by Nick Drew | Tue 19 Nov 2013
Classic machines uncovered at plant yard (Part One)
The day before I flew out to Turkey last week, I paid a visit to Bruce Atfield Machinery’s yard in the Surrey countryside, not far from Gatwick airport, where I came across a few gems hidden away.
Plant yards featuring old machines have always held a fascination for me, and there must be thousands of them all over the country. There is always an air of nostalgia around them as these old machines, which were once somebody’s pride and joy, either wait for someone to come and rescue them for a restoration, put them back to work or the often inevitable parts donor ship followed by an appointment with the “gas axe”. The places even have their own smell, which you simply cannot mistake, a mixed aroma of diesel, grease, oil and rubber which seems to be omitted from every machine that has been parked up for many years. For me, the king of old plant yards has to be the Casquero breakers yard in Spain, which we reported on some years ago on the old blog, and I hope to visit one of these days. But there are great finds to be made in this country, as my visit to this venue proved, when I came across this old Ford Auto Dig backhoe loader.
Just a few steps away, I came across one of the early JCB JS130 model excavators, which appeared to be undergoing a hydraulic pump replacement. Dating from 1991, this machine was from the early tie up with Japanese manufacturer Sumitomo.
The largest machine in this yard was without doubt the old Akerman H16D, which was a Swedish classic in its day, with many still in operation in that country to this day, including one which is owned by our Swedish friend Conny Kolsjo. I nearly took the seat on one of these many years ago on a marina job in Portsmouth. This 42 tonne machine, which has 15,115 hours on the meter, is described as a runner, but it does make you wonder just where a machine of this size and age will end up.
Sat next to the big Akerman was this Hymac 1501 Synchron model, which we featured here on the Digger Man Blog earlier this year. This machine is one of only six that were ever built during the final years of the Hymac company in 1992/93. A rare piece of Hymac history for sure!
This Caterpillar 211LC tracked excavator was a badged Eder German machine and was powered by a five cylinder Deutz engine. From what I have been told, these machines did give a few problems and were not well received. However I did operate a wheeled 212BFT variant for a year and apart from a few electrical issues, I didn’t find it a bad machine to work with.
Here we have a shot featuring two British classics. The Hymac 580BT, which according to Jeremy Rowland’s excellent new book, the illustrated history of Hymac, had a production run of 1300 from 1968 to 1970, and was the forerunner to the hugely successful 580C model.
I climbed back into the cab of this machine for a trip down memory lane, as I had operated 580C machines for George Wimpey’s back in the late 1970’s and early 80’s. It certainly brought it home to see how far machines have come since those days.
In front of the ageing Hymac was one of the original JCB 3CX models, looking a bit worse for wear and in the stages of being broken for spares.
In part two of this post I will continue my journey around this treasure trove of plant oddities.