TRANSPORT MANAGER OF RENOWNED SCOTTISH HEAVY HAULIER CADZOW HEAVY HAULAGE, JIM RITCHIE, TALKS TO HEAVYTORQUE ABOUT CONTINUED INVESTMENT, ONGOING PROJECTS IN A POTENTIALLY CONTRACTING MARKET AND OPERATING ISSUES CAUSED BY MAJOR PROBLEMS WITH THE UK ROAD NETWORK.
It’s been more than three years since we last visited the company. Obviously the loss in February 2016 of Jim Macauley, managing director and founder of the heavy haulage operation, continues to be deeply felt by all concerned – he was one of the industry’s most respected and forward thinking individuals. Today his widow Marion, director/company secretary and daughters Elizabeth and Margaret, both directors, continue to build on his legacy. The operation continues apace from the Forrest Street, Blantyre site, with 20 employees and a modern fleet of trucks and trailers.
The company continues to invest for the future, despite the political and economic uncertainty that affects the country at present. Long serving transport manager, Jim Ritchie brought us up to date and gave his view of the heavy transport market. “There’s a lot of uncertainty at the moment, there are very few large infrastructure projects on the go at present, 2018 was tough for almost everybody in the industry.
ALONG WITH RECENTLY UNVEILING INNOVATIVE NEW PRODUCTS, GOLDHOFER HAS SET-UP ITS OWN STAND-ALONE UK SALES OPERATION TO ATTRACT MORE BRITISH BUYERS. HEAVYTORQUE VISITED THE BESPOKE GERMAN TRAILER-MAKER TO LEARN MORE.
The Germans have a word for it – ‘Heimat’. It means a deep emotional attachment to a place, town or region. Dennis Leschensky, Goldhofer’s area sales manager for UK and Ireland can relate to that. As a local boy ‘born and bred’ in Memmingen, from a very early age he’s had a strong connection with the town and its renowned trailer maker. “As a boy it used to give me a good feeling standing by the traffic lights seeing Goldhofer trailers leaving the factory here to be delivered,” he says. “It was always my dream that I’d apply for a job with Goldhofer. I thought that’s a company I want to work for!”
He’s clearly not the only one with strong feelings towards the company. “There are people here who’ve worked for Goldhofer for over 40-years,” he explains. “It isn’t a company you start to work for then leave after two-years. There’s a special feeling when you walk through the gates. I can’t explain it… but it’s special.”
Issue Eighteen: with 164 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.
ONCE A SPECIALIST HAULIER HAS ASSEMBLED THE ARSENAL OF EQUIPMENT, HIGHLY TRAINED STAFF AND SUPPORT SERVICES TO COMPETE AT A VERY HIGH LEVEL, HOW DOES IT BOTH SUSTAIN AND CONTINUE TO GROW ITS BUSINESS IN SUCH A DEMANDING SECTOR? HEAVYTORQUE TOOK A TRIP TO THE ALLELYS GROUP TO FIND OUT FROM ONE OF THE MOST RESPECTED OPERATORS IN THIS SELECT CLUB.
Specialist heavy transport is both a very demanding and capital-intensive business. It invariably takes time to get established and gain the trust of customers, suppliers and even your competitors. For most operators there are a series of progressive steps as the business grows, acquisition of new higher capacity equipment is probably the most visible sign of expansion, but there is far more to be achieved behind the scenes to be successful.
The recruitment and training of staff, the establishment of support services and the technical capability to plan, organise and make effective use of ever more complex equipment are key. Other factors include having suitable operating premises, the ability to maintain, repair and if required, build and modify your own equipment to meet customer requirements.
OVER THE YEARS PROJECTOR LIFTING SERVICE HAS BEEN INVOLVED IN MANY COMPLEX LIFTING AND INSTALLATION JOBS AND HAS ESTABLISHED A STRONG REPUTATION IN THIS FIELD. HEAVYTORQUE TALKS TO MANAGING DIRECTOR DUNCAN ROGERS ABOUT THE HISTORY OF THE OPERATION AND THE CHALLENGES IT FACES ON A DAILY BASIS.
The business of lifting, jacking, skidding and moving heavy loads, particularly in confined spaces, is often a key aspect of many heavy transport operations, many of the techniques employed have been developed and perfected over generations. These skills have been handed down over the years and the use of modern technology, particularly hydraulically operated jacks, gantries and lift systems has taken quite a bit of the backbreaking slog from this type of work. It still requires a lot of manual labour to set up the equipment, but for many the use of hand-operated- jacks backed up with elaborate timber packing in order for the cargo to reach the required location, is thankfully a thing of the past.
Modern high capacity cranes have certainly revolutionised this sector. Very large mobile cranes, in both wheeled and tracked form, are able to lift huge weights nowadays, but they often need a lot of room to operate. Recent developments with very high capacity knuckle-boom cranes mounted on road going truck chassis are a very useful addition to the specialist transport and installation sector.
Issue Eighteen: with 164 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.
FINDING THE NEXT GENERATION OF DRIVERS FOR THE UK TRANSPORT INDUSTRY IS A REAL PROBLEM, ESPECIALLY THOSE WITH THE SKILLS TO OPERATE HEAVY HAULAGE OUTFITS IN LONDON. HEAVYTORQUE VISITS THE KENT-BASED ERITH GROUP WHICH, WITH ENLIGHTENED THINKING AND BACKING THE RIGHT INDIVIDUAL, HAS GAINED A COMPETENT YOUNG DRIVER.
There has been a huge amount of discussion and debate within the transport industry regarding this issue. For some operators, the previous ready supply of labour from Eastern Europe and other areas has been something of a stopgap, although this has brought its own problems in some instances. Quite simply the relatively long hours and working conditions does little to attract the younger generation and the more forward-thinking operators have tried to overcome these issues with improved pay and better equipment.
Looking at the positives, road transport, especially heavy transport, does actually have quite a bit to offer youngsters especially those who like to use their own initiative and work either on their own, or as part of a small team. Furthermore, they get to work with some complex modern machinery that requires old style skill and judgement combined with an understanding and familiarity with electronic control systems.
JESS SWINGLER NEVER GOT TO SEE THE FLEET OF HEAVY HAULAGE WAGONS THAT CARRY HIS NAME, BUT HIS SON-IN-LAW HAS DONE HIM PROUD. HEAVYTORQUE HAS BEEN TO MEET ANTHONY THOMPSON, THE OWNER OF J SWINGLER TRANSPORT.
It’s nearly 50 years since 14-year-old Anthony Thompson visited an old farm at West Bridgford, near Nottingham. He’d heard that the new owner, who ran a civil engineering contracting company, had a Foster showman’s steam engine in a converted cowshed, and he wanted to see it. Creeping up the lane to get as close as he could, he was suddenly startled by the owner appearing and shouting at him: “What are you doing? Come here!” The young Thompson spluttered his apologies, but the owner, Jess Swingler, realized that here was a lad with a genuine interest in all things mechanical. “Can you work a wheelbarrow?” he asked, and that was when the course of Thompson’s life changed forever.
He spent the next two days helping Swingler move concrete, and was soon spending more time at the farm than at home.
Issue Eighteen: with 164 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 NORTH DEVON JOHN COLES CONTRACTORS HAS SPENT OVER 50 YEARS REFINING THE MOVEMENT OF HEAVY PLANT THROUGH NARROW LANES AND ON STEEP HILLS. HEAVYTORQUE FINDS OUT HOW THE PROPER TRACTION IS ACCOMPLISHED.
Running a fleet of trucks in a rural area brings its own challenges, particularly if some of the vehicles are heavy low-loaders. There might be less people and ultimately less traffic than in many cities, but the road network in the countryside is often much less developed. This is particularly so in North Devon, many of the main routes are little better than country lanes, which in some places are barely wide enough for two standard 44-tonne outfits to pass comfortably, let alone a heavy low bed carrying an over-width excavator.
Things have gradually improved over the years, the completion of the A361 North Devon Link Road in 1988, running from the M5 near Cullompton through to Barnstaple and beyond, helped a great deal to open up the area. But this three-lane road has quite a few steep hills that slow heavy vehicles considerably. Impatient drivers try to overtake in the most unsafe places, particularly in the summer holiday season when vast numbers of visitors head to the coast. As a result, the road has seen more than its fair share of fatal accidents.
IT WAS NOISY, IT WAS ECCENTRIC, BUT IT WORKED! HEAVYTORQUE RECALLS THE DAYS OF AIR CUSHION EQUIPMENT, WHEN HEAVY HAULAGE MET THE HOVERCRAFT!
The idea of moving heavy loads by road using a jet-powered hovercraft sounds like something from the sort of gaudy fantastical future envisaged by 1950s comics. It’d be right up there with flying cars, and interplanetary spaceships. But the heavy haulage hovercraft actually happened. For more than 20 years, starting in 1967, air cushion equipment, or ACE as it was known, was a regular feature of the country’s ultra-heavy haulage industry. The equipment was owned by the Central Electricity
Generating Board (CEGB), which was responsible for power generation and distribution in the days before privatisation. Electrical plant was becoming progressively bigger, and heavier. For example, Ferrybridge C Power Station, in Yorkshire, opened in 1966. The stator cores of its 500MW generator sets weighed 210 tons each. When Drax Power Station opened a few years later, and a few miles away, it operated 660MW generator sets, with each inner core weighing in excess of 300 tons.
Issue Eighteen: with 164 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.