SHEPHARD HILL SCRAPERS

[ANDY 657B]

Various scraper photos which my father has given to me. We did show these to Alan Holmes and he could identify where the sites were. I thought I would post them though as probably there will be a lot of people that will be able to identify, lots more to follow!!

[FOWLER MAN]

Hi,
Thanks for posting. I'm not sure but the first pic. looks like Deri, Bargoed ,South Wales about 1978.
I had two Fowler 33s pulling 72T rollers on that job for a few months.
Fred

[modelman093]

Some Shepard hill kit operating in the Blue Circle Western Quarry at Swanscombe, Kent. Now the Blue Water shopping centre!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biLBSSMW0io

This has already been posted on this forum but I could not find it but remembered that PJ Conway featured so Googled it. Apologies to original poster!

[gah1950]

Hi,
Thanks for posting. I'm not sure but the first pic. looks like Deri, Bargoed ,South Wales about 1978.
I had two Fowler 33s pulling 72T rollers on that job for a few months.
Fred

hiya fred,
looks very much like the old groes faen tip bottom of deri.same job as jackim was involved with?.access was of the top of gelligaer mountain.
graham.

[RichardJW~]

Here's a pic i found in an old Cat book

[ANDY 657B]

HI RICHARD, DO YOU KNOW WHERE PHOTO WAS TAKEN?

[ANDY 657B]

HERES ANOTHER ONE!!

[RichardJW~]

no idea, its in an old book about the history of Cat

it would be nice if someone could write a decent sized book about some the major contractors of that time.......while the memories still live.....put in these old pics.......about the major road contracts of the time but with a slant particularly on the equipment used.

[nick lamb]

I agree Richard,I recieved that coalsite book for Christmas and allthough it was good I mised some of the many contractors of the day that were running scrapers or tractor and boxes that could have added more interest to the book.I worked on about 6 or 7 of the sites covered in the book at around the time they were being covered in the book and i didn't see any of the big (or little) names that were involved in the coal industry.For instance allthough Neil Becher is pictured with a D9G and some old TS24's there is no other mention of his fleet of 657's,D8's,9's'10's or any tractors and boxes.I remember one job around 1993 at East Chevington (Budge) Becher had all his D9's,657's,637's and various graders etc along side a rake of Manghan Shaw's D9H and 631D,637C scrapers.Merrimans had D9G pushers too on hire aswell as Blackwell D8K and 155 tractors.
Perhaps a book on Motorway construction from the 1960's to the 1990's would make a good read..... perhaps I'll write one when I retire

[RichardJW~]

Back in them days how many mechanics/engineers did they have on a site for a typical fleet size of dozers & scrapers?.......i guess it depends entirely on the size, age of the machines and quality of the drivers but what was a typical day's work?