by Nick Drew | Sun 23 Feb 2014
UK’s first Dressta dozer in battle with the elements
The UK’s first Dressta dozer has been deployed to the high profile Chesil Beach flood defence works in Portland, Dorset, where it is working as part of the fleet of machines working for the Environment Agency, in conjunction with military kit from the Royal Engineers.
This machine was part of a recent large order received by Portsmouth based Construction Plant & Machinery Sales to supply Chinese machines including 20 LiuGong excavators for J. Ffrench Plant Hire of Iver, Buckinghamshire. The Polish manufactured Dressta TD-15M Extra dozer, which has an operating weight of 20,110kgs and is powered by a 190hp six cylinder Cummins QSC 8.3 engine, has been engaged in pushing back an estimated 100,000 cubic metres of pebbles, that have been washed back out to sea during the recent violent storms that have blighted the area.
The machine has been working in tandem with another larger dozer from the J.Ffrench Plant Hire fleet a Komatsu D85PX model, as they battle against Mother Nature during daylight hours in tough and challenging conditions. This job is likely to be ongoing for some time as one operator commented, “we push the material up by day and in the morning half of it is washed out to sea again, it sometimes feels as if we are battling with God!"
Working in this tough environment is a real test for this fledgling dozer to the UK market, it will be interesting to see how it copes with the rugged site conditions.
We thank the members of staff at the Environment Agency for their help with this Digger Man Blog site visit.