Peter Shaw, Boom Logistics Business Unit Manager took delivery of the Tadano GT600EL because of its user-friendliness and a good price point.
“There are 30 pieces of plant in the fleet. The smallest crane being a 10t ‘bubble’ City Crane and the largest a 200t all-terrain. There is also a large range of rough terrain, all terrain, truck mounted cranes, 10 pick and carry cranes and six trucks. The fleet mainly supports the maintenance of equipment on the mine sites and industrial process plants around the Latrobe Valley area in Victoria,”
said Shaw.
Shaw took delivery of the Tadano GT600EL in August of last year and he believes it was one of two delivered to Boom Logistics at that time. The other went to Mackay in Queensland.
“We’re using the Tadano GT600EL for taxi crane work and shut down work at the moment, which is servicing our current contracts,” said Shaw. “We have a number of contracts with major providers around the Latrobe Valley which include Exxon Mobil at the Longford Gas Plant, AGL at the Loy Yang mine, Energy Australia in Yallourn and Australian Paper at Maryvale.”
Shaw goes on to explain the advantages of his truck mounted crane in comparison to an all-terrain.
“An all-terrain is a very good machine, but they’re not always easy to get registered on the roads in Victoria. There have been quite a few changes on how we travel cranes around these days, with restrictions on tyre sizes, weights and configurations,” he said.
“Also, the tyres for the three, four and five axle cranes are wider 20.5 tyres and quite expensive per unit. The Tadano GT600EL truck mounted crane does not have that problem and in the long run the tyre replacements will be readily available. With its load sharing suspension, it is very manoeuvrable and quite good on the roads,” he said.
Cost was also a factor in the decision to buy the GT600EL.
“Generally speaking, the industry seems to be leaning away from truck mounted cranes, but we have found the Tadano GT600EL to be a really nice machine, well appointed and very reasonably priced. Compared to the equivalent in an all-terrain, it was a lot more economically viable, which is a big advantage,” said Shaw.
“We’ve been very happy with the performance of the crane without problems. The GT600EL is user-friendly and it doesn’t take long for an operator that’s new to the crane to get his head around its workings,” he said.
“The operators are happy with both the way the crane drives and performs. We recently had it and an operator at a powerboat racing event in Paynesville. It impressed everyone with the way it moved the boats around and in and out of the water. In my experience, Tadano has always designed and manufactured a user-friendly crane. They provide a good product and support it well,”
said Shaw.