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Memory of the month the way things were. (Part Six)

Plymstock/Pomphlett Gas works

Further to my last blog, I passed the site of the gas works and I see the pinnacle of rock is still there but is now completely hidden by a covering of small trees and scrub.  

One day I had been ripping for a while, then I started to push the material over the edge as I was about four lengths of the machine from it I saw a head pop up right in front of me, some fool had climbed up from the bottom to see what was going on.  Had he been one minute later or I thirty seconds closer to the edge I would not have seen him and he would have been buried under tons of rock, so a severe bollocking ensued but I don’t think he realised how close to death he had been.

One Friday I’m happily working away when a cloud of hydraulic oil filled the air, on the old D9 the hydraulic tank was situated in front of the radiator and the pump was attached to the engine crankshaft with a hose about three inches across and about two foot long between them, this hose had failed with hot oil picked up by the fan flying everywhere. In those days the more experienced operators fixed their own machines where possible, so I rang the yard for a new hose then donned wet gear, sat under the machine with hot oil dripping on me and quickly removed the old hose. A while later Les White turned up with a new hose, I fired it on, filled the tank and carried on.

The following Friday the same thing happened again, now this wasn’t fun sitting in a pool of oil with the hot stuff dripping on me, I could see it was not a Cat hose and this time Les brought me two hoses, not a good sign.  On the following Friday the same thing again obviously these hoses could only stick it for a short time and were inferior so I’m afraid  I gave Les an ultimatum, get a proper Cat hose or a different operator, I’m happy to say he got the right hose and it never failed again. A few weeks later this job finished so I was off somewhere else.  It seems an awful shame that after all that work this facility was only operational for about ten years.

How a snatch block saves time and money

Clennon valley refuse tip on the Torquay to Paignton road had been closed for a while and I was moved to the site with the D9 to level it out. It was quite a large site covering several acres, after a couple of weeks I had almost finished except for a small area where the site joined the hillside to the rear.  As I got into an area of small red shillet that seemed hard the machine suddenly sank, there had been no warning no shivering of the ground, nothing, there must have been a pocket of water trapped underneath between the tip and the hillside. Well I could walk through the cab from one side to the other side level and the only thing holding the front from sinking was the blade.

Above: Digger Man Blog archive photo not the actual event described. 

Off I go to find a phone sometimes they were miles away, (you just put your hand in your pocket nowadays) speaking to Les White I said bring the winch which was on a Fordson Major tractor and make sure you bring the snatch block, fortunately the yard was less than ten miles away so he soon arrived, minus the block.  I said we’ll never pull it out without the block but he insisted on trying, well the rope broke immediately but despite my saying to him go back to yard he wanted to try again with the same result, I said the rope won’t be long enough to reach back to the tractor if it breaks again so he reluctantly went and got the block.

It was a struggle to get the block on the D9 hook as it was in so deep, but when he started pulling the Cat just came right out as though it had never been stuck at all but in an awful mess, a real lesson for the future so take note if you ever need a winch get a snatch block it really pays off. Later on in Canada this lesson would be reinforced. The Co-Operator