For the Love of Red & Grey

Taking a look back at one of my articles previously published in Earthmovers, bringing it to life on the internet, with alternative photos and video footage.

It’s probably fair to say that Herefordshire based James Hilldrup has been something of a fan of the Japanese built Takeuchi mini excavators from a very young age, James recalls a time when his older brother Adam was operating an early TB020 and he used ride in the cab with him, and from that age he became smitten with the distinctive red and grey machines.

But it hadn’t always been that way. James’s late father Adrian Hilldrup, was a well-known and respected general builder in the small Herefordshire town, so he grew up around the building game and with diggers, the first machine his father owned was a Powerfab, and it was on that crude piece of equipment that a young James cut his teeth on, before it was eventually replaced by a JCB 801.4 mini excavator.

Sadly, James’s father passed away when James was only 15 years old, so he ended up going to college to learn to do brickwork, eventually gaining his qualifications as a bricklayer, but he had a long standing passion for the diggers, and he desperately wanted to get into the groundworks side of things, so having finished college, he went on to join his brother who had taken on the family business, but it wasn’t long before he decided we wanted to venture into something new.

Our business is a very much a people industry, and it helps to have connections and friends in the game, James takes up the story, “My brother in law is a digger driver as well, and at the time he was working for a chap who did some groundworks and a bit of building, who was looking for someone to come on and lay a few bricks, so I went on for him, and it turned out that his son was a contracts manager for Hampshire based Raymond Brown, now known as Knights Brown, who had a long run of work down in Cardiff, so I decided to go and work with them building the Dr Who Experience, on that job I laid 120,000 brick pavers around that building!”.

James continues, “From there we went on to build a big fort at the Sennybridge Training Area for the Ministry of Defence up in Powys, where I was involved in building big walls using those precast concrete LEGO style building blocks, that was followed by a park and ride scheme in Merthyr Tydfil, at that time we were hiring all our kit from Tom Pritchard who as you know is a massive affair now, they were good old days for sure”.

Following on from there the major work slowed up a bit, so on the weekends James used to hire in a an old Takeuchi TB125 mini digger from the guy he’d been working for and do a few jobs of his own, he later went on to purchase the Takeuchi which became his first owner-operated machine.

Another family member gave James a contact for a guy who wanted some blockwork doing at the Cadbury chocolate factory in nearby Leominster, so James, always on the lookout for work opportunities went down and had chat with the manager of the main contractor, James said, “So I got talking to the guy and he said, what do you do, to which I replied, well I have a digger and I’m keen to focus more on the digger work rather than brick and block laying, he then said, well come and see me Monday morning and we will get you going!

This company WBC were involved in doing large concrete floors for farms and warehouses and all the civils work involved in them. Some 12 months on the TB125 was starting to get a bit tired with the hours we were putting on it, so I decided to trade her in for a more modern low-houred TB228 and we were away then. Armed with the newer machine they guy said I have a two-week job for you in Essex! As so often happens in this game, that two-week job transpired to be 12 months of work as the farm manager kept adding work on, it was a lot of travelling but it established me as a sub-contractor!”.

Photo credit : J R Hilldrup Groundworks Ltd Facebook page.

Another job arose with the firm which would see James supplying all the kit and labour, with the contractor supplying all the materials. As the workload expanded James often found himself jumping between a 3-tonne and an 8-tonne excavator, it was at this point that he decided to purchase another second hand Takeuchi, this time an example of the venerable TB175 model which was available from Bow Plant Sales his local dealer.

Having visited their yard to take a look at it, on closer inspection, it turned out to be a machine that he had operated 2 or 3 years previously, and still had some of his old paperwork lying in the back of the cab, so effectively he knew some of the history of that machine quite well.

As it turned out this was the catalyst for what James’s business has become today some seven years later, as he just focused on picking up more contracts of his own. Today he has a core number of clients who he continues to work for on a regular basis. James runs a relatively small but very capable operation, employing only two other young guys full time, one of whom is doing an apprenticeship at a local college, but if more manpower is required he has a good number of subbies he can call on as and when required.

We caught up with James on an agricultural building project in a very rural part of Herefordshire, the job had involved demolishing some existing old buildings, all the groundworks for a new steel frame shed, a massive concrete floor and all the associated external drainage for the building, so there has been plenty to go at on this project!

As previously mentioned, James is a massive fan of Takeuchi, and has been running and owning them for some 10 years now, with the recent edition of the TB240 that brings the number of Takeuchi’s he has purchased to 10 units of varying sizes.

James said, “We have been running them over 10 years now, and you just never have to put a spanner to them, apart from regular servicing work, in terms of operation I just find them to be really good, so smooth on the hydraulics and completely user friendly, we have tried other brands that we have hired in, but its always a delight to jump back in the Takeuchi

One thing I always notice is that you can grade stone easily with the cutting edge, whereas with some other less refined machines, you end up having to use the back of the bucket to get the desired finish”.

The pride of the fleet is the 9-tonne class TB290-2 which arrived with him in late 2021, its an all singing, all dancing model fitted with two-piece TAB boom, Engcon EC209 tiltrotator and has been retro fitted with a Leica 3D machine control system.

The TB290-2 which is nearly always James’s go to machine, is powered by a 4-cylinder Yanmar turbocharged diesel engine which is Stage V emissions compliant offering a power output rating of 51.6kw @2000rpm. This unit replaces the Isuzu power pack which was fitted in the previous TB290 model that was rated at 52.0kw producing a maximum torque of just 255 N/m while the new Yanmar power pack produces significantly more at 308 N/m at the same rpm.

The silky smooth and powerful hydraulics James talked of is provided by a larger hydraulic pump from Japanese blue-chip component provider Kawasaki, offering a vastly improved oil flow delivery compared to the previous model.

The TB240 arrived just last December replacing a smaller TB230. The machine has been fitted with an Engcon EC204 tiltrotator that had previously been mounted on the outgoing 3-tonner, so effectively that’s now under its second machine, testament to the durability of these units.

James had nothing but praise for his local dealer Bow Plant Sales saying, “We have got a really good working relationship with them, father and sone team Martin and Ollie Hughes the owners are always on the end of the phone if you ever need anything, and the deals are always spot on, can’t fault them really”.

Other items of kit on the firm include a 1.5-tonne Takeuchi mini digger, 1-tonne high-tip dumper, 3-tonne dumper, and a couple of 6-tonne dumpers, a Bomag BW120 double drum roller, which has received a matching red and grey Takeuchi style paint job, and a small Blaw Knox tarmac paver. The paver was purchased because James had a hankering to be self-sufficient in that department, rather than bringing in paving contractors. In addition to that they also have a beavertail HGV for moving their own kit around, adding to that self-sufficiency.

Looking to the future of J.R. Hilldrup Groundworks Ltd, James does have ambitions to invest in a 14-tonne machine, and as one might expect, he has his eyes on a Takeuchi TB2150R model, however the cost is slightly higher than he would like to pay, but he is not ruling one out, “I am looking at them, but to be honest, our 9-tonner can turn out an awful lot of work, its such a capable machine, and everything we have here today is paid for and earning, so I will wait and see how things pan out going forward” said James.