Making tracks
TWO specially modified Komatsu PC450LC-6 excavators, supplied by Marubeni-Komatsu to Hanson Aggregates, are helping streamline work at a major new rail ballast distribution centre at Basford Hall in Crewe.
Hanson have a three-year contract to operate the centre, which as well as being used for general track-maintenance work will also be used by Railtrack for their West Coast route modernization programme.
The œ3 million centre, the largest in the UK, has 11.5km of sidings and the capacity to stock 300,000 tonnes of new rail ballast. It will be supplied with around 5,000 tonnes of material a week from Hanson's rail-linked Penmaenmawr Quarry on the North Wales coast.
