It’s amazing the people you meet in this job. I arrive too early at the log port operation in Picton so I go to the tourist lookout area above the yard to see if there are any good photo opportunities.
Sure enough the view there is an impressive display of a large-scale, well-ordered logging industry workplace. It’s only a few minutes before several tourists drive up and are wowed by the spectacular scenery of the C3 log marshalling site below us. One of the tourists, a Texan, comes over and asks me if I know anything about this industry. Well now, have I got a story for you…
C3 Picton has a vessel in loading today, the African Pelican, so they are busy first thing this morning but once we get in there, we get a thorough Health and Safety induction. It’s the first time I’ve been shown where defibrillators are!
We throw the doors open on the Volvo L260H wheel loader and new Iron Tester, Brady Clements, points out the two sub doors below the bonnet that allow us to check the water and oil from the ground without lifting the main bonnet. Very handy and it saves a lot of time.
We lift that main bonnet anyway and the first thing that sticks out is the massive muffler. It’s almost as big as the engine. No wonder it’s so quiet. And grunty. She’s packing 416 horsepower (310KW).
A nod to uptime
Improvements include 15% greater productivity. There’s an updated transmission, a new shifting programme and converter.The wheelbase has been increased along with an optimised weight distribution of the front frame and lifting arm system. Using the Volvo D13E (13 litre) engine, this machine has a 6% increase in power and 5% increase in torque on the previous model. Efficiency improvements have resulted in a 10% reduction in fuel consumption.
In a nod to uptime the machine is run on a Contract service agreement with TDX along with machine monitoring by a Volvo Active Care package for live satellite monitoring for faults and any issues.
Designed to move more logs at a lower cost, this one came out of the factory spec’d for log loading rather than shifting aggregates but C3 went a bit further by removing the 1500kg counterweight and having a New Zealand made Ensign 2500kg counterweight fitted instead to improve stability under load and as a nod to the solid, hard-wearing surface its new yard surface presents.
I ask the C3 Picton Branch Manager, Nephi Anderson, where the regular operator of the 260H is. It’s starting to look like the last superskid operation we visited where nobody wanted to own up to running it. Nephi says everybody runs this 260 so I ask if he could choose the most interesting character. Perhaps somebody who wants to be famous, or at least doesn’t mind being photographed.
“That’ll be Cody,” he says and soon arrives back with a young woman, Cody Molloy. While she gets the machine ready, another young woman drives up in a Heagney Bros...
