Brilliant video i remember a few of our farming neighbours having weather hill loaders on their farms here in Ni they were based on fordson major skid units and built like a tank🙂
The Plant that helped build Britain, advanced for 1955, JCB were also building onto Fordson Skid Units but a decent Loading Shovel was years away. The video shows just how gutless these Machines were when driven into a heap of Coal, coming to a complete stop!. Despite all that they were boom years for Construction productivity, mid 50’s through to the early 70’s.
Shovel development evolved very quickly to be fair to Weatherill. You are also looking at machines with a manual gearbox, if they did not come to a stop they would either stall or spin depending on the traction. I gather from John Tutt, who kindly supplied this video, that the UK manufacturing climate declined through the next decades culminating with Weatherill's demise in the early 80s. Personally, I think there might have been a better outcome for UK machines if the Chaseside board had moved on from rope shovels at Fred Weatherill's suggestion at the end of the 40s. During the 50s/60s/70s there were quite a lot of UK competing companies, almost all failed in the end, save for JCB.
@ the problem I was mentioning was these machines were all underpowered, the purpose of a loading shovel being able to push forward into the heap then break out and lift irrespective of the Transmission type, the Engines weren’t powerful enough. I mentioned Construction industry output from the mid fifties onward not UK manufacturing was booming which led to great Civil Engineering accomplishments and the recognition of many well known companies, Laing, Wimpey, Taylor Woodrow, mcalpine etc. JCB didn’t design and build what we would call a modern looking and reasonably performing Loading Shovel until the early 70’s that’s nearly 20 years on from wetherills mid fifties Machine. Wetherill didn’t or couldn’t invest in newer more advanced models like other competitors in the UK, and those companies went bust with Companies like JCB, John Deere, CAT, Hanomag, MF, etc continuing until the big changes in design and technology came here from the Far East, indeed by the mid nineties JCB were staring at bankruptcy and had to partner with Sumitomo to get up to date tech in order to make their Machines modern and able to compete with the likes of Komatsu, Samsung, Daewoo, Hitachi etc.
@@paulnolan1352 I see what you are saying, and of course you are right. I guess the Major skid was used initially as probably the most cost effective way of building a machine? Later on Weatherill did use 6 cylinder engines that made a difference and the larger machines of the late 50s were purpose built with engines, transmissions and axles sourced from several different manufacturers. Unless purely rehandling in a stock yard most machines were 4 wheel drive by the mid 60 to enable the increase in power to be put down.
Brilliant video i remember a few of our farming neighbours having weather hill loaders on their farms here in Ni they were based on fordson major skid units and built like a tank🙂
Same planet, different world.
Health and safety man today would have a baby, ... seeing an Overloader in action on a busy London street
@@CarlHargreavesRustyRelicsUK I thought that, public walking right past. The last demolition part would raise eyebrows as well!
Wonderful, a friend of mine was a design engineer for them
Would you be able to say a name and era on here?
@ 70’s and 80’s , we went self employed just before that folded, his name was Brian , I knew him through miniature railways
Wow superb Thank-you
The Plant that helped build Britain, advanced for 1955, JCB were also building onto Fordson Skid Units but a decent Loading Shovel was years away. The video shows just how gutless these Machines were when driven into a heap of Coal, coming to a complete stop!. Despite all that they were boom years for Construction productivity, mid 50’s through to the early 70’s.
Shovel development evolved very quickly to be fair to Weatherill. You are also looking at machines with a manual gearbox, if they did not come to a stop they would either stall or spin depending on the traction. I gather from John Tutt, who kindly supplied this video, that the UK manufacturing climate declined through the next decades culminating with Weatherill's demise in the early 80s.
Personally, I think there might have been a better outcome for UK machines if the Chaseside board had moved on from rope shovels at Fred Weatherill's suggestion at the end of the 40s. During the 50s/60s/70s there were quite a lot of UK competing companies, almost all failed in the end, save for JCB.
@ the problem I was mentioning was these machines were all underpowered, the purpose of a loading shovel being able to push forward into the heap then break out and lift irrespective of the Transmission type, the Engines weren’t powerful enough. I mentioned Construction industry output from the mid fifties onward not UK manufacturing was booming which led to great Civil Engineering accomplishments and the recognition of many well known companies, Laing, Wimpey, Taylor Woodrow, mcalpine etc. JCB didn’t design and build what we would call a modern looking and reasonably performing Loading Shovel until the early 70’s that’s nearly 20 years on from wetherills mid fifties Machine. Wetherill didn’t or couldn’t invest in newer more advanced models like other competitors in the UK, and those companies went bust with Companies like JCB, John Deere, CAT, Hanomag, MF, etc continuing until the big changes in design and technology came here from the Far East, indeed by the mid nineties JCB were staring at bankruptcy and had to partner with Sumitomo to get up to date tech in order to make their Machines modern and able to compete with the likes of Komatsu, Samsung, Daewoo, Hitachi etc.
@@paulnolan1352 I see what you are saying, and of course you are right. I guess the Major skid was used initially as probably the most cost effective way of building a machine? Later on Weatherill did use 6 cylinder engines that made a difference and the larger machines of the late 50s were purpose built with engines, transmissions and axles sourced from several different manufacturers. Unless purely rehandling in a stock yard most machines were 4 wheel drive by the mid 60 to enable the increase in power to be put down.
4:19 Certainly got the full of his bucket there !
@@HorseMalone tricky as well, the bucket was narrower than the track.