I decided that today could make an interesting diary, so I dusted off the camera and chucked it in my grub bag to see how the day panned out.
If anyone fancies a crack at moving plant (not plants) this is the sort of thing you can expect, I’m still with my 6 wheeler most of the time but our artic driver does insist on taking holidays and I get the dubious honour of taking over. This week has not been too bad, but as usual the BHF (Bank Holiday Friday) can undo an enjoyable week.
Rolled into work at 0630 in Danbury, grabbed a cuppa and off down the hill to Danbury Quarry for the first job. I’ve got a loading shovel to move, grabbed the keys from the weighbridge and find it parked in the yard, it’s this
That’s 22t of Daewoo Mega 400 to you sir.
Climb up the ladder to the cab, it’s about 7’ off the deck and have a little look around to make sure I know what everything does. It’s a big unit and is artic steer, so a small turn on the steering wheel makes a big difference. You need to know what is going to happen when you are loading on to the trailer.
It’s on safely and ready to go.
I’m only moving this across to Witham, they have got a couple of shovels in the quarry there but one needs maintenance and this one is a spare machine for this sort of eventuality.
Ready to unload at Witham
Just to highlight how big this actually is.
It’s just after 0800 and I’m off along the A12 and A120 headed towards Clacton, I have a machine to collect from Great Bentley from an archeological site.
It’s a Doosan DX140 - 14t machine, one of newest and certainly one of the best looked after.
Back at the yard the 140 comes off and suddenly my workload gets added to, BHF alert. There’s a pair of machines down the road at Boreham which have got to come back, the first is a 22t JCB JS220 it’s working on a reservoir which is accessed along a haul road that starts at Boreham Interchange and disappear across the fields. After bumping across to the reservoir I find the machine is still in use and unavailable for collection, my next job is actually in sight about half a mile away just across a weak bridge. This means I have to virtually go back to Danbury to get around the bridge.
Leaving empty handed
Here’s the next one a Hitachi ZX130 - 13t it’s the only machine we have I’ve never yet moved, the reservoir where I’ve come from was just behind those trees on left. That was about 20 minutes ago! This machine is one of our oldest and has been working along by the river, it’s a bit mucky but the driver has dug the worst out of the tracks and left it’s buckets ready for me.
Just a quick job to chain them up
Then I track the machine to the field entrance and drop the ramps on the rough ground to avoid chewing up the tarmac and leaving crap all over the road.
All done ready for the short journey back to the yard.
My next job is the one where the typical BHF will come into play, collect equipment as late as possible from Braintree. They are remodelling a BMX track and I’m given an ambiguous address that although isn’t actually wrong it is misleading. As a result I end looking in the wrong place and end up heading out on a windy road with some distance passing before I’m able to turn around and head back again. A call to my colleague clears things up, and actually the delivery is wrong. It’s an awkward entrance into a carpark not really big enough to turn round in that provided access to the gateway that is just a bit too small to get through. I need to turn around but the only way it’s possible is to go out and come back from another angle. I’m seriously getting ■■■■■■ off with this and am tempted to declare bollox and head back, but I’m not a quitter and finally get in, turned around and ready to load. First up is one of our little 5t Yanmar’s, our driver tracks it out and I load it up on the top deck and get it strapped on.
Then they bring out a whacker plate that attaches on the machine, I attach this load and secure also.
Finally I’m ready for the next one, unfortunately no one has left it ready so we have to remove the cab covers, gather the buckets and squeeze it on board.
It’s a Hitachi ZX160 - 16t machine, plus more than enough buckets. With a good load on I finally head out and take a circuitous route round Braintree to drop it off at another site. I’m in luck (all things relative) here as 5 minutes later everyone would have gone home, no-one had told them of this machine’s impending arrival but they chipped in and soon it was just the little 5t to go back to the yard. Back at the yard, it was nearly 6pm but before heading for home I had to unload and reload a Yanmar 75 - 8t version of the one I’ve brought back. Final job was to clear out the cab of my gear, ready to load back into my cab on Tuesday.