Why Engcon's quick hitches pass the safety test

Tiltrotator manufacturer Engcon believes its quick hitches pass the safety test. Colin Sowman explains why.

In the past couple of years, the world of quick hitches has been turned on its head because of the growing concerns of the quick hitches used on excavators.

The Health & Safety Executive (HSE) has been investigating the matter along with most of the European agencies. It has confirmed that European manufacturers have voluntarily agreed to cease supply of semi-automatic quick hitches for new machines in the UK.

The agreement came into effect on 1 October 2008. This agreement will mean that when buying a quick hitch in future, only manual or fully automatic quick units will be available.

UK first

In what is believed to be a first in the UK plant industry, Engcon, the world's leading manufacture of tiltrotators, now offers a fully automatic quick hitch with a certified safe working load (SWL).

The Engcon fully automatic S60 quick hitch has been tested by Lloyds British Testing to a SWL of 10t and a proof load of 20t. The company offers a range of quick hitches to suit machines from 1t through to 45t.

In the UK, Network Rail and the Rail Plant Association have been very proactive in addressing the usage of quick hitches. There are more than a thousand road rail excavators (RRVs) currently working on the UK railways. The vast majority of these use various quick hitches. The Engcon S60 quick hitch system is proving to be very popular among plant hirers and contractors.

"We run more than 20 road rail excavators and the Engcon S60 quick hitch is our weapon of choice. It has proved to be very reliable and immensely strong. All of our new road rail excavators will have this as a permanent feature," says Warren Patrick, operations director of Hiremee.

Railway favourite

And Engcon didn't stop there. The EC15 tiltrotator is also the market favourite on the UK's railways. With this in mind, Engcon went back to Lloyds British to devise tests that the EC15 could be marked against.

After much consultation, the tests were agreed and completed. The results were very exciting and proved that the EC15 tiltrotator could handle 20t.

All new EC15s that are now sold to the UK railways can be stamped with a safe working load of 10t and given individual LOLER certificates. Although no modifications were needed to the EC15 tiltrotator, it now ticks every box possible. This in turn gives peace of mind to all Engcon's customers and makes them the market leader.

"The EC15 tiltrotators are in high demand within the UK's railways. Their versatility and strength have allowed railway contractors to improve production and safety in many of the key areas of maintaining the infrastructure," says Patrick. "It's a winning combination from Engcon."

• Engcon will be exhibiting at SED 2009 from 12-14 May at Rockingham Motor Speedway, Corby, Northamptonshire.