Digger

This event proved to be very popular over the three days with college staff Mark Lister & Mike Opie reporting massive interest in the plant operator courses that are run by the college.

Every time I visited the stand there was always a queue of youngsters waiting to have a go under the controlled supervision of current plant course students.

It gave me a lot of pleasure to see these youngsters faces as they succeeded in picking up a duck and transferring it into the awaiting tub. Many were to be seen leaving the stand with beaming smiles and I heard a few suggesting that they want to become digger drivers when they grow up!

And with the current shortage of good quality operators some of these kids could well be the operators of the future that our industry is crying out for.

During a visit to the Machine Serve stand who are local dealers for Dieci Telescopic handlers, Hanix mini excavators, Redrock trailers and Schaffer compact loaders, I was very interested in a mini mower they are also promoting for use on mini excavators.

The Teagle CKT/SB60 is designed to fit mini excavators from 2.5 - 4 tons is of lightweight but robust design and is able to cope with grass and brushwood up to 2cm.

I have been thinking of buying one of these for some time now and Machine Serve are going to bring a model out for us to evaluate in the coming weeks so look out for a report here on Digger.

Also on this stand were models from the Schaffer German built compact loader range, which certainly looked to be well built as you would expect from anything manufactured in Germany. The model seen in the foreground here is the 2027 which is powered by a Kubota 3 cylinder water cooled engine which develops 19 kW (26 HP) and has an operating weight of 1600 kg.

Moving on now to the M&M plant sales stand who are the local Case, Wacker-Neuson, Rammer and Manitou dealership.
A warm welcome awaited me here from sales representative Luke Harris and the team, with much banter about current events in the plant world and a warming cup of coffee which was much appreciated as the weather had turned a bit for the worse!

On display was this Wacker-Neuson 3001S 3 ton swivel skip dumper and various models from the Case mini excavator range up to 5ton, the example shown below is the CX22B 2.2 ton zero tailswing model.

Also on display was this striking Case uni-loader in a special 40th anniversary black paint finish.
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Over at the Finning Caterpillar stand was an example of Caterpillars latest 8 ton midi excavator the 308D CR which was reviewed here on Digger at it's official UK launch in Desford back in November last year.

Also on show was a Caterpillar 428E backhoe loader which seemed to be attracting a lot of attention on the stand during my visit.

I had a great time on the Plant & Engineering Services stand, James Prior and his team are some of the most friendly and genuine sales staff I have ever come across and you are always made to feel very welcome there!

On show were examples of the Volvo compact range, Ausa dumpers & forklifts, Cormidi tracked dumpers and other smaller pieces of kit.

This Vovlo EC55C is the latest model of this popular 5.5 ton machine which has always been a favourite machine with the Volvo faithful.

This Ausa D 201 RH dumper was of particular interest to me mainly due to it's innovative design and rear wheel steer and the addition of a second seat for a passenger, I think this is the first dumper I have ever seen which has a seat for a labourer to sit on in safety and I could see this being a big hit with local councils and groundcare teams.

Also on show were various models from the Cormidi tracked dumper range as shown above.

Sharing the PES stand was local Volvo construction equipment range sales representative Richard Shelbourne who had a couple of examples of his range on show.

Firstly the latest EC140C 14 ton hydraulic excavator which is an excellent all round machine and has been well received by the industry since its launch. I was fortunate to have one on demonstration last year and was very impressed with the machine.

Richard also had an Volvo BL61plus backhoe loader on show, this model has a smaller engine then it's bigger sister the BL71 and is powered by the Volvo D5D engine which provides 70 kw (94hp) the other notable difference is the 61 has stick mounted backhoe controls as opposed to servo excavator style joysticks on the BL71.

My last port of call was the CBL stand where they had some fine examples of the latest Takeuchi mini excavators on show including the new 3 ton TB228 and the replacement for the TB145 the all new TB250 5 ton model.

Despite the poor weather on the last day of the show it was well worth the visit and I would recommened that you visit it if you are down on holiday in the future!