In the Pink with Takeuchi

In a familiar tale, Barry Locke (45) who is based in Honiton, Devon, spent much of his formative years going to work with his father Mo Locke, who we have featured on this platform in the past.

Mo started his own business in 1985, and it was only natural for Barry to be out helping his dad on a wide variety of jobs, gaining invaluable experience on the machines, and learning the tricks of the trade in the time-honoured way.

As time went by Mo drifted more and more into council work, and increasingly into forestry work, with a large focus on road and track maintenance and drainage including ditch cleaning. It was around 2017 that Mo had decided he was ready to retire from working everyday and it was decided that Barry, along with his wife Jo, would set up their own business B & J Locke Ltd.

Barry purchased his dad’s Takeuchi TB290 which was fitted with a TAB boom and NOX tiltrotator, and also purchased his van, and effectively continued the forestry work that was previously being undertaken by Mo and his machine, Barry said, “I wanted to continue with dad’s legacy of working in the forest locations, which in my opinion, there is nothing better than being left alone to work often in the middle of nowhere, it’s absolutely brilliant!”.

Photo: Mo Locke, Barry's father has been a long term Takeuchi end user, seen here his TB295W. 

Mo’s admiration for Takeuchi machines has clearly rubbed off on Barry, who spoke very highly of them, “I just can’t fault the Takeuchi brand, so smooth and dependable, and also it’s the back-up service we get, on the odd occasion that something goes wrong, I can ring Joe at CBL Plant Sales and I know that within a couple of hours they will send Matt out to fix it, second to none in terms of service.

In addition, they are now doing 3 years warranty instead of 2, which is great for piece of mind, and because I learnt with my dad on old school controls, I like the levers to be the old SAE pattern instead of ISO, and Takeuchi seem to be the only ones who provide a switch over valve, so we can change lever patterns to suit individual operators”.

Barry is currently running a total of 5 Takeuchi machines, consisting of TB219, which he describes as a bombproof digger, a TB290 with TAB boom, a TB350R which was displayed at the 2023 Royal Cornwall Show, an older TB153FR which he describes as a real Swiss Army Knife style machine and has a vast array of attachments, that machine undertakes a lot of hedge trimming work, especially in tight spaces, hence he’s reluctant to let it go, and this most recent addition the TB280FR.

The TB290 is set to be replaced shortly with another brand-new version, Barry was hoping for a November delivery date, but it’s come over from Japan a bit earlier than planned.

All Barry’s Takeuchi’s are sporting stunning pink livery in support of breast cancer awareness, Barry told us more about this initiative, “So in our family there are 5 little kids, and they are all girls, I’m the only male in my immediate family, and in total there are 10 women and girls across our families, so I thought, what can I do to make a difference, especially with us working in the forestry all the time, so I spoke to dad about it, and he said why don’t we do something completely different to stand out from the rest, so we decided to go pink, and raise awareness about breast cancer.

Fortunately, none of our girls or our wives have been affected by breast cancer, but its such a terribly common thing and we wanted to do our bit to remind women in general to get themselves checked regularly. Having discussed it with our CBL Sales Rep Mark Crocker, he suggested we get WH Bond in Cornwall to do the transformation, they do a cracking job on it, and offer us a very good deal to help support the charity aspect”.

Barry said its incredible the number of people, mainly walkers, who see their pink machines in the forests who come up to thank him for what he’s doing to raise awareness, often recounting stories about how cancer has affected their own personal lives, and its nice to be recognized for it.

Takeuchi’s FR models are really quite unique with their quirky patented STS (Side-to-Side) offset feature and compact zero tailswing design, they are a bit of a Marmite machine, some love them while others are not so keen. I have used them in the past, and once you get your head around the unusual offset movement, they are a great machine, especially on tight job sites.

The 8.5-tonne TB280FR has actually been around for some time now, having first been launched back in 2014, replacing the outgoing TB180FR model. Power comes from the well proven 4-cylinder Yanmar 4TNV98-WTBZ diesel engine, which offers a power output rating of 51.6kw @2400rpm.

Asked for his thoughts on them Barry said, “Well for us, a lot of our work can be in confined spaces, with some of the tracks barely being wide enough to get a lorry down. When loading a lorry for instance, with the TB290 geometry you could quite easily hit the top of the lorry body if you’re not careful, but the FR is so versatile, where it can fold right back alongside the offside of the cab, which enables you to gain great height from the dipper arm, and then be able tuck it all in to spin around in tight spots, it just makes the work a lot easier, and now with the 280 it can handle the extra weight of the Engcon tiltrotator and handles it really well.

The only downside for me personally is that due to the zero tailswing design, there is a compromise with the cab interior space, for bigger chaps like me, it’s a bit of a squeeze, but its manageable. I’m not operating this one at the moment, I’m further up in the forest on the TB350R, operating the TB280FR at the moment is Stewart Terry who has been with us some time now”.

The support and good working relationship that Barry has with his dealer is clearly very important, commenting on that aspect Barry said, “As a family we have been dealing with CBL since 1995, when dad bought his first TB216, they are just brilliant, and work as a proper team, as an example, I’ve rang up to hire additional equipment in the past and John Elliott who is the Regional Director for CBL is on the hire desk phone, and that’s how he is, really hands-on and always super helpful”.

Barry also had kind words about the products and support he receives from Engcon UK & Ireland, “The Engcon tiltrotators have been a game changer for us, as is the support we get from Tim Leach who is their Technical Support guy, he recently helped me to change the controls on the new machine as it was set-up wrong for me, he was able to undertake the work all via the phone which was just brilliant, and something we had never done before, the technology is amazing!”.

The firm works mainly for Forestry England, with whom they currently have a 4-year contract and some work for the National Trust, they work in forests from the New Forest in Hampshire, right down through Dorset, Devon and into Cornwall. We caught up with them at Fernworthy Forest on the edge of Dartmoor National Park, where they were engaged on a job for Forestry England, freshening up tracks, with some widening works, to enable ease of access for some delivery trucks that are scheduled for another project that will be taking place in the forest.

The Engcon grading beam was being put to good use to maintain a good camber on the track to facilitate good drainage.

Talking about plans for the future Barry hinted that we can expect to see another new machine on the CBL stand at the Royal Cornwall Show this year, in the form of a new 2-tonne class TB320, which it will come as no surprise to hear, that it will be fitted with an Engcon tiltrotator, and in keeping with the rest of the fleet will also be receiving the pink livery and Breast Cancer Awareness logos.

Summarizing Barry said, “Its all about keeping the fleet up together really, so we can continue to be reliable while keeping breakdowns to a minimum. We have also recently added a new Bomag BW138AD double drum roller once again from CBL, and we have a new Thwaites site dumper with the new ROPS design on order, but they seem hard to get hold of down here at the moment.

These additional bits of equipment should see us well set up for the foreseeable future, and with plenty of work ahead of us, it’s an absolute joy to come to work every day, especially in such glorious surroundings”.

I certainly had to agree with him on that, working in the idyllic forest setting certainly beats the craziness of the house bashing game every day of the week.