Show us your Arb Diggers please.

[Stephen Blair]

[monkeybusiness]

5 minutes ago, Stephen Blair said:

Insane money - there was a second hand one advertised for over £200k!

Mega tool with a much bigger engine and pump for mulching though, not just a different undercarriage. 

[doobin]

You’d just buy a Menzi surely. Better spec out of the box so to speak.  
 

That doesn’t even have an extending boom, and think of the work it took to convert it!

 

And it looks like it’s on street pads 🤦‍♂️

[LGP Eddie]

Just now, doobin said:

You’d just buy a Menzi surely. Better spec out of the box so to speak.  
 

That doesn’t even have an extending boom, and think of the work it took to convert it!

 

And it looks like it’s on street pads 🤦‍♂️

This comprehensively pisses all over a Menzi in it’s intended applications, you soon get over the Menzi rose tint once you get one in some UK applications.

The old saying if you want a mess get a 3cx, could be magnified several times over with a Menzi in the wrong conditions!

In the right place absolutely incredible machines and awesome tool carriers.

 

These are literally hand built by the guy, yes you can have an extending dipper if you like, and yes they are street pads that actually work very effectively with little impact even in wet ground due to the fact you can actually angle them to fit the profile of the ground.

 

In use we looked at steel pad and maybe some grouser options, but Callum used to manage to get it to stick to pretty much anywhere in sensible conditions.

 

Price, it’s actually peanuts in the Rail world, and it’s ability to replace manual labour doing track side clearance on day shifts with trains running, put it in another league to alternatives that needed night time or possession working.

 

Hell of a piece of kit, brilliant to operate, it could have been better setup on the Tiltrotator front, but what a Mulching head, and the feeling of using one where the power in reality hardly ever dips.

 

Delivered it’s intended project absolutely brilliantly, no real issues, and could have gone on to do so much more, but that’s a chapter closed in a few good people’s lives.

 

I was lucky enough to get to operate it, got it through the demo for Network Rail and worked alongside Callum on it.

 

Nobody’s ever revisited the concept, but take it from me, it works and in the correct application they are absolutely incredible.

 

 

Eddie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Menzi pretty much defeated by a straightforward wet clay field, my LGP Kubota could work on that a week and not put a rut in it.

Horses for courses and Instagram ain’t real world!

 

Forestry lads will laugh and say crack on until the ruts are up to your waist, it doesn’t work like that on third party landowners arable ground involving land agents in new Discovery’s and red trousers!🤦‍♂️

 

 

 

 

 

[dumper]

So was it a one off ?  

[LGP Eddie]

1 minute ago, dumper said:

So was it a one off ?  

No a second was purchased, arrived but never put into work.

 

Sold straight back over the water for real good £££ to someone desperate to get their hands on one for a Rail contract.

 

Left to a few people to sort, they would have been absolutely killer bits of kit on the smart motorway work, plus they are something else on slopes with cable trenchers etc.

 

[Stephen Blair]

Great info Eddie, I just saw the picture on Pinterest.

[LGP Eddie]

13 minutes ago, Stephen Blair said:

Great info Eddie, I just saw the picture on Pinterest.

Here you go Stephen, not in the UK but you can appreciate just where it can go with very little impact due the unique abilities of the track system.

 

Just listen listen to that Mulcher with a Cummins engine supplying uninterrupted power!👌

 

 

[Svts]

Is that the "Leveliser"? If so here it is on its first day out in the UK. I had the dubious pleasure of cossing it as we were doing the felling. Typical rail job. Lots of access issues etc. Not really suited to  UK rail as they like to leave big lumps of scrap rail in the way everywhere and insist in leaving safety critical cables strewn all over the place!  The first time Callum had sat in it I found out later. 

[LGP Eddie]

55 minutes ago, Svts said:

Is that the "Leveliser"? If so here it is on its first day out in the UK. I had the dubious pleasure of cossing it as we were doing the felling. Typical rail job. Lots of access issues etc. Not really suited to  UK rail as they like to leave big lumps of scrap rail in the way everywhere and insist in leaving safety critical cables strewn all over the place!  The first time Callum had sat in it I found out later. 

 

Yes the very same,

 

It was perhaps deemed as it’s first day out on hire, but I did the Demo myself with it prior to it being approved and the machine manufacturer did training for some on it.

 

Likewise it was Callum’s first day on hire, not the first time he’d sat in it.

 

There were no cable strike incidents I recall, but yes Rail is an absolute disgrace in terms of scrap lying about and cable seemingly anywhere.

I learnt a long time ago you don’t just grab a pile off a slope with a long reach and head off, you’ve got to tease it off the slope and watch for any black snakes on the bank before putting some lift/speed on.

 

Like anything it has it’s place, but Rail is notoriously difficult to educate from anything that hasn’t been done this way for the last twenty years.

 

 

Eddie.