Ingrebourne Valley is a joint venture of quarrying firm RJD and waste management specialist PF Ahern. It takes benign construction waste and uses it to return brownfield sites to parkland. Specialist earthmoving contractor and plant hire firm CJ Pryor provides Ingrebourne Valley with all the plant and equipment that it uses and supplied the special EC480D. The modifications were designed and manufactured by Kocurek of Ipswich.
It is being used on a large Forestry Commission land regeneration project on the edge of the River Thames in Essex. The main duty of the machine is to unload barges bringing inert subsoil and other materials from various sites along the river into articulated haulers that then deposit the material over the site.
The EC480D has been fitted with an 8m boom that has been straightened and lengthened from the original, a 6m swanneck grab arm supported by two under-slung cylinders and an additional counterweight. It now has an outreach of 13.5m, a pin height of 14m and a digging depth of 6.5m. Further modifications include a hydraulic cab that elevates to 2m-height so that the operator has a view into the barge that is being unloaded, which is especially tricky at low tide. At the business end of the machine a Verachtert GOS-35 1,670-litre rehandling grab has been fitted. The operating weight of the machine has been increased to just over 54t.
An automatic idling system reduces engine speed when the levers and pedals are not activated – aiding fuel efficiency and lowering external noise. When only a single function is being used, the two-pump hydraulics system combines the flow of both pumps for quick cycle times and greater productivity. It can also prioritise flow according to the work being done – for example, to the boom for faster raising when loading or in deep excavations; to the arm during levelling or swing during large slewing angles.
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