In the list published by the international trade magazine “Demolition and Recycling International” (D&RI), the Hagedorn Group is ranked as one of the twenty biggest and most successful demolition companies worldwide. Hagedorn’s logistic requirements are correspondingly extensive and varied, especially when they need to move heavy plant and equipment like construction waste crushing plants for producing recycling materials.

To transport a CAT 336 E crawler excavator from the company’s headquarters in Gütersloh to the Nordex rotor blade plant in Rostock, where old rotor blades were waiting to be broken up for subsequent shipment as container freight, Hagedorn decided to make use of an STZ-VP/MPA 4 from the house of Goldhofer.

With its highly compact and sturdy design, this low loader is a real all-rounder for cargos in the 45 to 50 ton payload range. It is also one of the latest innovations to be introduced by the Memmingen company, having made its public debut at Bauma 2016. The people at Goldhofer were all the more excited by the prospect of its maiden journey for a customer. The STZ-VP/MPA 4 is ideal for transporting tall construction plant as the transporter’s drop deck is extendable and comes with a special ramp with a reduced drive-up angle to cater for construction plant with limited ground clearance. That was the perfect solution for loading and unloading the CAT 336 E. The excavator, which is 3 m wide and 3.51 m high and has an operating weight of 38 tons, was quickly driven onto and off the cargo deck. The load also included a demolition sorting grab and a backhoe so that the rotor blades could be broken up using just one excavator and a special tool.

As the journey was to be made in the holiday period, the authorities insisted on a nighttime operation. The driver, Waldemar Schimanski aka Schimmi, was impressed by the extra manoeuvrability available with the MPA axle technology and the hydraulic suspension stroke of up to 600 mm on the front bogie, which – among other things – enabled him to drive over instead of round kerb stones and roundabouts. From loading the excavator to driving along the autobahn in the night and unloading the excavator at its destination – Schimmi’s verdict on the complete operation was exactly what Goldhofer’s experts were hoping for for the operational debut of the STZ-VP/MPA 4: “Everything went off without a hitch, with nothing to report.”