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SMT GB's first Volvo EWR130E excavator

With its compact footprint, articulated boom, and the shortest front and rear swing radius on the market, Great Britain’s first Volvo EWR130E wheeled excavator from SMT GB is said to be ideal for Flannery’s urban infrastructure projects, such as the HS2 Victoria Road Crossover Box.

Flannery Plant Hire has taken delivery of Great Britain’s first Volvo EWR130E wheeled excavator from SMT GB, putting it straight to work at the HS2 Victoria Road Crossover Box site in West London. On this project, Flannery is supporting its customer SCS Railways – a joint venture between contractors Skanska, Costain, and Strabag – to construct the huge underground box structure that will hold the crossover track mechanism for trains to switch between tracks as they travel in and out of the HS2 Old Oak Common station.

The Volvo EWR130E is currently excavating foundations for a large conveyor that will carry material from the crossover box excavation site all the way to Willesden Euro Terminal where it will be transported away by rail, reducing both road traffic and emissions from the site. Despite the vast size of the project, conditions are tight, and Flannery needed an excavator that could easily manoeuvre around the site and dig in confined spaces.

The Volvo EWR130E wheeled excavator is able to take on jobs that a conventional excavator cannot, thanks to its new boom and arm design, which possess the shortest front (1.81m) and rear (1.55m) swing radius on the market. The footprint is also kept small by the inline outriggers which, along with the divided blades, help the operator to position and stabilise the excavator within a wide variety of locations. When Flannery needs to move the EWR130E between jobsites in the future, the low machine height and optimised tie-down points on the lower frame will reportedly make it easy to transport.

After a few weeks at the controls, Flannery Operator Alex Moraru (pictured below) is already a fan. “I would drive it home if I could. It’s a really good machine to drive all day,” he said. “The seat is really comfortable, the buttons are easy to reach and the shortcuts are really useful. I also like the Volvo Smart View, where the cameras show a 360-degree view of the machine. This is a great safety feature when you are working in tight spaces, and where you have other people around you on site.”

Alex also praised the machine’s ease of maintenance and low fuel consumption. “It’s very easy to maintain. The greasing points are easily accessible and gathered together in two places only, which you don’t often see on competitor models. A good thing as well would be the fuel consumption, which is really low. I wouldn’t expect it to be so low for the size of the machine.”

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