“The team are always extremely accommodating,” comments CRH Plant managing director Neville Thomas. “We tell them what we need; they tell us how it can be done.
“In all the years we have been working together they have never let us down. This is what our relationship is built on, so why would we go to anyone else?”
As with each of CRH’s previous Andover Trailers plant bodies, the new units are bespoke designs, to the company’s specifications, and include Andover’s removable working at height barriers, which have become a requirement on many of the sites CRH visits.
The new bodies also feature Andover’s fold forward ramps – which Thomas insists are fitted to all CRH trailers and rigid trucks due to the fuel savings he’s witnessed.
The ramps have also been designed with a shallow loading angle to accommodate CRH’s most popular 13-tonne self-propelled rollers.
Each was also specified with a drawbar coupling, six pairs of lashing points, and a remote-controlled Ramsey H800 hydraulic winch – the latter installed low to the floor, along with chain trays, thanks to an Andover-engineered recessed section behind the headboard, providing clearance for the truck exhaust which runs above the chassis over the second axle.
These two 32-tonne rigid trucks mark a step up in size for CRH, having previously operated 26-tonne rigids from a range of chassis manufacturers.
“We opted for 32-tonne plant bodies out of necessity, mainly due to the fact that new emission regulations mean the self-propelled rollers we supply are getting heavier,” explains Thomas.
“Though we are phasing out some of our older trucks, the Andover bodies are holding up so well that most are still part of the fleet,” he continues, adding that CRH Plant has also now ordered a pair of the latest generation of tri-axle semi-sloping step frame trailers from Andover, for moving road surfacing equipment.
They will be built to a similar specification to the plant bodies, he says, again with fold-forward ramps, Andover’s working at height system and Chapter Eight marking on the rear. Delivery is expected early 2017.
CRH Plant’s latest plant bodies will be working five days per week and are expected to last over 0 years, covering some 700,000km.
They will operate out of CRH’s Plymouth and Sheffield depots, delivering a wide range of heavy plant and specialist equipment across the South West and North East.