Ridgway Rentals placed a £12m order with dealer Marubeni-Komatsu in June 2019 and by May 2020 will have taken delivery of a variety of new Komatsu excavators, bulldozers and wheeler loaders ranging from 2.5 to 36 tonnes.

“Our focus on this latest investment has been on updating our fleet with highly efficient, environmentally friendly equipment. Our customers demand the very best tools for the job, and we believe Komatsu delivers on this,” said managing director Stuart Jones.

The order includes a number of specialist machines including wheeled loaders specified for waste and recycling applications, supplied by Ridgway Rentals on long-term contract hires. Extra specifications include solid tyres, high tip buckets and fire suppression equipment.

The order also includes six crawler excavators fitted with super-long fronts to for use in applications such as quarrying, waterways and railways.

Specifically, Ridgway Rentals has bought PC360LC-11 and PC138US-11 excavators with super-long fronts (SLF). The PC138US-11 SLF has a reach of 12 metres while also being able to work in confined spaces due to its short tail swing; the PC360LC-11 SLF is more suited to heavy duty jobs and has a reach of 22 metres.

Komatsu intelligent machine control (IMC) machines are also featured in Ridgway Rentals' latest investment. In 2017 it was the first plant hire company in the UK to purchase Komatsu’s intelligent excavators and bulldozers and since then it has seen demand for them grow. This order includes a number of D61PXi-24 and D65PXi-18 bulldozers. The machine control system allows automated operation from heavy dozing to fine grading,

All the larger machines in the package are coming with KomatsuCARE, a complimentary maintenance package from Marubeni-Komatsu, which covers factory-scheduled maintenance for the first three years or 2,000 hours of operation.