Street sweeper's highway to hell - news from Boylan Group

Boylan Group December 2012

Boylan News - in this issue

- Street sweeper's highway to hell

- Lifting cradle set to revolutionise barrier deployment

- QuadGuard assembly workshops

- Boylan's new floating barrier

- 240 tonne motorway bridge installed overnight

- This month in motorsport

Happy motoring!

Peter Boylan, Allan Moffat OBE, Neil Crompton and Matthew Brabham

BOYLAN TEAM SAFETY

Boylan logo

Lifting cradle ensures safety for workers
A state-of-the-art lifting cradle developed in Australia is set to revolutionise safety procedures for the deployment of road safety barriers.

The cradle - developed by Boylan Group operations manager Wayne Duckworth in conjunction with AVS-elli managing director Nigel Buckley - enables 144m of barrier to be transported per truckload (compared to 30m per truckload for concrete).

The lifting cradle has been especially designed for the steel BarrierGuard - Australia's highest-rating road safety barrier. It features a lock-fast system which guards against accidental release.

The cradle has been designed so the barrier can be fully deployed from the ground - an important criteria for OH&S purposes.

"No-one has to get on the deck of the truck," Wayne said. "The attachment and release of the barrier is all done from the ground."

The speed with which the barrier can be deployed and the ability to stack it three high on the truck offers considerable cost savings for contractors, he said.

"Contractors so often opt for concrete because it's cheaper on a per metre basis," Wayne said. "However, if you factor in transport and deployment costs, they end up paying much more than if they had chosen BarrierGuard."

Inquiries: Sales - Boylan (02) 9425 3000. Hire - Coates 13 15 52.

Street sweeper's highway to hell
A street cleaner in England found himself in a hole when his sweeping machine fell through the pavement.

The BBC reports that Kelvin London was driving his sweeper in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, recently when the earth began to move beneath him.

"It suddenly went down and tipped to one side. When I got my senses together I was in a big hole so I got out quick as it was a bit worrying," he said.

Mr London managed to clamber out of a side door unhurt.

Initial investigations suggest that the subsoil beneath the pavement had been washed away.

QuadGuard assembly workshops
Boylan Group staged a series of workshops recently outlining the product features and assembly procedures for the QuadGuard crash cushion.

A 13-minute step-by-step assembly video is now on our website as a reference guide.

Click here to watch

For more QuadGuard details or sales inquiries, call (02) 9425 3000.

Boylan's new floating barrier

Boylan Group is now a distributor for an innovative range of plastic barricade products manufactured by the US-based Yodock Wall Company.

The first is a heavy-duty floating security barrier that offers a clear demarcation for restricted areas on the water.

Another is a flood mitigation barrier that provides a rapid deployment flood wall system.

For more details, call Boylan Group on (02) 9425 3000.

Motorway bridge installed overnight

A 240-tonne bridge was installed over a motorway in

Britain recently in a single overnight operation.

Highways Magazine reports that the single-span accommodation bridge, which stretches 45m

over the M54 motorway, forms part of a road network servicing South Staffordshire.

Bridge parts had been delivered to a nearby compound

some months ago, where the structure was pieced together. To allow engineers to winch the giant structure in safely, both carriageways

between two junctions near the bridge were closed to traffic.

Just after 11.30 pm on a Saturday night, crews began gently lifting the bridge over the floodlit motorway carriage way. The motorway was reopened at 10am on Sunday.

The bridge will be used for construction traffic over the next few months and will be opened

to the public next year.

A field of genetically-modified canola.

Environmental alert on WA highway

AN URGENT clean-up of roadside canola plants near a Western Australian town has been undertaken after testing revealed 62% of plants were genetically modified.

The Conservation Council of WA and GM Cropwatch recently tested 53 fugitive canola plants on a 10km stretch of the Albany Highway just north of Williams.

According to CCWA citizen science coordinator Nic Dunlop, the random testing revealed that 33, or 62.2% of plants, contained GM.

The testing followed a grain truck spill in 2011, when tonnes of GM canola were spilled north of the town.

While positive specimens were found all along the surveyed length of road, there was a particularly high concentration occurring within 2.5km of the Williams townsite and 7.5km south of the 2011 truck spill.

Mr Dunlop said the results were alarming.

"The GM component of the 2011 canola crop was probably less than 8 per cent, which would normally be further diluted by non-GM seed from nearly two decades of conventional canola transport," he said.

"One or two per cent might be expected but 62 per cent indicates that some local factor or factors must be concentrating GM plants."

Boylan motorsport round-up

Clockwise from left ... Geoff Morgan, Peter Boylan, Trevor Cole and Allan Moffat at the Sandown historic event; Trevor Cole with his beloved 1937 Austin 7; and Peter Boylan in action in the Sc class.

The recent Big Bad Sandown event brought together some of the longest-serving names in Australian motorsport.

Organised by the Victorian Historic Racing Register, the event showcased 400 racing, sports and touring cars from yesteryear in an action-packed three-day program.

The oldest competitor was 89-year-old Trevor Cole, driving a 1937 Austin 7 racing car. Trevor's racing career began in the 1950s when he competed against the likes of Jack Brabham and other future Formula One stars. He has owned his Austin since 1971.

Boylan Group managing director Peter Boylan came sixth overall in the Sc class, driving a Porsche 911.

Matthew Brabham turned on a masterful display in the final round of the Formula Renault BARC Winter Series at England's Rockingham Race Circuit, fighting his way into contention for the lead on slick tyres in damp conditions before finally having to settle for second place.

After a troubled qualifying session, the Boylan Team Safety ambassador started from ninth on the grid and, after consultation with team principal Cliff Dempsey, boldly elected to run slick tyres on an extremely slippery surface. Virtually all the other front-runners chose to remain on wets.

Matthew picked up two places on the opening lap, worked his way into second by Lap 12 and closed quickly onto the tail of race leader Jack Aitken. The Fortec Motorsport driver then employed some "robust" tactics to keep Matthew behind him, including almost driving him into the wall on the exit of the oval Turn One and later pushing him onto the grass at the exit of the Tarzan hairpin on Lap 14. Jack Aitken's brazen manoeuvres included nudging Matthew into a spin at the final corner on the last lap. This year's Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda Champion quickly recovered to cross the line in third, but was credited with second when officials realised the race should have been concluded after 14 laps.

"It's just been fantastic to get on the podium and have such a great last race," Matthew said. "I really, really had a lot of fun and enjoyed it."

James Moffat's final weekend after two seasons at Dick Johnson Racing was one of mixed fortunes, on the streets of Homebush.
Moff's Team Norton/DJR Falcon ran inside the top 10 throughout Saturday's penultimate race of the 2012 V8 Supercar Championship, surviving a number of adventures to finish eighth.
On Sunday, the Boylan-sponsored driver bettered Saturday's ninth starting position with seventh spot, but was in the wars early with a pit lane penalty for a first corner incident, before losing four laps with repairs after getting caught up in someone else's accident.
"Guess I am pretty frustrated today, but there's not a lot you can do when you come around a blind corner and there's a car across the road," James said.

"From there, I just tried to circulate and at least finish." James thanked everyone at Dick Johnson Racing for two great years. "I have really enjoyed my time with Dick's team and learned a lot. Here's to 2013."