For Whom the Bell Tolls

Regular reader and contributor to this blog Kenneth Hatcher, recently sent in some photos from his jobsite in South Wales and I am delighted to present some of them in this blog post.

Kenneth has worked for Cinderford based KW Bell for around 5 years, the company like so many recently, acted on government advice and closed all its sites in response to the corona virus (Covid-19) outbreak sweeping across the world. Its fair to say Kenneth loves his work and is a self-confessed workaholic so he is probably finding this period of enforced time off hard to cope with, just like many of us in the industry.

On his last day on site before the shutdown Kenneth grabbed a few shots of the machines, including his own mount, a Doosan DX63 midi excavator. Ken takes great pride in the machines he operates and as you can see, she is well polished!

One of Ken’s work colleagues is Lee Gardner who has also worked for Bell for a similar period of time. Ken describes Lee as a good steady operator who is very experienced and knows his stuff! His current mount on the firm is a Hyundai HX140L which is equally well looked after as you can see.

According to Ken, Lee used to work for his father's business Gardner Plant, operating one of two Liebherr R 312 excavator's that they ran, apparently both machines amassed around 12,000 hours before they were sold them on, the tracks were still in good order, but the engines were worn out by that time.It was on a site building a new Morrisons superstore that Ken and Lee worked together back in early 2003, Ken was on the job operating Harkins Plant Hires Cat 428C backhoe loader.

KW Bell group recently ordered and took delivery of a significant number of new JCB X Series machines. I will be reporting on the firm and its machines in more detail in a future edition of Earthmovers, once I have managed to get up and get some new photos as my computer has decided to erase the ones I had taken previously!

As soon as we get the all clear from this Covid-19 nightmare we are all enduring, I will be straight on the case! #StaySafe