0645 Start. There was not much on the sheet today so I took the opportunity to catch up with our other driver as I've not seen much of him for a couple of weeks. Unfortunately leaving the yard at 0715 means that there's a fair bit more traffic knocking about. I'm off to Stevenage via the M25 & A1 and arrive at the site on the new Arington Business Park at 0845.
It's all small stuff, usually a move for the six wheeler but there's supposed to be some materials getting loaded too. However the materials have been dumped and it's just a 3t dumper, 5t Kubota mini and a 120 roller. Hardly worth the bother but it gets me out all the same.
I wander back across the A602 to Ware and up the A10 to the A120 where I follow all the way across to Braintree before dropping down to Witham to tip at the customers yard. I roll back in at our yard around midday and there's ot too much happening. There's a job being touted four this afternoon, but as usual the plan goes out of the window when we get a phone call about one of our self drive 14t machines, it would seem like it's blown the head gasket and needs a replacement machine to replace it. There's no self drive 13/14t machines in the yard, the only one we've got available is one at a site in Upminster that has just been offhired. I'm despatched to collect it and on the way it dawns on me that I'm going to need a half hour break before the day is out. It's a bit of a nuisance as I should have switched over to break in the yard.
The site in Upminster is down a narrow lane, I park outside the field entrance and leave enough space for vehicles to pass whilst going and getting the machine ready to load.
Once it's ready I back the trailer into the entrance and start to load the buckets right up the front out of the way. I then get the machine on properly and the ramps folded so I can stop blocking the road and let the few accumulated vehicles pass. Unfortunately the 6x2 unit hasn't got enough grip to push the trailer back, so I have to make everyone wait a bit longer until I'm ready to go.
I've got to take this machine to a housing estate in Bow, I've been there with a 6 wheeler and it's an arse. With anything bigger it's not far off impossible. At one point I though it was, I needed to turn right at a T junction, there's cars behind and cars parked close to the junction on my left and just round to the right. And there's a bollard. And some cars coming from the left after I'd been shunting back and forwards. Somehow I got round eventually, I'm not sure how though. This is where the rear steer really helps by pushing the back of the trailer round. Unfortunately it can hinder just as much as when you reverse you need to lock the wheels manually whilst they are straight. Go round a sharp corner and the wheels are hard round, can't quite make it so you need to reverse. Only now the wheels aren't straight and can't be locked, but if you reverse they counter your steering and the trailer pushes back straight.
When I'm roughly where I need to be there's another long stint of reversing, around a sharp corner and right down into the site. It's then a simple case of doing a like for like swap, one Volvo 140 for another no need to switch buckets.
Getting out is a slightly easier route and I discovered a slightly easier way in too. It's then back out onto the A12/M11/M25/A12 and back to the yard. The 140 comes off and I go home at 1745. 353Km
Tuesday 10th June
0645 Start. No hurry to leave this morning as I don't want to arrive on site too early. I'm off to Haverhill just over the border in Suffolk, ready to load a Fiat-Hitachi EX255. On arrival at site they want me to back in so I decline the blind side reverse and turn up the road so I can get in on the good side. First time so I'm happy with that. It's a 25 tonner this machine so it's a full wide load rig required with extended sides and markers pulled out. It's also got a wide footprint so the ramps are spread wide to make loading easier. Tracking the machine along the trailer from the widened ramps to the outriggers is best done carefully as there is more track overhanging the side than actually in contact with the trailer.
I'm all set and ready to leave just after 0900, which is handy because our wide load dispensation is not valid 0700 - 0900. About half a mile down the road one of the shutters on the cab side is flapping, they've had the shutters pulled off and windows smashed on the machines here and obviously the mount is damaged. I remove the flappy shutter and post it through the broken window it's designed to protect.
I can now get back on with dragging it back across to Witham, the road is a single carriageway windy A road and this machine is 3.4m wide so it takes some care through the villages that it passes. I'd usually cut the corner and avoid Halstead by dropping down through Gosfield but there's a right turn at a traffic light that I might not make so I head across to Braintree via Halstead and encounter no problems. Braintree to Withan has got some tight spots and one tight junction but I make it through safely and get the machine back intact (or at least as it left the site)
Once I'm offloaded the trailer gets shut up back to normal and I head off over to Kent for the next job at the Skanska site on the new A2. There's no one at the compound and although I saw them working I've no idea of how to get to them so I get them to come and escort me onto the new unopened bit of the coastbound A2.
I'm here for a drainage company and I've got to load trench boxes and other bits. This turns out to be 2x Magnum boxes which are 3.5m wide, 1 mini and 1 midi box, 2 stillages, about 30 sheet piles, some steel plate, some jacks, some buckets and a ladder. It's an hour and halfs worth of loading and strapping down, although not before shoving all the stuff off the deck onto the swan neck, that's hop up ramps, outriggers, chains & dogs, brush and shovel and various other bits.
Once I'm set with wide markers etc. I head back up the A2 to the M25 and pull into the abnormal loads compound at the Dartford Tunnel. I take the tag into the office so they can charge me £2.90 for the toll and £42 for an escort and I'm cleared to go through the tunnel with blue light escort behind. It's quite cool actually straight down the middle full bore making loads of noise, a bit like playing Grand Theft Auto with the cops on your tail. OK so maybe not. I'm dragging this lot back to Braintree so I follow the M25 and curve round via the M11 and A120. Unfortunately this way entails an hours delay as the M25 is closed further up and I arrive at Braintree at 1600. It's an hours job to unload there, too much clambering about slinging for my liking but I'm off by 1700. Back at the yard there's a Volvo 140 to load before going home just after 1800. 318Km
Wednesday 11th June 2008
0615 Start. I'm off to Walthamstow with the Volvo this morning, it's got one of our drivers going on it and once I'm there it's soon off loaded.
It's nice to get in early and come back out again looking at the traffic heading the other way, I'm straight back to the yard where I've got a Hyundai 140 to load. This is only a short run but I gain a passenger, the driver who's driving my 6 wheeler. We take the 140 down to Boreham and drop it off at the quarry there ready for a job starting tomorrow.
We head back to Great Baddow for the next load, but just as we get off the A12 I get a call saying it's not yet ready and to skip that job for now. It's off the A12 round the junction and back down the other direction as we're heading for Messing near Kelvedon. There's a JCB JS130 here to load, it's a bit of a mess with bits hanging off and broken and caked in mud. We've just sold an 8 year old one of these in much better condition.
The JS is going to a job in Danbury down a very narrow lane, there's a couple of iffy bends where the rear steer saves the day and finally we get there and unload in the road. It's straight on as there's nowhere to turn, through a ford and back to the Great Baddow job where we're loading one of our JS220 machines. It's right beside the road and has to be loaded on the road.
There's a heap of buckets and a large bunded tank to go too. This lot is off to a large site in Dunmow, it's soon taken off and I make a complete balls up of trying to turn around. Eventually I maneage and head bak to the yard. Finished at 1715. 291Km
Thursday 12th June
0645 Start. There's nothing doing first thing at the yard so I do some minor maintenance issues on the trailer and top up the oil on the unit and generally keep out of trouble. Before too long I'm found a job, I'm sent over to near Ongar where we've been storing / using one of our machines. It's the same place that I went last week but this machine has been getting some use over there.
It's a Fiat-Kobelco E215 21tonner, the site is a green waste recycling site and although it's clean it absolutely stinks. There's a load of buckets to chain up and load with it too.
It's raining a bit when I start, and I just get it loaded when the rain starts to get heavy.
I decided to shut down the machine and abandon ship in favour of a cuppa until it calms off a bit.
Once it stops I'm able to continue loading and get it hauled off back to the yard.
It's only a pit stop at our yard, a quick refuel and oil & water check and it goes back out again to a waste transfer station at Stock. The waste station is on an industrial estate adjacent to a steel yard so I sneakily park on the weighbridge when I'm empty and have a crafty look at the readout in the office. I've now got my unladen weight sorted, on the bridge at 18,740Kg.
Back at the yard, there's one of our Hyundai 140's to load up, it's off to Rayleigh for a short job. Nothing much else was doing so I call it a day at 1615. 150Km
Friday 13th June. (No pics today)
0630 Start. Off to Waltham Cross first, I'm meeting our fitter there and we've got to refuel and check over another of our Hyundai 140's it's moving from one self drive to another so won't be going back to the yard. A couple of weeks ago we couldn't move for machines at the yard, now we've only got a couple of ducks in and are hiring more tracked machines in.
The 140 is OK and ready to load so we track it out onto the High Street and load it on, complete with grapple and buckets. The grabble is a mechanical claw often used on demolition jobs, usually they sit in a corner of the yard for months but the next hirer also wants the machine with the grapple. We're off to Woolwich with this one where we unload in the road again. Before the machine is even off the road there's a road sweeper behind, he waits and sweeps the mud off the road. Nice one Greenwich Council.
There's some time to lose now before the next job and I decide to grab some fuel at the Shell garage in Erith, there's a Dutch Post Kogeko artic on the pump and I manage to squeeze up behind. He takes his time filling up (£630) and it would appear there was some issue with payment as it was half an hour before he came out of the shop. Unfortuntely I was stuck there as there's no way I was going to attempt to reverse out onto the busy road.
This pallaver had cut my time wasting down and my stop at the Thurrock services was shorter than I'd planned. I wasn't too bothered as there seemed to be so much dodgy activity going on there I was afraid to close both eyes.
My next job was to collect the Volvo 140 from Bow at 1pm, I decided to arrive early and hopefully get the machine or at least hurry them along. Today I found a slightly better route in and arrived at 1230, I'd not even got out of the cab when the bloke appeared and told me that he'd track the machine out. By 1245 I was loaded and on my way. Off through the Blackwall Tunnel and off to Brixton. Progress was OK except for Brixton town centre and I'm soon turning into the road off Brixton Hill. It's quite wide to start with but soon narrows to a very uncomfortable squeeze, I get through though and get the machine offloaded at the site. A check of the map and I can get through towards Tulse Hill, emerging at a Tesco Express I delivered milk to once on the worst shift I'd ever had (first ever solo class 2 / second ever shift run round S.London with a Scania 6 wheeler) Pretty much from here on I'd have been better walking to the A2 round the S.Circular Rd. as was the speed of the traffic. The A2 was OK until the M25 and then a queue through to the Dartford Tunnel. The last job was to whizz up to Rayleigh and load the Hyundai 140 I'd dropped yesterday and take it back to the yard. 1730 finish. 291Km
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