The Classic Machinery Network

the names for the faces came to me over the weekend. ronnie barker was driving the crane, can't remember wether it was an rb or an nck. when i first started there the rb walker was parked up by the haul road.wether it was the same one that is in the photo, i don't know. they also had an anderson mavor bucket wheel on trial. it was nowhere near as good as the o&k, so that was parked up by the haul road as well.
when i took over the 631b from jimmy bond, he left me half a bottle of johnny walker black label in the cab. he must have got through 1 a day. just 1 of the many charecters. i remember dick gaffney doing headstands on the seat of the d9 as he was pusloading you.

LDK wrote:

martind29 wrote:
Martin, I just spoke with my dad and he said the right hand man your thinking about would be Derek Clark.
A few more names Tony Jacklin on an 8 and box, Jimmy Wynn on a 9 pushing, Angus and Ian Sutherland where on scrapers at one stage. John Pooley a ganger.

John Pooley I take it that payslip Pooley who would always take out his payslip to show what he earned.He was on the A14 Claydon to Stowmarket section. Kendel was foreman and Joe with a scar on his face was muckshifting foreman

Would that be Joe X (graham) I think, from Longtown, Cumbria. Motorbike man wen younger.

bob wrote:

LDK wrote:

martind29 wrote:
Martin, I just spoke with my dad and he said the right hand man your thinking about would be Derek Clark.
A few more names Tony Jacklin on an 8 and box, Jimmy Wynn on a 9 pushing, Angus and Ian Sutherland where on scrapers at one stage. John Pooley a ganger.

John Pooley I take it that payslip Pooley who would always take out his payslip to show what he earned.He was on the A14 Claydon to Stowmarket section. Kendel was foreman and Joe with a scar on his face was muckshifting foreman

Yep you got it one on "payslip" and the Joe was Joe Insen.

martind29 wrote:the names for the faces came to me over the weekend. ronnie barker was driving the crane, can't remember wether it was an rb or an nck. when i first started there the rb walker was parked up by the haul road.wether it was the same one that is in the photo, i don't know. they also had an anderson mavor bucket wheel on trial. it was nowhere near as good as the o&k, so that was parked up by the haul road as well.
when i took over the 631b from jimmy bond, he left me half a bottle of johnny walker black label in the cab. he must have got through 1 a day. just 1 of the many charecters. i remember dick gaffney doing headstands on the seat of the d9 as he was pusloading you.

Would this picture be taken at the at the datchett contract ???? This is the Anderson mavor bucket wheel excavator.

Would you have any pictures of the job and what can you tell me about the mavor E10 machine.... What made the O&K better?

Tracshovel, Going on the date I would say it has to be Datchet.

I remember hearing at that time that one of the bucket wheels had electrical problems but sorry I don't remember which.

it certainly looks like datchet, loading a 631b with gready boards. one of the problems with the anderson was the cab being on the right. hard lumps of clay or stone would flick of the bucket and hit the screen. i think it also had engine problems. it spent most of the time parked up. the o & k was a far better machine, classic german engineering.being diesel/electric it was a better envirenment to work in. although the electric trip switch's failed a lot and where hard to obtain.i belive french's bought the machine from langs, who used it on the wreysbury reservoir. as long as you kept digging nice and steadily, and not force the bucket in to hard, it worked fine.
lots of happy memories working for jack sharp who was the slasher on the clay gang.

LDK wrote:Tracshovel, Going on the date I would say it has to be Datchet.

I remember hearing at that time that one of the bucket wheels had electrical problems but sorry I don't remember which.

martind29 wrote:it certainly looks like datchet, loading a 631b with gready boards. one of the problems with the anderson was the cab being on the right. hard lumps of clay or stone would flick of the bucket and hit the screen. i think it also had engine problems. it spent most of the time parked up. the o & k was a far better machine, classic german engineering.being diesel/electric it was a better envirenment to work in. although the electric trip switch's failed a lot and where hard to obtain.i belive french's bought the machine from langs, who used it on the wreysbury reservoir. as long as you kept digging nice and steadily, and not force the bucket in to hard, it worked fine.
lots of happy memories working for jack sharp who was the slasher on the clay gang.

Interesting feedback. Thanks guys. I will need to research the O&K machine as well.

These were taken when I was a setting out engineer on the M23 (Hooley to Crawley) and M25 (Godstone to Reigate Hill) working out of the Merstham office. These were originally slides but I had them transfered onto a CD a couple of weeks ago - not too bad a result considering they are 40+ years old.

Hope they are of interest - I'll add the next lot tomorrow.


Hedgehog24

Great pictures, thank you.