24th September 2007

Monday 24th September 2007

0630 Start. It was pitch dark as I pulled away this morning, not the best of starts and this set the tone for the day really. First call was to Hewden at Dagenham, usually ½ hr away but this morning thanks to traffic, roadworks and weather it took an hour. The first job there was to load an 8t CAT 360 digger and buckets and this was completed and I’m on my way at 0800, good job as it has turned dark again and is now really lashing it down. I’m heading for Scratchwood on the M1 and things are slow going.

By 0900 I’ve just reached the A406 North Circular a distance of about 8kms, I take the M11 out to the M25 and follow that around to the M1 although there are slow moving sections all over the place. It’s about 1000 when I arrive at Scratchwood and after a quick tour round I cannot see any groundworks, or even a Jackson Civil Engineering van anywhere, I also take a detour around the little industrial area tucked away behind the Highways depot but there’s nothing to be found. A call to Hewden’s doesn’t help much, no contact details so after a ¼ hr break for a cuppa I have another ride round and check out the hotel. Still nothing so I park up again, back on break and ring to explain. It takes a while as the machine is on hire to Speedy Hire who are in turn hiring it to Jacksons, but finally I’m given a contact number. It’s wrong but eventually they give me the right number and the bloke tells me to stay put and he’ll come and collect me. It allows me to finish my ½ hour break and a bloke in a motorway maintenance car pulls up, “follow me, it’s a bit of a trek”. We head north up the M1 to J5 (about 5 miles) and come back on the southbound peeling off at J4 which is about 4 miles back again. It’s a one way junction onto the A41 (s) and we continue for about ½ mile until a roundabout before heading back north again. Finally it becomes clear as the machine is needed on the sliproad before it joins the M1. It’s about 1½ miles from Scratchwood but about 12 miles to get there.

By 1200 the machine is off and I’m finally heading back up the M1 and back to Dagenham to reload. It’s traffic free now and it’s only an hour or so back. The next job is to exchange a telehandler at a site in Ware. On goes a CAT TH330 machine and off I go up the A10 to Ware. On arrival I discover that it is replacing an almost brand new JCB 535-95 telehandler that has developed a fault in the steering system. These machines are 4 wheel steer and have 3 modes of steering. Front wheels only, 4 wheel steer (opposite direction for tight turning) and crab steer where they all face the same way and the machine crabs. The rear wheels are stuck at about 30 degrees and no amount of revving, switching and driving around in circles can persuade them to unlock. Unable to even get near to a straight line I decide it’s too dangerous to attempt loading as it’d probably end up on it’s roof. A quick call to Hewden’s to let them know and I’m now on my way back to Danbury. It’s about the only good thing today as it means I don’t have to trail back to Dagenham to offload. I’m back at the yard just after 1600 and off home by 1630.