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Page 94
Page 95
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TN March 1964, Mr. Tudor Griffiths, of the 1 Ellesmere Sand and Gravel Co. Ltd., Shropshire, won the contract to supply sand and gravel to the batching plant on the Clywedog Dam.
This dam, 23'7 ft. high and 750 ft. across, is the biggest to be built in Britain. Its purpose is to control the river and eliminate flooding in the upper Severn valley, turning the water to useful purpose as domestic supply to a large area of Wales and England and also to generate a certain amount of electricity. When the job is completed later this year it will have involved the huge total of 30m. ton miles.
The actual site is three miles from Llanidloes in Montgomeryshire, and just 60 mites from the Ellesmere gravel pit. Over this 120 miles round .trip every ton • of aggregate for 250,000 cubic yards of concrete has had to be carried. Mr. Griffiths estimated that by hiring every available tipper of suitable type within a radius of 30 miles of Ellesmere, he could deliver 1,900 tons per day to the batching plant. Engineers at the dam said that it wouldn't be enough, but even at the peak, during April to July 1966, 1,400 tons per day kept pace with the batching plant's appetite.
Several major problems face anyone aiming at a concentrated delivery of this type of material in the Welsh border counties. Several towns and villages lie on the route which for the most part follows A483 through Oswestry, Welshpool and Newtown. Since absolute reliability is essential, wellmaintained vehicles are necessary and also strict control of drivers to prevent—as far as possible—bad driving and excessive speed. It is a condition of hire that any driver convicted of speeding on this route must be taken off the job.
Multi-wheelers hired In order to reduce the actual number of vehicles on the route, multi-wheelers-6or 8-wheeled trucks—are hired whenever possible. In some cases annual contracts have been given to owners of tippers; this not only ensures that the vehicles are available
when required, it gives the owner a degree of security not usually possible with this type of work.
Again trying to keep the number of vehicles, and consequently the road congestion, down to a minimum, a night shift was started in the summer of 1966. This had to be abandoned after a few months following complaints from residents on the route who objected to the noise of the vehicles at night.
Another potential danger, common on some tipping jobs, is overloading. The weighbridge clerk at Ellesmere has strict instructions not to allow overloaded vehicles to leave. When a few drivers have been sent back to tip off a ton they soon learn to load correctly. Good relations with the police are essential on this type of work if it is to run smoothly. Mr. Griffiths says: "The police know that we have a difficult job to do and that we are trying to do it sensibly. They are most helpful and I am grateful to them."
Much of the time during the 4-years that this job has been running—and it has a little while longer to go yet—there have been 25
vehicles at work. It would perhaps be easiest to understand the intensity of the operation to take one vehicle as an example.
Early in 1966 Ellesmere took delivery of an ERF 68GX 8-wheeled tipper for their own fleet, powered by a Gardner 6LX engine using a David Brown overdrive gearbox and a Centrax double-drive rear bogie with lockable 3rd differential of 5.286:1 ratio.
First in Britain
This is the first vehicle in Britain to use this particular bogie. It is not a particularly fast vehicle on the valley road at 40 m.p.h., but well able to cope with the last five miles which includes a final 1 in 5 up to the tipping area, carrying a 151 ton load in its 19 ft. body.
This vehicle has done well over 150,000 miles in its first year! During the summer, working night and day it carried 5 loads in 24 hours 6 days per week, averaging 11,625 tons per month and returning a fuel consumption of just over 11 m.p.g. Altogether in 1966 a total of 15,000 loads were moved from Ellesmere to Clywedog. Throughout the operation Mr. Griffiths has supervised it personally travelling the route to check on drivers' behaviour and keeping a close watch on the quality of the material. The hard work has borne fruit for on December 22 last, in accordance with every promise made, the Clywedog Dam started to impound water. The job is not yet over and the whole operation will last well into 1967, but before the year is out a new lake 6 miles long by 500 yards wide will be in existence.