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Big wagons at bargain prices
Page 68
Page 69
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Richard Jones went from driver, to owner-driver, to running three companies. With his background he knows just how to get maximum value for his money
— and for him that means buying used trucks. Choosing used vehicles for your fleet is all about knowing exactly what it is you want — and need. Richard Jones is a man looking for secondhand tractors with big cabs and tag axles."You can't get them for love or money," he says."They just aren't about."
Jones is in the process of building a small empire with three companies bearing his name. Richard Jones Transport is a concretemixer hire business with 22 rigids available to those who need them. Their latest job was working the M25 with road builder Fitzpatrick.
Richard Jones Logistics has a fleet of 11 artics that run for two very different customers. One is RDL Distribution, delivering bricks, blocks and tiles; the second is Maritime, for whom he runs containers.
The third set-up is Richard Jones Group Holdings which hires out mobile concrete batching plants —one is currently at Perry Barr in Birmingham for Aggregate Industry — that can be moved with five trailers.
Jones started out as a driver before becoming an owner-driver with Hanson Premix in 1993. When the work started to dry up he decided to hire out his vehicle to anyone who needed it. In 1998 he left Hanson to set up on his own.
His drivers work away all week from sites based in the Midlands and Kent for RDL and four major container ports on the East and South Coast for Maritime.They all return for the weekend to the Welsh depot at Pontypridd, but he's moving to a bigger, more suitable site at Caerphilly. With his driving background. Jones appreciates that drivers need space to live and work in, and the Topline cab fits the bill. With the trucks operating from central England the 24-hour back-up from independent Scania dealer Keltrucks in Birmingham can't be beaten, according to Jones. He snapped up seven Scania Toplines in one hit in September to meet his contract needs, with a T-cabToplin e winging its way to Pontypridd to complete the order.
"The reason we get secondhand-trucks from Keltrucks is that the price is right and the back-up is excellent, with Scania a close second," Jones explains. Of the 11 vehicles, two are E 95XFs with tags, seven are Sca R124420s, with two R164 530s and a 580. Only two of the Sem nies are tags: the rest are mid-L Now Jones is looking at converting hisTransport mixer Mr fleet into 44-tonne artics. and h be looking for another batch o top-spec used bargains. •