The Classic Machinery Network

I worked for Dick on the M5, the Tewkesbury section - Cementation were the main contractors...

Thank you Fred! I think I was on the Tarmac Michaeldean site about 74. It was a water treatment plant with an underground reservoir.

Really interesting photos Fred, thank you! Wasn't Cambrian part of R & W? I seem to remember being on a site (Tarmac - Michaeldean) in the early seventies and we had three 22's on the site, two of them BCHC & one of them was Cambrian, all driven by guys out of the Tyseley depot. One was a st...

I find myself listening to Radio 4 on a regular basis... some interesting stories & plays on there. I must be on the steep slippery slope of decline!

Wonderful shots of yesteryear, what a contrast with the preceding photographs... progress or what! Wonder what happened to E.P.T.S haulage of Oxford! That ladder must have taken some shifting, never mind climbing up to the top, I reckon it has about 34 rungs! Just love that shovel - I have never see...

Those pliers look as if they have been fairly wet!

It seems so strange that these things now require restoring... it doesn't seem that long ago that as I was driving home at weekends from a job I was on in Oxford-shire there was about 20 of them parked up in a state of constant readiness at an aerodrome just outside Stow on the Wold!

Judging by the rust on the blade its been waiting more than a day or two...

What has always baffled me is why companies used to send out rookies on Iron Fairies, they were so difficult to operate - they used to crawl along at about 10 miles an hour (if that) mind you with no discernible suspension it would have been just about impossible to go any faster anyway, you weren't...

When rope machines were a bit slack I went on a weeks course at the Birmingham depot of BCHC and went through all the theory and practical of hydraulic cranes and was then let loose on an Iron Fairy, what a baptism! I have still got my crane driving licence/permit for up to 100 tons (which was then ...