From their heyday in the 1970s, motor scrapers have slowly disappeared from the UK to be replaced by Articulated Dump Trucks (ADTs) and excavators. The once prevalent behemoths were on every opencast and road job and were seen as the most cost-effective and fastest way of moving muck from A to B.


While the majority of motor scrapers have, until recently, been confined to power station coal stockpiles, there are still a handful of older examples operating on smaller projects. What has been changing is the rise again in towed boxes, mainly behind crawler tractors and in some cases, pulled by large agricultural tractors. Whilst rumours abound of large scrapers making a comeback for the likes of HS2 where there are vast quantities of material to be moved, these machines still require the most important part of any outfit, an experienced operator; for motor scrapers, these are few and far between. One forward-thinking company which has looked at their order book and realised there is a requirement for something other than the now traditional excavator/ADT combination is the Sirius Group. Headquartered in Leeds and with offices across the UK, the Sirius Group are a multi-disciplined organisation that undertake a wide variety of consultancy, geotechnical, planning and remediation operations, as well as undertaking the development of both brown and greenfield sites. It was the increase in projects on Government-released greenfield sites that sparked Plant Director, Stuart Kirk, into looking for alternative ways of moving material. “I come from the age of scraper operations and spent many years working with one of the biggest names in scrapers, Neil Becher. I know first-hand that scrapers can be the most efficient and fastest way of moving muck and wanted to look at something similar to this that could help our company. We have used subbies with towed boxes in the past and they have done a great job but, they’re only able to do one job – move muck. We wanted to take that solution and better it.”


14 THE VOICE MAGAZINE No 34 2018


One potential option was to bring scrapers to the fleet, something the company has used with sub-contractors in the past. “We have used tractors and boxes and elevating scrapers before,” says Stuart, “but we wanted to bring this cost-effective method of earthmoving up to date.” Weeks of homework and searching the internet led Stuart to the door of Canadian manufacturers K-Tec. Based in Manitoba state in Canada, K-Tec has been producing scraper boxes and land levellers for almost two decades and offer a range of seven different scraper models and seven different land levellers, all manufactured from high-grade Hardox steel. “Once I saw what the K-Tec machine was capable of, it was a ‘done deal’ as far as I was concerned! But I had yet to explain my decision to the Board and then convince them it was the right way to go – fortunately, they accepted my proposal and we made contact with K-Tec’s team.” From initial thoughts of acquiring the K-Tec scrapers, Stuart knew he wanted to use them behind a converted ADT which Sirius has plenty of experience in operating. “We have used Volvo ADTs for a number of years and they are the best out there. The thinking of using a converted truck was that, should the scraper work drop off or conditions become too bad to operate with the ADT front-end, we could put the bodies back on while still under a full shift,” says Stuart. This versatility boosted the confidence in their purchase and a pair of nearly- new Volvo A30G trucks were taken off frontline hauling duties, ready to be converted by the K-Tec team. The choice of Volvo ADT as the basis for this combination was a relatively simple one. “They are by far the best ADT on the market. They’re built well, are reliable and in the A30G, we


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