CARMARTHEN‐BASED CRANE HIRE SPECIALIST DAVIES CRANE HIRE'S ORANGE TRUCKS AND TRAILERS ARE A COMMON SIGHT IN SOUTH WALES AND BEYOND, INCLUDING TWO NEW VOLVOS IT HAS TAKEN ON TO MOVE ITS MASSIVE NEW LIEBHERR CRANE ABOUT. HEAVYTORQUE FINDS OUT MORE.
A modern mobile crane hire operation with a diverse fleet of cranes depends on a complex logistics operation to ensure a vast array of crane ballast, counterweights, outrigger mats, hook blocks, fly jibs, lifting beams, cables, straps and chains arrive on site at the correct time. And generally speaking, the bigger the mobile crane, the greater the volume of equipment that needs to accompany it.
The use of STGO Cat 3 outfits is often required to cope with the weight and volume of equipment, and a specific STGO category for the movement of crane ballast and other equipment was established to allow crane hire companies to move substantial quantities of ballast on one vehicle, even though the load is technically divisible. This allows operators to gross up to 100 tonnes with a suitable outfit, typically a 6×4 tractor with a 5‐axle or 6‐axle trailer.
WHEN OVENDEN EARTHMOVING NEEDED TO UPGRADE ITS OLD DAF XF 6x4 FOR HAULING HEAVY EQUIPMENT AROUND, IT DECIDED TO OPT FOR A NEW GENERATION XG. SO WHAT WAS THE DAF'S X‐FACTOR AND HOW HAS THE NEW TRUCK BEEN PERFORMING? HEAVYTORQUE FINDS OUT.
DAF has completely replaced and transformed its heavy truck range over the last few years, and the progressive launch of its new XF, XG, XG+, XD and XDC models has been a major undertaking. As usual in such an exercise, the heavy haulage versions of the new trucks took a while to reach the market.
While DAF has never pretended to have the most powerful drivelines, its various generations of heavy tractor units have always had a loyal following, dating back to the original DAF 2800 FTT 6×4 in the mid‐1970s which, with its durable driveline and strong chassis and rear bogie could, like later generation DAF heavy tractors, cope with quite a lot of abuse. DAF’s factory engineers have a long history of matching the transmission and overall gearing to get the best from the power unit when working hard.
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MERVYN LAMBERT PLANT HIRE PROVIDES MUCH MORE THAN ITS NAME SUGGESTS, INCLUDING AN ABNORMAL LOADS ESCORT SERVICE, SUGAR BEET HAULAGE, PLANT SALES AND OPERATOR TRAINING. HEAVYTORQUE FINDS OUT MORE.
By his own workshop manager’s admission, Mervyn Lambert is very old‐school. The eponymous owner of one of East Anglia’s leading plant hire companies is not a man who’s comfortable with sitting on his laurels. Despite being well into his 70s, neither has he lost his appetite for getting his hands dirty; most days he can be found on site, busy with one project or another.
“Mervyn is a dealing man,” says Ed Morley. “Everything is for sale at the right price; he’s very much of that ilk. When times get hard, he creates opportunities. And he still has a pivotal role here; we have to make a lot of decisions, and they’re all still made by MD Pete West and of course, Mervyn.”.
BUILDING AND CIVIL ENGINEERING CONTRACTOR TRJ'S FOUNDER MAY HAVE STARTED OFF ON A SINGLE MOTORBIKE, BUT THESE DAYS, THE FAMILY BUSINESS RUNS 15 TRUCKS AND 24 TRAILERS, AS HEAVYTORQUE REPORTS.
Back in 1935, a relatively young carpenter called Thomas Richard Jones got fed up with being an employee. So he set up on his own, put a bag of carpenter’s tools on the luggage rack of a motorbike, and went out to look for work. His decision paid off. Not one night went by without him coming home having found a job to do, and his fledgling business began to grow. He took on contracts to repair and extend existing premises, began working on new buildings, and started to recruit people. And the firm he founded went from strength to strength; 90 years on, it now employs 150 people.
Based on the Betws Industrial Park in Ammanford, Carmarthenshire, and owned and run by the third generation of the Jones family, T Richard Jones (Betws), or TRJ for short, is a building and civil engineering contractor which, says director Dafydd Jones, is involved….
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MOST FIRMS LIMIT THEMSELVES TO ONE MAIN ACTIVITY. BUT SCOTTISH HEAVY HAULIER W&W MACKIE SPECIALISES IN MAINTAINING A WHOLE RANGE OF SKILLS AND EQUIPMENT AND CAN TAKE ON PRETTY MUCH ANYTHING, WRITES HEAVYTORQUE.
Most of the companies involved in road transport focus on certain operations, building a reputation for heavy haulage, bulkers, cranes or tankers. But that’s not the case at multi‐ sector specialist W&W Mackie of Alford, Aberdeenshire.
The family‐run company, established in 2006, provides an impressive range of services across a broad range of sectors, expanding organically over the past 19 years and adding trucks and trailers to the fleet as new customers and new opportunities have appeared.
W&W Mackie is owned by husband and wife team William and Mary Mackie, with their son William junior and daughter Alison also involved in the business. William senior started in the late 1990s when, during harvest on the family farm, a truck and bulk trailer would be hired in to move their grain from farm to store. This progressed to an agricultural recycling business specialising in the collection and recycling of plastic waste from farms.
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