Cool for Cats

by Nick Drew | Fri 12 May 2017

Cool for Cats

Taking a look back at one of my articles that was first published in Earthmovers Magazine and bringing it to life on the internet with alternative photos.

Dorset based Bartlett Contractors Ltd of Sturminster Newton, was established in 1999 and has an illustrious history in ground works, plant hire, pipelines and agricultural contracting. But looking back at the history of this business one discovers that the Bartlett family have been involved in this type of work in the South West for over 55 years. The firm first came to fruition in 1959, when a young 17 year old Roger Bartlett was involved in setting up what was initially an agricultural contracting business. Following the death of his father, Roger took on the business on his own, expanding and diversifying into other fields along the way. To this day the business has built up an enviable reputation for their quality of work and expert knowledge in the aforementioned specialist areas. Well known locally for their agricultural contracting, it is perhaps their work on water pipeline jobs on a nationwide basis that they are becoming equally as well known for and in addition their loyalty to the Caterpillar brand of excavators, some of which Earthmovers caught up with on one of their pipeline jobs in Dorset. This project involved the laying of 450mm PE Butt welded pipe, which was primarily “open cut” across rural areas for some 16.6km’s, joining Sturminster Marshall pumping station to Culpeppers Dish Reservoir. This scheme is part of the “Grid” AMP6 works, which consists of an £850m investment in pumping stations and pipelines to improve the reliability of water throughout the whole of Wessex Waters operational area.

As previously mentioned, the company’s excavators of choice come from the Caterpillar stable, Rogers son and today’s Managing Director Robert Bartlett explained a bit more about the decision to stick with the American brand, “Our history with Cat started in 1992 when we took delivery of 2 x 215D’s and 2 x 211B models, the reliability of the 215D was so good that we ran them up to 10000 hours and in all that time the only things that had to be replaced were the odd pipe and one starter motor, this this gave us confidence to progress to the new shape 320’s and subsequent B and D series which also proved to be very reliable with very little downtime experienced”. Robert continued, “Moving on to the current E series models, we feel the reliability has suffered somewhat due to the complexity of the machines, which I believe is similar story for other makes due to modern technology! Due to the growth of the company reliability will always remain a major factor in our procurement and the residual factor would be next in the thought process we appreciate this comes at a premium you would only get from one of the top manufacturer’s in the world”.

Bartlett Contractors Contracts Manager, Gary Boon, himself a very experienced machine man added, “Following 5 years of excellent reliability from the D series 323’s and 324 on the fleet, it really was a no brainer to stick with the Cat brand and the new E series models. The whole fleet of 8 hydraulic excavators ranging from 8 tonne to 30 tonne were replaced in two batches about a year apart, both deals were done by our then local Finning sales representative Ben Beard (who has since moved on to Holt JCB) and who we had an excellent working relationship with”. “Initially we had some issues with the new 323E’s and 324E, which we felt were suffering from counter balance problems, our operators are highly experienced machine men and we take their feedback very seriously. After a few hours in one of the new machines, one of the operators announced “It’s like sitting on a nodding donkey on this machine!” Eventually after lengthy discussions with Finning the machines were taken back and additional counterweight was added which in all fairness solved the problem straightaway”. It appeared that everyone has a favourite machine on the fleet with Managing Director Rob Bartlett, having a fondness for the 324E 25 tonne class Cat excavators, describing them as, “a quality machine that is ideal for our applications” while Gary Boon has a preference for the 20 tonne 320E, which he says is “a great all-rounder for our line of work”.

On a tour of the site we started out in the compound area where a 323E was levelling stone in the car park area, venturing further along the jobsite we saw the flagship of the fleet the 324E, operated by Richard Light who has been with the firm for 15 years, which along with another 323E was stripping topsoil ahead of the main pipeline dig. Both machines were equipped with proper topsoil stripping blades, the like of which I hadn’t seen on a machine since the late 70’s early 80’s when they were considered the best tool for the job, in fact I used to use one on a Mitsubishi MS140 back in those days. Over the years the multi-purpose grading bucket has taken over but there is no denying the genuine grading blade is a cracking tool on the topsoil strip. According to Gary Boon, Bartlett Contractors have 3 of these blades which they feel cannot be beaten in this application. The one on the 324E was apparently purchased from John Jones Earthmoving. At the controls of the 323E was Billy Chalke, who is one of the longest serving operators on the company having been operating plant for the firm for 40 years, a tally that was only surpassed by another longstanding operator Richard Walters, who recently retired after driving plant for Bartlett’s for in excess of 40 years.

Talking about the company’s operators Gary Boon said, “Yes we have operators who have worked for the company for 40 years, but we also have young up and coming drivers who have started from the bottom and worked themselves up to become multi skilled operators who are highly thought of by myself, Rob and our clients which can only be a good thing for the future” Having said that the company, like so many in the industry will be losing some of the older operators during the coming years due to retirement, who will take many years of experience with them when they leave, so training up young blood is essential for the business. Further on along the job, members of the Bartlett team were installing pipe during a road closure working to a tight schedule and in a difficult area surrounded by woodland. On this section of the job there was one of the firms two Cat 316E’s and in the dig was their 8 tonne class 308E CR.

It’s fair to say that the 308E has met with mixed reviews from end users since it was first introduced, but in general Bartlett’s have been pretty happy with the machine and it’s a very important sized excavator in the fleet and in this tight application it was easy to see why, utilising its compact radius, off-set boom, rubber tracks and dozer blade to full effect.

Amongst all the Cat yellow there are other brands on the Bartlett fleet. As far as wheeled diggers go, historically the company has always run JCB’s which have proven to be reliable, well proven and liked by operators and customers alike, with that in mind they have never had any reason to look elsewhere for their 180^omachines. The latest addition is an “all singing all dancing” JCB 3CX Pothole Master model.

The machine which is fitted with a T4i Stage 3B engine also features JCB’s Easy Control joystick system, is proving to be the ideal addition to the fleet and features a range of attachments, which are extremely useful on the type of projects the company undertakes. As its name suggests the machine features a rear mounted patch planer and a front mounted sweeper shovel, there is also the option to use hand held tools using the dedicated hydraulic tool circuit.

In addition the machine has a set of front mounted forks making it ideal for loading the pipes and other palatalised items in the compounds. It’s when you see these machines working in a wide variety of tasks that you realise they are still a very useful piece of kit to have in the arsenal especially in the hands of an experienced operator who in the case of this machine is Gary’s father, Martyn Boon. Another new arrival to the Bartlett fleet on the day of our visit was an example of the hugely popular Kubota KXO57-4 mini excavator, which was so new it had not been sign written and had not actually been put to work.

On the agricultural side of things, German Fendt tractors are the order of the day for Bartlett’s and on some occasions they are deployed onto other work as was the case on this pipeline project where an example was being used to haul good quality gravel from the pipeline excavation using a Chieftain dump trailer.

It was clear to see that this is a team on the top of their game when it comes to this kind of work, well equipped and very knowledgeable and it comes as no surprise to me that there will always be work in the pipeline for Bartlett Contractors.

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