Who said you ever grow out of Tonka toys? Because sometimes the toys just get bigger… and come with rail wheels.
A huge thank you to the team at Railway Plant Services Ltd, especially Chris and John, who have come to our rescue with a brand new (to us) road-rail excavator.
Since the floods, when our two RRV diggers were submerged up to their cabs, they’ve suffered a cascade of failures. They were spending more time being repaired than actually working. Quietly in the background we began exploring options, and the RPS team identified this Komatsu PW130 as potentially available.
Our own Innis spent considerable time with the RPS team making sure the beast was right for our needs. Unlike our current pair of rust buckets, this one comes with a tilt rotator head and significantly greater hydraulic capability, opening up a whole new range of tools we simply couldn’t use before. Anyone got a tamping head going spare?
This is a serious investment in the future resilience of the railway. It might look like a childhood dream machine, but it’s a professional piece of infrastructure kit that will transform how we maintain and develop the line.
Next step – driver training and familiarisation before it’s let loose.
