Sennebogen handler keeps scrap moving at UK port

Two new 93,500-kilogram (206,000-pound) rubber-tired Sennebogen 870 M material handlers are part of a $14 million upgrade program at the ship loading facility of S. Norton & Co. in Barking, United Kingdom.

Located on the Thames River, the Barking River Port serves vessels linking Greater London to the English Channel and the North Sea. The Sennebogen 870s are mounted on 1.8-meter (6-foot) pylons and fitted with a boom and stick giving them a 24-meter (79-foot) reach. The machines also include large outrigger pads designed for increased stability and they are equipped with three-yard, five-tine grapples.

The machines also feature Sennebogen’s Green Hybrid energy system, which uses a large central boom cylinder to hydraulically capture “free” energy when the boom is lowered, and then uses the stored energy to assist each lift cycle.

“There have been Sennebogen material handlers (835 Specials) on this site for over 12 years, and they have served us very well,” says Michael Duke, site manager for S. Norton’s Barking facility. “The machines were [reaching] 20,000 hours, so we knew we had to bring in replacement machines. As part of our overall development program, we needed to go for larger machines to increase throughput by loading vessels much quicker.”

Comments Matt Norton, the company’s technical director, “We visited Sennebogen during the build process to inspect and test the machines before they were stripped down for shipping to the U.K. The trucks arrived on the Monday, the machines were put together and handed over on Thursday evening the same week and it all ran like clockwork.”

Germany-based Senebogen has been part of the global material handling industry for 65 years. In the United States, Sennebogen LLC is based in Stanley, North Carolina, and provides specialized equipment for recycling and scrap metal yards, demolition, barge and port operations, log-handling, transfer stations and waste facilities.