Short lift – Long shift

A regular client booked a nice steady 3 day job with us. It was ever so local, so the fact it was a slightly unusual brief from their normal instructions didn’t concern us unduly.

Basically we were to be working with a crew moving some 6m x 2.5m temporary structures from the access point where the carrying artic’s could get to, down through a small rural industrial site to the landing point.

On the day we dispatched a 66 t/m on a standard 8×4 rigid and thought no more about it.

Our driver arrived at site, luckily well ahead of time, and walked the course with the foreman. This is when our eyebrows started to rise.

First off, even the M.A.N. with just a relatively short flat body wasn’t going to get through the chicane and pass the buildings to get from point ‘a’ to point ‘b’, even with no load on whatsoever!

Secondly, the units – now thundering their way down the A23, had mysteriously grown from 6 to 8 metres in length.

Normally, we’d have had no worries in sending a ‘Supertruck’ to wiggle through. But not only were they all committed on other jobs, but the short 4.5m bodies they carry wasn’t going to be long enough to move an 8 m load without some serious head scratching.

Nevertheless, we worked the Oracle and managed to swap some waggons about and get Carl & his trusty M800 STC to arrive that afternoon,  just after the European hauliers.

There followed some hard work and some harder thinking to get the job resolved as quickly and safely as possible.

Fortunately the crew on site were top drawer and the structures were made to a very high standard. So in the end what was programmed to take them 3 shifts, was accomplished in one long one. Turning those frowns upside-down 🙂

Pictures courtesy of Carl Somner