To its customers the company of RH & AJ Bateman Ltd represents reliability and performance. The story of RH & AJ Bateman Ltd is indeed interesting – after 13 years working for a South West Quarry. Russell Bateman decided he could offer a better service and RH & AJ Bateman Ltd was formed. Now 20 years later RH & AJ Bateman Ltd employ 38 staff and the company is very much a family affair. They have the FORS Silver accreditation and are TASCC registered with two bulk lorries available to haul animal feed and grain. Moving sand, gravel, stone and soil is the mainstay of the business. The company is proud that it is an independent haulier, able to respond quickly to the needs of its customers, although they are still happy to work with the large aggregate companies when demand calls.
In the haulage industry things can sometimes change slowly, but one recent acquisition to the RH & AJ Bateman fleet has been 2 trailers fitted with the Multidrive horizontal ejector (MHE) system. These are an addition to the 4 and 6 wheel tippers, 8 wheel low siders, 8 wheel bulk tippers, 8 wheel bulk blowers and 8 Artic’s.
Russell says that the MHE based vehicles have found favour with many of his customers who now ask specifically for the delivery of materials to be made using the MHE vehicles. Russell explains ‘the particular advantages of the MHE over conventional walking floors and tippers is that when discharging a load into a bay the vehicle can drive under low roofs and back right up to the bay, and then unload the material faster and more quietly than other systems. This has proven to be very popular with customers, as the load can also be discharged completely, usually without the vehicle having to move forward, or for some of the load needing to be shovelled into the bay.’ In fact the MHE has shown such promise that Russell is looking at having 2 more MHE based trailers in the near future.
Another aspect of MHE operation is the very low maintenance cost, which one of the recently introduced MHE trailers to the RH & AJ Bateman Ltd fleet shows as it was previously in daily use for over 10 years without a failure.
