Tesmec offers no-blast option for rock removal

Specialist contractor AJ Gammond has taken Europe's first Tesmec TRS1475 Rock Hawg from UK importer Westquay and is using it, and its smaller sister the TRS1150, to produce a new haul road in a limestone quarry without the need for blasting.

The new 110t unit has a 3.8m-wide drum, a maximum cut of 600mm and the two machines have excavated over 500m³ of limestone to open up a new quarrying area on the opposite side of a public highway as they can cut right up to the road without danger to the travelling public.

Managers of the Lafarge quarry are considering using the 1475 to extract limestone deposits close to a village where blasting is also impossible.