On a level playing field

by Nick Drew | Wed 28 Nov 2018

On a level playing field

Taking a look back at one of my Earthmovers articles from earlier this year and bringing it to life on the internet

Buckinghamshire based Agripower Ltd has a long and illustrious history in dealing with the earth having been formed in 1964 by Roger Longdin primarily as an agricultural contracting outfit. In the late 1960’s the company continued to evolve and became more specialised in land drainage. These days the company is run by Managing Director Graham Longdin who is assisted by Grant Holmes on the sports turf side of things and has become more well known for this type of work and associated landscaping projects up and down the country. One of its team of men and machines was working on one of three of sports pitch projects for Plymouth City Council in and around the famous naval sea port, which is where we caught up with them. Agripower are actually one of the few company’s in the UK who run elevating motor scrapers and were at one time running three Caterpillar models consisting of two 615C’s and a single smaller 613B model, however for these projects in Plymouth the chosen muckshifting method was a tractor and towed scraper box combination working in conjunction with a D6R XW fitted with a 3D UTS (unique total station) system.

During this first job, which when completed will provide enough area for four football pitches, the team shifted around 14,000 cubic metres of material, which included stripping of the topsoil and storage in a bund, a cut and fill operation and the importation and spreading of around 700 cubic metres of good quality fill to cover the rock and shillety ground that is very common in this part of the country and the re-spreading of topsoil. Agripower’s Earthworks Foreman and dozer operator Ryan Paddy Daly is responsible for the day to day running of the jobsite, talking about the job Ryan said, “With the UTS set up I can survey the site and our progress and can communicate with our office via email regarding any site design changes that might be needed, as part of our service we provide the whole design package in-house”.

Ryan’s current mount is a 2007 model Caterpillar D6R XW which is powered by a Cat C9 ACERT engine of some 138kw (185hp) that he has run for the past 6 years, the company having originally sourced it from Holland. This tractor was initially fitted with a 2D laser system but was quickly upgraded to the 3D UTS system as previously mentioned. The XW refers to the machines track frame configuration and stands for extra wide track, which as Ryan pointed out sounds a bit bizarre as the actual track pads are smaller than on a standard LGP tractor. Explaining in more detail why Agripower prefer the less common Caterpillar XW tractors Ryan said, “From our perspective they offer a little better compaction when pushing out material like clay that is sometimes hard to break down to fill in the voids, in addition we know that if the ground/soils can hold up the XW models rather than an LGP tractor, then the drainage equipment we run will be able to travel on the finished pitch with minimal damage to the trimmed soil, so less rutting wheel marks on the finely trimmed surface”.

When engaged in bulk earthworks Ryan’s D6R XW is also used to pull a Caterpillar 435G scraper box, which on the day of our visit was not in use. This box which was originally “old school” rope operated was purchased last year from a quarry in Wales where it had stood for some time, fortunately the company are lucky to have the services of a team of highly skilled fitter/fabricators who carried out all the hydraulic conversion works on it and refurbished to full working order. The other tractor on site was a 1995 D6H RXL which they purchased in 2002 and has been a very successful piece of kit for the company, Ryan said, “The D6H has been a sturdy work horse for us over the years, working on dozing, mole ploughing and with the scraper on, more recently we’ve taken the blade off and re-piped the hydraulics to use the blade lift and tilt to operate the box. We don’t really need it as a dozer any more as we have also a 2014 D6N and a 2008 D6K on the fleet so it’s now only used on box work or the mole plough’ it has recently had a full undercarriage refurbishment”.

The D6H RXL is coupled to an old Onions scraper box which was purchased from a firm him Worcester where it was being pulled by a Komatsu tractor, considering Onions stopped making these scrapers in the early 1960’s this is a vintage piece of classic plant and a lasting legacy to the durability of these old units. When they first purchased the box, it had already been converted from rope to hydraulics but the Agripower team have made some alterations to the lift rams and the ejector in the past couple of years. Operator on this machine is Alistair Ginger who has worked for Agripower for the past 10 years but has only recently in the past 2/3 years got his chance on the bigger kit, on the day of our visit Alistair was busy loading up topsoil and spreading it on the pitch area for Ryan to trim up.

In another section of the job one of the company’s New Holland E140C SR hydraulic excavators was busy breaking up some high spots of rock ahead of the dozer, the material around Plymouth can be quite challenging at times and is extremely hard on both man and machines!

When the area is at its finished level, the drainage team come in with a Mastenbrook chain trencher. The network of drains across the pitch is laid using laser guidance and once backfilled, the tractor team are deployed to cultivate, stone bury and seed, around a year later when the grass is established a top or secondary drain scheme is installed. It’s this attention to detail that have made Agripower Ltd one of the country’s leading specialists in sports pitch construction. RYAN PADDY DALY Ryan told us about his life in plant, “I started driving machines as long ago as I can remember, I was probably about 6 years old when I first went to work with my dad, then after that I drove my uncles JCB 806 and from that day on I was hooked on machinery, in fact anything yellow! In 1987 my dad started work for T. Taylor’s, a prominent earth moving force around the Milton Keynes area back in the day, he then started taking me to work on a Saturday sat beside him in the cab, that’s how you learned in those days being able to see and hear how the machine is worked properly.

As I got older around 14/15 Toby Taylor used to let me drive the D6H LGP on my own on a Saturday which I would do whenever ever I could, it was shortly after that he said to me, “boy if you come and work for me when you leave school I’ll buy you a new tractor” and sure enough I left school and was straight on the phone for my job! The man was true to his word and shortly after starting he purchased a brand-new Komatsu D65PX for me to run. I Worked there for nearly 11 years until he wound down and sold out to Smith Construction. I had some redundancy money so I bought a Komatsu pc130 and went alone for 7 years until personal circumstances meant I had to throw the towel in. I started with Agripower 7 years ago in 2011 and have been here to this day”. Ryan’s loyalty to the company has since been rewarded as the company recently purchased a nearly new Caterpillar D6T XW from America which has just been kitted up with the Trimble 3D UTS system.

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