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Digger Man Blog

by Nick Drew  |  Thu 14 Sep 2017

Compact Cat bridges the gap

During one of my recent Earthmovers assignments I got to visit Chris and Harry Chilcott to check out their Cat equipment, one machine that I wasn’t expecting to see was their 311F L RR a compact excavator that you don’t see that often.

Compact Cat bridges the gap
Having been shown one of the Chilcott Cat 320E’s in operation, we then visited another location where the other 320E was working and parked alongside it was the 11 tonne Cat 311 L RR (Reduced Radius) excavator. This is one machine I had not seen a lot of, but I would say it’s a useful size to have in a fleet, bridging the gap between a genuine midi excavator and a full size 13 tonner. Its compact dimensions making it ideal for small sites and very useful with its dozer blade fitted for light backfilling work. Incredibly this model has been on the market since February 2014 which is when this promotional video from Caterpillar was first aired.
The machine had a mixed review from the Chilcott boys with good and bad points listed, but overall I got the impression they were happy with this addition to the fleet.

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