Hi All,
I find it difficult to believe but lots of the younger operators today don't even know what a Hymac looked like, so here are a few pics. as a reminder of the sort of British machines that I cut my teeth on. This was before hydraulics became popular. As time passed and Hydraulic machines appeared we plant fitters were on a steep learning curve.
The first pic is of a small open cast operation in Yorkshire circa 1960. The S Type Bedford could easily have been petrol powered in those days or it may have been powered by a Perkins R6, (Not Perkins finest effort), or Leyland 375. All British made.
The face shovel is British through and through, it's a Smith 5-20 that's the 3/4 yard model which preceded the Smith 21. it would probably have been fitted with a Fowler Sanders Diesel or I believe some had the Gardner like the later 21s.
The Lima 1201 dragline is American you say, but some of these to were British built too, built under licence by The North British Locomotive Co. who also had an interest in Crossley, so it's no surprise that some of the British built Lima machines were fitted with Crossley power units.
The picture below is of a rarely seen British built dragline. If you look at the counterweight you will see it says NCH Sheffield.
Newton Chambers built a new factory to build these in 1939. The advent of the war meant that production turned mainly to tanks and armaments and most of the excavators produced were also allocated to the military.
They were built to P&H designs under licence and powered by Caterpillar D4 engines, I knew of three NCH machines in South Wales in the late 1950s.
The licence to use the P&H designs ran out in 1947. Newton Chambers then got into bed with Koehring and started to build the NCK 304.