Old Girls Rusting in Peace (Part One)

I have had a collection of photos of this machinery graveyard in my possession for some years now, shared to me by my friend Jeremy Rowland. Its never felt appropriate to share them before, but as I have seen similar photos of this location online in recent years, I feel now is a good time to roll some of them out on the blog.

The venue for this excavator graveyard is apparently an old disused WW2 airfield somewhere in Lincolnshire and it is said to be home to at least 200 decaying diggers, bulldozers and associated construction machines, most of which were at some point, somebodies’ pride and joy of a fleet.

In this series of blogs, I will present some of the best photos from this collection probably over 3 separate posts.

Of course, no machinery graveyard or breakers for that matter, would be complete without an example of JCB’s venerable 3C backhoe loader, in this instance a Mark II version, with a Massey Ferguson 50B from the same era lying in the background too.

Another favourite at these places would be the British built Hymac 360-degree excavators, in the main it would be their most popular model the 580C, but in this instance it’s a slightly heavier 590C model showing all the tell-tale signs of a welded boom repair and surrounded by a variety of crawler tractors.

These German built Paus UL3 4x4 articulated dumptrucks look to have been put to work in 1983 judging by the UK registration plate on them. More often than not, these low-profile designed machines were used in underground mine applications.

Lying not far away from the old JCB 3CII is this rugged and beefy looking International dozer, can’t be certain on this but I suspect it might be a TD25 or similar. For its age its still looks in decent condition, a machine crying out for a restoration job!

And if they wanted something for the TD25 to push, how about one of these two John Deere JD860 elevating scrapers of 15 cubic yard capacity, that were formerly run by Amey. These machines are more than likely dated around the early 1970’s.

Check out how the John Deere JD860 was promoted back in the day in this video from the manufacturer.

And finally, in this batch, a good old Aveling Barford motor grader, which I suspect might be a 99H model.

There is something very eerie about visiting these kind of places, its also quite sad to see these old relics lying abandoned to the elements and in total silence which almost brings a lump to ones throat, then there is that familiar smell that is always present around old machines of oil and grease and even decaying rubber, that smell stays with you forever.

Lookout for more classic’s rusting in peace in part two of this series here on the Digger Man Blog.