New Volvo package for Ward Plant
Two A45G articulated haulers, a 50-tonne EC480E excavator and a 25-tonne EC250E added to fleet
SINCE purchasing his first Volvo articulated hauler in 1990, Martyn Ward, managing director of Ward Plant Ltd of Carnwath, in South Lanarkshire, has continued to add Volvo articulated haulers and excavators to his plant fleet.
‘In my considered opinion, the Volvo ADT is second to none on the market today, and all the trucks I’ve ever run have proved themselves over and over again in terms of reliability, productivity and fuel savings,’ said Mr Ward.
‘And it’s like anything else – if you look after your kit, then it’ll look after you; some of our trucks have achieved over 16,000 hours on original engines,’ he continued.
‘The same applies to our Volvo excavators; we’ve been really pleased with the robustness of the machines and the quality of the pins and bushes. One of our oldest EC210s has absolutely no play whatsoever in the boom, dipper arm and bucket linkage.’
The latest package of machines to join Mr Ward’s fleet include two new Volvo A45G articulated haulers – Ward Plant’s largest-capacity trucks to date, a 50-tonne EC480E excavator in mass-excavation configuration and a 25-tonne EC250E.
Ward Plant now have 34 Volvo articulated haulers in their fleet, the majority of which are A30s. However, the new A45Gs were chosen to give an optimum return on cost per tonne moved, matched to the new 50-tonne excavator.
‘Whilst we run A30s predominantly for general hire, we see some positives in running the larger haulers in certain applications, and so far, they are exceeding our expectations on cost per tonne moved,’ continued Mr Ward.
‘But that’s not all. We enjoy an excellent level of service from SMT GB when we do get the occasional issues, and, not least, the trucks and excavators have an excellent residual value.’
The new trucks, along with the EC480E, are currently being deployed on a large opencast coal site restoration project in Ayrshire, with a number of other large infrastructure projects planned for the near future.
The A45G hauler, which has a carrying capacity of 41 tonnes and a heaped capacity of 25.1 cubic metres, is powered by a Volvo 16-litre Stage V-compliant engine that develops 481hp. This is coupled to Volvo-designed and manufactured powertrain components, for optimum performance and reliability.
The Stage V Final 13-litre engine in the EC480E develops 378hp, whilst its smaller bother, the EC250E, has an 8-litre power unit rated at 216hp, both of which are perfectly matched to the automatic sensing mode hydraulic system which provides on-demand flow and reduces power losses within the circuit.
