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Here is my Antar outside No2 Balloon Hanger at RAF Cardington. In the 10 years before I bought her she was used to open and close these doors, the original winding gear having failed. It was put the bumper against the door and shove, or wrap a hawser aroung the steelwork and pull.

These doors are each 90 feet wide and 180 feet tall. Each door weighs 470 tons. (made up of 220 tons of steel per door and 250 tons of cast concrete to improve stability)

 

28-04-2008212711.jpg

I only mention this because before my Antar got co-opted to this job, they were using an RAF owned Pioneer. to open these doors.

 

If a Pioneer 6x4 at 12 tons can shift these 470 ton doors I am sure a Constructor, suitably ballasted, is good for 1000 Tons in this sort of situation.

 

Having said that the doors run on steel rails, on steel wheels, and are perfectly level, but it just goes to show...

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I have been told of an Explorer pulling a Crusader with lowloader and T34 tank load whilst its brakes where locked on to clear the A21 in 2006 on the way home from War and Peace show ! Only a short distance but still left black lines , :bow::bow: impressive !

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And a Constructor photo taken from a Scammell brochure. It is shown with Pickfords trailer TM413. This trailer weighs about 90 tons and carries up to 200 Tons, so fully loaded you are looking at 280-290 Tons

tm413.jpg

 

 

TM413 - yet another piece of history rescued by Peter Court. I remember him dragging it back to his yard with his 240 ton Contractor many years ago. When in service it was usually pulled/pushed by no less than 3 Pickfords 6x6 Constructors until the 2 Supers arrived.

 

Mike

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TM413 - yet another piece of history rescued by Peter Court. I remember him dragging it back to his yard with his 240 ton Contractor many years ago. When in service it was usually pulled/pushed by no less than 3 Pickfords 6x6 Constructors until the 2 Supers arrived.

 

Mike

Picture of that move will follow shortly!

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The load is the short beams and the rings for altering the running width of the beams. (from about 11 feet apart, up to 17 feet wide.)

 

The picture you want is when they pinned the steerable back bogey, for a long straight stretch of road, then on coming to a bend, they pulled out the pins and started the Donkey engine, not realising they had left the Steering valve hard over. The result, the back bogey moving from the inside lane to the outside, and then a bit more , in about five seconds, wiothout any warning whatsoever to the other traffic!

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That Mr Court has got to be one of my heros ! Would loved to have met him and talked Scammells

 

You'd have been lucky Andy - I called in on several occasions to the quarry at break time (thinking about it, it always seemed to be break time there............) and Peter's first words were "Here's a seat, here's a tea, now tell us a funny story" - sometimes the conversation never got anywhere near Scammells :-D

 

He left some years back with a few truckloads of earthmoving tackle and spent a while building roads into the African bush to recover quite a few traction engines and narrow gauge steam locomotives, all of which made it back to the UK (except for one of a pair of ploughing engines which fell off the barge he had built to float it across a river), married a native woman, very nearly died from a snake bite and that's the last I heard.

 

If anyone can finish the story to date I'd be very grateful. Is he still with us? It was always a real pleasure to meet him.

Edited by N.O.S.
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Guest catweazle (Banned Member)
He married a native woman, very nearly died from a snake bite

Wow i would like to see him again.Maybe we should go and find him Stanley.:idea:

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