Civil engineering company
The County Essex, south-east England-based company has put a Bell L2106E loader to work in Tucklesholme Quarry, close to Bell’s UK headquarters on the Counties Staffordshire-Derbyshire border.
Blackwell exclusively uses Bell for its 42-strong fleet of articulated dump trucks (ADTs), but this is the first time that it has purchased a Bell wheeled loader, a move that follows “successful demonstrations by Blackwell of Bell’s L1806E and L2106E loaders on the Clyde Wind Farm project, Scotland, and at Tucklesholme, respectively.”
Rob King, resource manager for Blackwell, said: “It made perfect sense to go with Bell for this loader, not least due to the location of this contract, meaning Bell can carry out any maintenance for us as its UK headquarters is just down the road. We obviously interrogated the fuel economy and the power-to-weight ratio of the loader before we went ahead.”
The loader is handling around 1,500tonnes/day of “as raised” ballast from stockpile, which is hauled by road trucks to the nearby Aggregates Industries’ Newbold Quarry, a haul cycle of about 6km.
As part of the contract, Blackwell uses 40tonne Bell ADTs and a 50tonne excavator team to excavate and haul the ballast, on a campaign basis, from the site to replenish the stockpile which the loader then works through.
The hauled ballast is then washed and graded by Aggregate Industries.
The Bell L2106E loader is fitted with a 3.8m³ GP bucket which handles the wet ballast comfortably. The loose density of the material is 1.8tonnes per m³, resulting in a 7tonne per pass operation and loading a six wheeler in less than 60 seconds.
