Takeuchi's in the blue

Following on from yesterday’s pink colour themed post, today we are definitely in the blue, with some rather different looking Takeuchi excavators.

A team of distinctive looking Takeuchi’s are working just down the road from where I live in the village of Lifton, in West Devon at the moment, so I popped down for a look to find out what was going on.

The job being undertaken is for Western Power distribution and involves installing three new duct lines, for a power upgrade in the area to replace ageing lines.

This work is required to power potential car charging systems at domestic homes, while a second duct is being installed to carry cable specifically for Tesla car chargers which are being installed up at The Arundell Hotel. A spare duct is also being installed for future upgrades.

In total some 1200 metres of duct pipeline and cable will be laid with the job expected run up until Christmas. Undertaking the work is Plymouth based West Plant Ltd, who are sub-contractors to Kier.

Like so many working in the utilities sector, John West Managing Director of West Plant Ltd, is a big fan of the Takeuchi mini excavators and runs a number of models. His most recent addition being the new TB370 which they took delivery of in July 2021. Although being a big fan of the “red & Grey” in keeping with a TB219 they also run, the TB370 received a custom blue livery which was undertaken by his local Takeuchi dealers CBL Plant Sales at Saltash.

Talking about the machine John said, “That’s a nice bit of kit, very, very powerful and of course, it’s a Takeuchi so its super smooth to operate. We did consider putting a tiltrotator on this one, but was a bit put off by the cost, but I never say never!”.

John only had one criticism of the TB370, in that he feels the track frame is a little bit small for the size of the machine overall, slightly too narrow and too short in length, but apart from that a brilliant machine.

John was keen to add another TB219 to the fleet recently but unfortunately, he would have had to wait until October 2023 such is the waiting time for products.

So, he turned to JCB who could deliver almost off the shelf, and purchased an 18Z-1 zero tailswing model which was supplied by local dealer Holt JCB.

John said, “We always like to run at least a couple of machines in the 1.8-tonne class bracket, and so we thought we would give the JCB a try as we were unable to get another Takeuchi. To be fair, while its not the same, it does the job, and the boys seem to enjoy operating it, so we will see how it goes over the coming months”.

Photo: Courtesy of West Plant Ltd Facebook page. 

I spoke to a couple of the lads who were operating the machines, and it transpired that they both follow the Digger Man Blog via our Facebook group which was good to hear.

It won’t be many more weeks till the team will be working right outside my house, so I will catch up with them again, if its not when I am in Munich for Bauma!