BACKHOE-LOADER OR LOADER-BACKHOE?

Graham Black comments on the future of backhoe loaders

Is it a backhoe loader or a loader backhoe – that is the key question? The concept was developed around the same time on both sides of the Atlantic, but with a slightly different focus. To the Americans, it was more of a loader tractor that could also dig. To the Brits, it was a back-actor tractor, with the front counterweight replaced by a loader. Both approaches resulted in virtually the same design: a versatile machine that could perform a wide range of tasks, including loading, carrying and excavation work.

In the UK, the backhoe loader was principally used as a mobile excavator, often in the hands of owner-operators or trusted longterm employees. With a mindset focused on trenching and grading work, for some, the front bucket was little more than a large stabiliser, used in conjunction with the rear legs while digging. Saying that, it did provide a useful way to carry a drum of diesel, another attachment or a load of aggregate.

The availability of Drott-style 4-in-1 buckets transformed the muck-shifting capability of the backhoe loader. This multi-purpose front attachment is used to push, level and grade material, in the same manner as a tracked loading shovel. Those operators that mastered both front and rear attachments were, and still are, the cream of the crop.

However, even with the availability of pallet forks incorporated into the front end, the material handling capabilities of a backhoe loader were widely under-valued by UK users. Not without some justification, as balancing a pallet of blocks while traversing a muddy and undulating building site was achievable, but was often not a pretty sight.

In more recent times, this aspect of a backhoe loader’s performance has been transformed by the use of a hydraulic stabilising system on the front arms. This has been aided by a general increase in operating weights and sizes, together with the use of superior tyre technology, as the largest machines now feature all-wheel steer, as well as all-wheel drive.

Missing Machine Types

But these developments came too late, as the digging duties of backhoe loaders were undertaken by tracked hydraulic excavators. The near universal uptake of 360-degree excavators also signalled the demise of several other once-common machine types, including tracked loading shovels.

Undervalued as a materials handler and truck loader – even with rough-terrain fork lift trucks are going out of fashion – UK sites turned their back on backhoe-loaders.

The three big northern hemisphere construction equipment markets of the USA, Europe and the UK take different approaches to on-site materials handling. In America, still a large market for backhoe loaders, a skid-steer loader is the universal materials handler. For a lot of Central Europeans, never big fans of backhoe-loaders, a compact wheel loader is the universal machine of choice. Across Scandinavia a wheeled excavator, or even a full-sized wheel loader, is the universal machine of choice, together with large articulated backhoe loaders.

Sites in the UK and Ireland take a different working approach, featuring a heavy reliance on site dumpers as the universal materials hauler. Truck unloading and materials delivery duties are typically undertaken by a telescopic handler, while a tracked excavator is used to load the muck-away trucks and manage the stockpiles.

The road works sector was, and to some extent still is, the last bastion of a load-andcarry utility machine, initially in the form of loader-compressor industrial tractors, more recently with adaptations of a loader backhoe. In theory, a high/long-reach telehandler performs such tasks on construction sites. In practice, they are typically only used to handle incoming materials, not to shift or load muck.

The Way Ahead

As skid-steers and compact loaders, neither of which can excavate a trench, never really found favour, what UK and Irish sites lack is a load-and-carry muck-shifting machine. Not that we have missed having such a bit of kit, it is more a case of those few that do, wonder how they ever managed without one.

The real value of a utility load-and-carry machine is that it allows the mainstream crews to focus on what they are good at: excavators and dumpers on the main muck-shifting effort. Telehandlers are used to position loads at height or at reach, not suddenly diverted to deliver a couple of tonnes of sand, urgently required at the other end of the site. All this while providing an asset capable of loading trucks and taking pressure off the main excavator fleet.

Wheeled excavators traditionally fulfilled this role on UK sites, however, by start of the new Millennium, they were going out of favour. Then pioneering UK owner-operators began to adopt Scandinavian working practices, based around a high-spec wheeled excavator equipped with a tilt-rotator, often working with a range of hydraulically-powered attachments. This combination is now being widely adopted throughout the industry.

Conclusion

Wheeled excavators and backhoe loaders represent two different price points to broadly achieve the same objectives. They both offer a flexible resource that is equally at home on the road and on site, undertaking a wide range of excavation and materials handling duties, increasingly with hydraulicallypowered attachments. When principally used for digging, the excavator wins every time, as it did decades ago, when 360-degree hydraulic machines were first introduced.

Those enjoying continued commercial success with backhoe loaders seem to have one thing in common: it is the front end of the machine that makes the regular money. The backhoe undertakes higher value-added work, such as trenching, or more accurate work, such as loading site dumpers or wielding a hydraulic hammer.

This seems to be true no matter what the environment, from the over-sized examples working in Scandinavia, through American mass-market machines, to the example featured elsewhere in this issue, run by a modern UK plant hire operation. These folk do not have backhoe loaders, rather they are loader backhoes.

All of which brings us to the impending launch of JCB’s world-leading hydrogenpowered model. However, the long-term commercial success of this British engineering innovation is not going to be based on existing backhoe loader users looking to upgrade.

Rather, it will be based on a greater appreciation not only of what a modern loader backhoe can achieve, but also the crucial role the new model can play on our net-zero carbon sites of the near future.