Dartford Crossing, I chose the latter which wasn’t too bad but the queue for the A2 was. I arrived at Morden College around 0900 and reversed all the way down the long drive, round the corner and finally to the site where I quickly offloaded, swept down and was on my way.
Long reverse.
Back through the Dartford Tunnel and up to Rochford nr Southend to collect one of our machines, a 6t Hitachi. This is another awkward site, heavily residential and involving a reverse in or out around a blind corner.
First this one
Then this one.
I started to reverse around the corner to catch a glimpse of a muckaway lorry reversing out. Once he was out of the way I squeeze in and gather the buckets and load the machine on.
I’m now headed back to the yard where I take the machine off so that the fitter can change the diesel filters, and give it the once over whilst I load a 3t dumper with hydraulic breaker inside that.
Chain tensioner or ‘dog’ - Attach to chain pulling across slack as tight as poss.
Close handle, with scaffold bar if required, making sure to keep a good grip as it’ll break your jaw if it snaps open.
The machine sits on the back with the buckets on the beaver tail, usually the buckets go in the dumper but there’s no room today. This machine is actually quite large for it’s weight, it’s got a decent size cab but does take up a lot of space compared to our newer 8t zero tail swing machines. By 1300 I’m off again and back over the bridge to Kent and sail through the tolls unchecked by traffic, it’s plain sailing all the way to the site at Riverhead, Sevenoaks where I have to wait for some vans to be loaded before I can squeeze past the burger van to offload. It’s not wasted time however and I unchain, unstrap and stow all the stuff away neatly and even drop the tie bars off the ramps ready for a quick unload. Just as I’m ready, they’re ready and it’s just a simple job of trundling the machines off, parking them securely and signing the keys over. Back on the road at 1450 and a clear run through the Dartford Tunnel (that’s £11.80 today, good job I’m Dart-Tagged) back to the yard for a 1615 finish.
336Km
Tuesday 26th June 2007
0645 Start.
First call this morning is to another plant hire company near Ongar to collect a 3t Kubota mini digger and pecker (hydraulic breaker)
I’m there just after 0700 but they take a while to get the yard into operation and it’s about 0745 before I’m heading back to Chelmsford and on to Rayleigh to deliver the machine. I’m looking for no.46 but the house numbers jump from 20 to 48 so I call the customer to find out where the job is, he then informs me that he doesn’t need the machine as he’s already got one. Some communication cockup somewhere it seems. My next call is at nearby Hadleigh to collect one of our peckers, a huge monster that is used on our 20 tonners.
This gets squeezed up the front and I head back to the yard and unload it so that the fitter can change the attachment so it will fit a different machine. There’s a few fireworks going off about the cancelled mini but it’s not a huge problem and I’m soon trundling back to Ongar to offload and offhire it. Luckily they are a decent firm and will not charge us for the hire, something that some other companies would do. It’s just me and the pecker now and I have to deliver it to Ashingdon near Southend, it’s one of those days trundling back and forth. The site is a water pumping station down at the end of an unmade road and through some bushes where one of our 20 tonners is digging a huge hole for some equipment or other.
I’m in, offloaded and out in only a few minutes and eventually I find somewhere to turn around. How Bob managed with the lowloader is beyond my imagination (although he tells me, they offloaded at the hard road and tracked the machine in). Back to the yard once more and there’s not much doing so I give the cab a quick wash and even slap some polish on the sides. A bit later I load a 3t dumper and run it the short distance to Purleigh before returning to the yard and generally having a tidy up before heading for home at 1615.
194Km
Saw this fella today, I think he needs a bigger van. Or side and rear markers.
Wednesday 27th July 2007
0645 Start.
There’s no jobs on for today for me or the 6 wheeler so we are tasked with emptying the sludge trap. Basically there’s a trench covered by grating where we wash the machines down, the water is pumped out leaving a minging trench full of sludge. At least we’ve got machines to use as I wouldn’t fancy doing it by hand. Not a drivers job really but one that comes under the umbrella of other duties. There were a few other mundane duties to do before a real job came up about lunchtime and luckily it came my way. The boss had been down to Mannheim auctions at Colchester and bought a couple of Vauxhall Combo vans and wanted them brought back, I got the job because although the two trucks are near identical my winch is flush with the bulkhead and the other stands in front. Down at the auction it’s a close run thing, the first van is squeezed right up to the headboard and the other one millimetres behind the first one. There’s just enough room to stands the ramps up although I have to wedge the tail of a ratchet strap against the rear vans back bumper and alter the tie bars on the ramps to stop them bouncing against the van and damaging it.
It’s always nice to come up with a solution to a tricky problem when the boss is looking. Back to the yard and the vans come off for a once over. One of them is a bit smoky and could be a sign of a dodgy engine but it’s got about a weeks warranty left on it and it was loaded onto the other wagon for delivery to the local Vauxhall dealer. My next task was to nip down the road to the guy who does our welding and collect his old forklift, a hateful old Coventry Climax.
Starting this thing is like starting an aircraft, lots of different things to do before you can crank it to life. There’s no brakes and after the first attempt to load which ended in lots of wheelspin at the top of the ramps and a rapid descent ended up in the winch being used to pull it reluctantly on board. There was a pallet with a spare engine, gearbox and forks on board and it’s ready for delivery tomorrow to an export company. Lucky Africa. Out of the yard at 1615.
120Km
Thursday 28th June 2007
0645 Start.
Off to Purfleet to an export company to get rid of the forklift this morning. Due to the lack of operating brakes, I decide to let gravity do it stuff and let it gently on the winch. They seem to want to see it going so I top up the rad and pour oil into the little pots on top of the engine, I get no joy with it but after a while they have it belching out smoke and running. I had been asked to collect cash for the haulage and I was dubious about getting it, the guys boss was coming in about 10 minutes so I was told. I had visions of being strung along, he’s been held up etc. will have to send payment off blah blah but shortly afterwards an African man turned up and handing over the cash seeming happy enough with his ancient forklift, spare engine and gearbox. As well as the usual old tat motors in the yard there were some a couple of tidy looking Toplines sat in there as well. My next booking was to load at Sandon, near Chelmsford from Balfour Beatty’s temporary yard holding materials for the power line maintenance program. I’m there about 0830 and have a short wait whilst they load up one of their 4x4 MAN’s. When they are ready they trundle out a big tractor with a huge rear mounted PTO winch and load some bags of bits and a huge wooden case on the beaver tail, I’m given details of the site address (pylon) and told to ring someone on arrival. It’s off down to Ipswich and back out to the site just off the B1071 Hadleigh road, bearing in mind that this is all part of the same maintenance program that is running near Chelmsford and Basildon it strikes me that this is a huge undertaking renewing the insulators and spacers on the lines. On arrival at the pylon I ring the bloke and he is coming over shortly. About half hour later a van full on Filipino linesmen arrive and 10 minutes later the other bloke turns up. The only thing that can lift the materials off the beavertail is the tractor and we can’t get it off to unload. We decide that I would take the materials to their local yard and unload there before coming back to tip the tractor. I follow the bloke in his truck and half hour later we’re at the yard adjacent to Copella at Nayland. They soon unload the stuff and I’m headed back towards Ipswich with the tractor and a passenger. This was an interesting journey as I do not speak Tagalog and although the linesman spoke English it was quite hard to understand him. We established that he was on a 5year work permit, living in Braintree, was 52 and had 6 children the oldest being 31. I hadn’t been enthralled at the prospect of a passenger that I could barely talk to, but it made a change and he seemed like a nice guy. The others had followed in the van and all were friendly and helpful when we came to unload the tractor. Once I was done I went back to Ipswich and picked up the A12 as far as Witham where I left the truck at Truck East for overnight servicing.
266Km
Delivery point.
Friday 29th June 2007
0645 ish start.
It’s back to Witham this morning to drop off their Fiesta and collect the motor after servicing. There’s a note in the cab explaining that as there are no aux air tanks I’ll have to poke up with the slow ride height adjustment. Obviously when it got stretched they never added extra tanks for the body. Back to Danbury and there’s one job on the board to collect a machine from Coggeshall, if they had rung me last night I could have gone straight there as it’s only a short hop from Witham. There’s nothing else doing so I load our JS130 and run it down to the weighbridge to see if it’s possible to move this in the future. We’ve got 10+ 13/14t machines and it’d be handy if I could move them to take some pressure off the lowloader. Down at the quarry the bridge shows 26340Kg meaning I’m 540kg over with just the ditching bucket on, with a full set of buckets it would add about another 1000kg. IF the tracks were dug out, my diesel tanks not full to the brim and the machine had no bucket it’d be about legal. However running out of fuel on the way to deliver an excavator that can’t excavate is not a lot of use so the 13 tonners willl stay with the lowloader. Back at the yard the JS makes a bid for freedom on the ramps and slews sideways (and down) Luckily I was half expecting it and jammed the bucket down to hold it.
I trundle off to Coggeshall to collect an 8t JCB tracked machine, buckets and pecker. They claim to have not known I was coming and I’m left to gather the buckets together and get the machine through the site. The pecker is on the machine and the buckets do not sit tight against the blade, soon they’ve all un-nested and require resorting before loading. Eventually it goes on and I make my way back to the yard and unload. The rest of the day is spent dodging the rain and undertaking a variety of job creation type jobs that generally involve getting very dirty. After sorting the weeks paperwork I’m off home at 1645.
120Km
Total 1005Km
