IF TRUCK DRIVERS ARE EXPECTED TO UNDERGO EXTRA ROAD-SAFETY TRAINING, WHAT ABOUT OTHER ROAD USERS? HEAVYTORQUE REPORTS ON A SCHOOLS-BASED INITIATIVE CREATED BY HEAVY-HAULAGE SPECIALIST HUTCHINSON ENGINEERING SERVICES.
First the good news. In a recent nationwide survey conducted by Volvo Trucks of over 2,000 UK adults ― including truck, bus, van and car drivers, motorcyclists, cyclists and pedestrians ― over three-quarters of them felt that ALL road users have a shared responsibility in making our roads safer. Yet when it came to answering this question: ‘Which measures would most likely reduce risks on UK roads?’ almost a half of them reckoned the answer was to ‘Increase the level of safety training required to-drive a lorry.’ As if there wasn’t enough training in the industry already…
But how about providing safety training for so-called ‘vulnerable road users’, like cyclists and pedestrians, and especially children whose awareness of road-risk tends to be much lower than adults?
AFTER NEARLY 70 YEARS IN THE SCRAP METAL BUSINESS THE FRANK BARNES GROUP HAS EXPANDED INTO MANY DIFFERENT FIELDS. HEAVYTORQUE TALKS TO TRANSPORT MANAGER SIMON WALSH.
Many long-established companies have evolved and adapted over the years, often the original activity has changed leading to expansion in other directions, this for various reasons, might prove to be more successful, which in time leads to the company abandoning its roots and concentrating on its more recent activities. Other enterprises take a different view and use the core business as a springboard to expand in new directions which help grow the business, but remain just as committed to their original activity because it continues to act as the driver for all of the company’s operations.
The Frank Barnes Group, based in Darwen Lancashire, is most definitely in the latter category. Although it’s expanded into many different areas over the years, it still sees the scrap metal operation as the key to all of its diverse activities.
Issue Thirteen: with 144 pages of first-class journalism and photography, what more can you wish for? HeavyTorque, Britain’s best loved specialist transport title! Click the appropriate link below to purchase your annual subscription, or individual copy.
IN THE FIRST IN OUR NEW SERIES OF CONVERSATIONS WITH THE TRUCK MAKERS’ TOP TECHNICAL GURUS, HEAVYTORQUE TALKS TO BOB GOWANS, PRODUCT AND SALES TECHNICAL MANAGER AT MERCEDES-BENZ TRUCKS (UK).
Talk to Bob Gowans and you’re can’t fail to be struck by his quiet authority. It’s a voice rich in knowledge and experience. But then he did start early. As a boy in the mid-1980s his house overlooked the yard of Culcheth-based haulier Hunt Bros.
“Every morning before primary school I’d watch the trucks go out, then after school I’d watch them all coming back in,” he recalls. His interest even extended to dropping into the company’s front office to read back copies of Commercial Motor ― what the company thought of him wandering in to catch-up with the latest transport news isn’t known. “I guess I showed an interest” says Gowans with a wry smile.
TRUCK-MOUNTED KNUCKLEBOOM CRANES HAVE BECOME ACCEPTED AS AN ESSENTIAL PART OF THE HEAVY MOVING AND LIFTING ARMOURY, WITH MOST OPERATORS HAVING AT LEAST A HANDFUL OF THESE VERSATILE DEVICES IN THEIR FLEETS. HEAVYTORQUE LOOKS AT HOW THE UK MARKET HAS EVOLVED FOR ITALIAN CRANE MANUFACTURER PM GROUP.
What has become evident over the past few years is that operators are keen to get the maximum capacity they can when they opt to fit a crane on one of their haulage trucks, according to Giovanni Tacconi, sales director of Italian crane manufacturer PM Group. “We sold about 2,200 cranes last year, compared with 2007, when we sold almost 4,000 units,” he explains. “The [financial] crisis has changed the dimensions of what we are selling: there is less quantity, but the average cost has gone from €18,000 to €30,000.” Prior to the crash in 2008, he says, the company’s most popular truck-mounted crane models were in the medium range, with lifting capacities up to around 35 tonne/m. Now the models in the heavy range are the biggest sellers. “Ten years ago, the [71 tonne/m-capacity] PM85SP was the biggest crane we made; now it’s the PM210SP,” says Tacconi. The PM210SP, which weighs in at around 12 tonnes, can be configured for a capacity of up to 150 tonne/m.
Issue Thirteen: with 144 pages of first-class journalism and photography, what more can you wish for? HeavyTorque, Britain’s best loved specialist transport title! Click the appropriate link below to purchase your annual subscription, or individual copy.
IN JUST TWO YEARS, JK ASHBROOK HAS GROWN ITS TRANSPORT BUSINESS FROM BEING SOLELY AN OFFSHOOT OF ITS PLANT HIRE ACTIVITIES TO A STANDALONE HAULAGE DIVISION WITH AN ENVIABLE REPUTATION FOR SERVICE AMONG BOTH LONG TERM BLUE CHIP CLIENTS AND ONE-OFF CUSTOMERS. HEAVYTORQUE REPORTS.
The company has built its success on that of the group as a whole, a family-owned company, based in Congleton, Cheshire, with contracts throughout the north west. Like many in the haulage business, JK Ashbrook’s roots are in agriculture: founder James Ashbrook is embedded in the local farming community, and studied at nearby Reaseheath College. In 2001, he started running an agricultural contracting business from his father’s farm, moving lorry loads of hay throughout Cheshire and Derbyshire, and then delivering tractors and trailers from farm to farm.
That soon led to requests for construction work, as the company’s transport manager Jay Harper explains: “James realised that farmers wanted slurry pits digging out and other work done, so he hired diggers and did it himself. They went from being agricultural contractors to agricultural construction, and when the work increased, James started to buy his own machines instead of hiring them.
A RELATIVELY NEW KID ON THE BLOCK IN NORTHERN ENGLAND’S HEAVY HAULAGE SPHERE, MK PLANT TRANSPORT IS CARVING A HARD WON REPUTATION IN A HIGHLY COMPETITIVE ARENA. HEAVYTORQUE VISITS MANCHESTER’S THRIVING CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY AND REPORTS ON A COMPANY THAT’S STEADILY EXPANDING ITS OPERATIONS BOTH LOCALLY AND ACROSS THE UK.
If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again. That well-worn phrase perhaps sums up the gritty determination displayed by Nick Malpus, owner of MK Plant Transport. Over the years, he’s somewhat unconsciously shaped his own destiny with a number of roles in the plant hire and road transport sectors, on his way to running a business. He demonstrates an unwavering resolve to provide top quality service levels to a wide range of customers and this is complemented by a fine sense of humour. All essential qualities in 21st century Britain, where there’s no shortage of challenges for anyone driving, owning or operating heavy trucks.
Malpus’s first job after leaving school was with GAP Group in Trafford Park as a trainee hire desk controller. He then moved to Bunzl in Trafford Park as a customer sales advisor and then stock controller. A return to GAP Group saw him employed as a van driver and crucially the company also put him through his HGV driving test.
Issue Thirteen: with 144 pages of first-class journalism and photography, what more can you wish for? HeavyTorque, Britain’s best loved specialist transport title! Click the appropriate link below to purchase your annual subscription, or individual copy.