FEATURE
Volvo FH is one of the trucks used to move the new McLeod Cranes counterweight trailers.
Game-Changing Weight Solution
TD32612
By Dave McLeod
WHEN MCLEOD CRANES PURCHASED THEIR NEW 300-TONNE Tadano crane, they looked to Hamilton-based truck, crane, and trailer giant TRT (Tidd Ross Todd Ltd) for a game-changing new solution to an on-going counterweight issue. With a head office in Mt Maunganui, McLeod Cranes, is a family-owned and run business which according to Managing Director Scott McLeod, is a combination of three companies. McLeod Cranes Ltd, McLeod Hiab and McLeod Transport Ltd all doing different functions under the McLeod umbrella. “McLeod Cranes is a crane hire company in Bay of Plenty Waikato, with branches in Taupo, Hamilton, and Tauranga. They run 30 cranes around the region mainly in taxi crane work. So, it’s a customer-focused, service-focused business providing cranes from 3.2t up to 350t,” McLeod says. McLeod Hiab runs just over 40 Hiab’s in the Bay of Plenty Waikato region and again they are a very customer-focused business that’s heavily involved in the construction sector moving frames and trusses. “Like any Hiab company, we’re delivering via truck and
loading and unloading by a Hiab. Anything from small buildings to palletised products.” Lastly, he says that McLeod Transport has an ATF facility in Tauranga. It’s a transitional facility that de-vans containers and either stores the product onsite or delivers it. So, McLeod reckons that it does a fair bit of trucking to and from the port. “It also supports the other businesses through moving drilling rigs and managing the logistics of moving drilling rigs, geothermal, oil, and gas. And they transport ad-hoc products for different companies. So, on the trucking side you might be transporting concrete in the form of precast or transporting other building or construction materials.” He says that McLeod Transport supports their Hiab company too, providing the ability to move bulk products out of Auckland or between the different branches before the Hiab company does the last mile. “Where it’s obviously more efficient to use a quad-quad to move frames or trusses or bricks between branches.” According to McLeod, the catalyst for their four new TRT Truck & Driver | 67
