The Classic Machinery Network

I overlook the original part of the A21 where Dick Hamptons scrapers would have been working hard, I was talking with our local farmer last weekend and his fields were split by the A21 going through them, He was telling me that one morning he was ploughing when he witnessed two scrapers collide with one ending up on it's side with it's wheel still spinning, Apparently the two operators didn't hang around to explain anything they went straight to the nearest bus stop to save themselves being sacked ! If anyone has any photos (come on Big Kit) I would love to see them.

The one I remember or to be more precise I was involved in repairing the machines, at Bentley 2 stock-cars (Euclid's with a four wheel prime mover) crashed head on at full speed on the Horsham by- pass in the dust I was told the operators passed each other midair no great fuss no enquiry just get on moving the dirt

There is a 30 minute film produced by the then Scottish Development Department (Roads Division) from 1966 on the construction of the M74 motorway from Hamilton to Uddingston which features Dick Hampton's earthmoving operations on it prominently.

I've seen the film recently and there's extensive footage of Hampton's D8s (with no cabs) pushing and pulling a fleet of 435G and 463G boxes around the Lanarkshire countryside, as well as RB and NCK draglines loading muck to dump trucks (couldn't make out the dump truck models - Euclids maybe?). Atkinson dump trucks featured as well but as far as I could tell they belonged to Christiani-Shand JV. Huge embankments being constructed to amazing tolerances by these great men, profiles and batter rails everywhere not a GPS in site

As well as Hamptons, the film features Christiani Shand, Tarmac, Wimpey, Road Reconstruction Ltd., Raymond's shell piling gear is featured as are West's (who became Westpile).

The plant on show is great, including D4 through to D8 dozers, 435g and 463g boxes, 22 and 38RB cranes for piling and concrete work on the bridges, various dump trucks, Blaw Knox paviors and Aveling Barford rollers.

Unfortunately, only a very short segment of this film is viewable online and that features just the short rigid pavement concrete motorway section south of Hamilton - http://movingimage.nls.uk/film/4994 - however anyone who really wanted this full video can contact the moving image people via the website and they'll sell you a DVD copy for £20.

Thought this info might be of interest.

Hello Everyone,
This is a great topic & an interesting read.
It would be nice to see a photo of the man Dick Hampton on here.
When I started out as an operator for F Shephard' Hill @ an early age on the Rhumney group of open cast coal sites in South Wales, in the early 80s, there was a 4 wheeled towed trailer parked on the side of our site on an old private deep mine level which was yellow & had Dick Hampton written on it . I must admit, I didn't know for years who this company was & certainly how big his company was. I was always @ that time in awe @ Blackwells & of course Merriman & Meighan & their saying, High Speed Muckshifting. I used to buy construction news every week to keep me up to speed.
I spent some time on my way home in the summer when working a 12 hour shift with Shephard'Hill, watching CA Blackwells Caterpillar 631Cs & tractor & boxes, with my first time ever seeing scrapers with just fly screens, back filling the Taylor Woodrow Trecatty opencast site. I got to know their fitter quite well, who was from the Earles Colne area & I just couldn't comprehend how they could work 6am until 10pm Monday to Friday & 7am until 4pm Saturday & Sunday.
I parked my car one night alongside the site to go & watch the scrapers working. It was a fair walk up over the tips of the now Miller Argent opencast site, which is of tips & derelict land with lots of deep holes around the site. All of a sudden looking down about 40 foot into this crater, was a Cat 631C. I went & told the fitter, I cant remember his name,(Dean, or Neil, rings a bell) but I can remember this big giant of a man. It was out of fuel & he reckoned the local kids must have knicked it & just let it free wheel into the hole. There was no damage what so ever to the scraper. I never did find out how they got it out of there, but my guess is that it would have been a difficult recovery.
regards,
Mark Williams.

Norman Dowding (Lofty) passed away early this year he was 82 by my calculation Harold Penn had a phone call from hes wife left on hes phone
recorder ( Harold was in Spain at the time )
Lofty the name we all knew him by was the plant workshop foreman at Bentley he was well respected by those he worked with and I for
one was grateful for all the help and advice he gave me which helped me well in my career as a plant mechanic
Duncan McInnes (nick named Blondy at Hamptons)

tctractors wrote:The area I live in is crawling with Ex Hampton drivers, most of them started off on the Stock Cars, or D7/8s pulling rollers etc for a few months untill getting put up into a Motor Scraper or D8-box, the opening of the M5 turned the town of Tewkesbury on the A38, from a car/truck night-mare with tailbacks for miles, into a sleepy backwater, to cross the the road in the High Steet was a delight, I work with plenty of Ex Hampton men often, most of them are still sat up in D6/8s,one thing that is common in them is they all smoke, Drink and get up early,
The Classic Plant Mag, I think is printed by JCB, all the time there is some feature about the latest thing that JCB think we need, or have just built Via 3 robots and 1 worker, the Classic Mag Team think we need these **se Kissing dittys to keep a balance of the latest " What-ever " that fills the pages, they should stick to the plot and stop printing stuff that does not fit the Mag Title.

tctractors

Dick Hampton did quite a bit around Basingstoke on spurs to the new ring road back in 1967 to 1970 . Richards and wallington were the main ring road earthmoving contractor back then using Cat 631b,s which i do have pics of. DH was a very familiar site with d8 boxes . Used to spend hours watching them going home from school as they stripped topsoil off of new housing estates built to help with the London over spill. Cameras were still quite expensive back then and dads box brownie was no good! Glad that someone has mentioned Classic plant showing so much modern stuff which can be seen in other publications . Also the picture quality is going down hill fast and almost seems photo copied a dozen times before publication?
Classic plant is D8h and d9g stuff? Its should be Euclid/terex scrapers , Vickers dozers, early JCB and Whitlocks etc etc. It should also concentrate more on the main players in earth moving that created our motorway networks and whose amazing and sometimes incredible work will never be seen again. Just glad that someone else has raised CP as well and the way its going it wont be long before its just a two page pamphlet?

fORSTER QUOTE:
Uneedus and the McGeady's I did know. Gypsy Smith I believe worked for Shellabear Price in the early 60s. I would be surprised if any of these people are still around.

I knew Uneedus the McGeedy's, ''Big Duffy'' referred to on here somewhere as ''Long Duffy'' Gypsy Smith as well as 'Debbie' (Debate Grant) the person who posted that post about Frank Ward, I stayed with Frank & Pat her mother, Debate Grant (Debbie was about 8 then).
I agree most of those names won't be around anymore & would be unlikely to find this forum even if they were,I only came across it fairly recently. I left muckshifting for ever around 1971 or 2 the last of the names I knew which Debate Grant mentioned was Gypsy Smith & that was on the Bough Beech reservoir near Edenbridge around 1968, he was still with his wife then a German woman, but, those 1960's guys (including me) are more a part of 'Historical Muckshifting Mythology' now, my common name then was 'Scouse'.
Forster, I notice your name is 'Wilson', are you connected to Charlie Wilson? last seen appx 1970 Marlow by pass, Blackwells

Forster, in fact Wilson is my middle name, no connection to Charlie Wilson. I am more commonly know as Joe. I worked for Blackwells on and off from 1964 until 1972. Periods away included a couple of years in the Middle East and 2 years in Canada together with time in Belgium. My travelling pal in those days was Ray Thirtle. I left muckshifting in 1972 and went overseas for 12 years working for a consulting engineer.
My Blackwell days included M6 Stafford, High Wycombe by pass and the M56.

What part of the m56 were you on with blacwells joe

This was 1970 to 1971, Lymm Corner to The Royal Thorn Pub together with a spur into Manchester Airport. Site agent was Peter the German.