Old Pond publishing days

Ford Tractors 1965-95 DVD advance information

Ford Tractors 1965-95: three decades of achievement by George French & Dennis Burston. DVD, approx 90 minutes, ISBN 978-1-906853-51-8. In stock at Old Pond at £16.95 inc VAT.

This DVD celebrates a marque which became known for its manufacturing excellence – Ford.

George French, Dennis Burston and fellow enthusiasts have selected thirty-two tractors to chart the range of Ford’s output from the launch of the 6X range to the merger with New Holland.

The filming was carried out in Devon and Somerset in 2009 and 2010. Wherever possible, the tractors are shown working with appropriate implements including some fine examples of haymaking and silage equipment that will stir many a memory for farming viewers.

Stills from the first session of filming can be seen in the blogs of 22 July 2009 and 22 August 2009. The period covered by the programme follows on from Stuart Gibbard's Fordson Farming.

The machines coverd by Ford Tractors 1965-95 include:

Fordson Super Dexta and Howard Rotavator
2000 and NH 401/5 crimper   
3000 and NH 445E cutterbar mower
4000 and NH 30 flail mower
5000 and Wilder forage harvester and MF trailer   
2000 and Kidd Rotaflail and MF trailer
3000 Select-o-speed and NH 245 haytedder
3000 and Bamford wuffler  
4000 and NH 33 forage harvester and MF trailer
5000 and Ransome TS94 plough
7000 and NH 717 forage harvester
County 1124 with Boughton winch and front blade
County 754 and NH 33 forage harvester  
4600 and trailer
4600 4wd and Ransomes plough   
7600 and trailer
Muir Hill 121 with linkbox  
4110 and bale wrapper  
4610 and P2 2-drum mower    
5610 and NH 276 baler and sledge
6810 and link box
7810 Silver Jubilee and Ransome TSF2000 plough
TW15 and trailer  
TW25 and mole plough
TW35 and Dowdeswell plough   
5030 and trailer
8630 and dump trailer
8630 and highways equipment    
6640 and round bale loader  
7840 with dung spreader and power harrow    
8340 and Lucas straw chopper/feeder
New Holland 7840 with front linkage.

 

 

Peter Robinson's Lincoln's Excavators Part 3 book advance information

Lincoln’s Excavators: the Ruston-Bucyrus Years 1945-1970 by Peter Robinson. Hardback book, 336 pages inc. approx 600 photos. ISBN 1-871565-52-9. Now in stock at Old Pond at £34.95.

In the two decades after the Second World War the story of Ruston-Bucyrus was one of almost continual growth – in the range and size of its products and in the size of the works and workforce.

In this golden age the company’s products included the 54-RB shovel/dragline, 38-RB, 22-RB, the 100 series mining shovels, the 30-RB, machines for piling and special applications, tower cranes and the introduction of hydraulic excavators.

These were machines that sold themselves in a world hungry for plant and construction machinery.

Know Your Buses - new book in stock

Know Your Buses by James Race is a pocket-sized guide to 44 types of bus currently licensed for Britain's roads. It is now in stock at £4.99 from Old Pond Publishing.

Geoff Lewis's Cranes and Excavators DVDs change hands

In 1998 Geoff Lewis began recording big plant at sites in Wales and elsewhere. He started with Ruston-Bucyrus, the company in which he had served his apprenticeship after leaving Swansea Secondary Technical school.

Eight more programmes followed over the years, offering what must surely be a unique view of draglines, grab cranes, dozers, excavators, scrapers, dump trucks, face shovels and graders at work over the past decade. Nine DVDs - over nine hours of viewing.

Geoff's interests now have changed to scale engineering. He is building a one-eighth working model inspired by the Lima 1201 and Marion 1-11, making all the component parts and finely engineering it in steel. He expects the final weight to be 350-400 pounds.

Geoff has sold the masters and rights in the DVDs to Old Pond which is planning to release the complete series - as well as some extra footage recently edited by Geoff - in one set in February next year.

Geoff (centre) during his Ruston-Bucyrus apprenticeship days.

Kings of Construction DVD back in stock

Kings of Construction, Discovery Channel. 8-disc DVD set, approx 6½ hours, released 2007. £21.95 inc VAT. Now available again at Old Pond.

This popular DVD set, which runs for more than six hours, tells the stories of some of the world’s most demanding building projects. These pioneering dreams require ambitious designs, vast amounts of money and nerves of steel as engineers, builders and architects attempt to deliver on time and to budget.

The projects:

• Gotthard base tunnel, 58 kilometres through the Alps.
• Hallandsas ridge tunnel, Sweden. Two 8-kilometre tunnels to enable train access from Sweden to the rest of Europe.
• Operation Snohvit. The building of Europe’s first liquefied natural gas plant, in Cadiz, Spain.
• Hong Kong cable car. The longest detachable cable car system ever constructed.
• Stonecutters bridge, Hong Kong. Connecting Hong Kong with the mainland across the harbour, a main span of over a thousand metres.
• Hoover dam bridge. America’s longest arched bridge, spanning the Black Canyon 275 metres above the Colorado river.
• El Cajon dam, Mexico. The highest rock-filled dam ever constructed.
• The Dubai ski resort. Building the world’s biggest artificial ski slope in the middle of the desert.

Massive backhoe dredgers DVD advance information

Massive Backhoe Dredgers by Steven Vale. DVD, approx 100 minutes. ISBN 978-1-906853-36-5. In stock at Old Pond at £17.95.

Steven Vale shows some of the world’s largest and most powerful pontoon-based hydraulic backhoe dredgers at work.

These enormous machines – often adapted mining excavators – serve the needs of ports, deepening their seaways and building new facilities to handle ever-larger cargo vessels.

By UK standards, machines shown in the first part of the programme such as the Liebherr P964 and Caterpillar 375 are impressive. However, Steven moves on to some truly massive floating dredgers.

Developing the southern end of Felixstowe’s Trinity terminal is ‘Maricavor’ a 300-tonne Komatsu PC3000. At work in the Finnish Gulf of Bothnia are two Hitachi EX1900s and ‘Nordic Giant’, a Liebherr P995 that shifts 12,000 cubic metres of material a day.

An even larger Liebherr, a 520-tonne P996 capable of reaching down to 37 metres, is operating in the hazardous seas off the Belgian coast at Ostend. Hazardous because of the unexploded bombs it regularly dredges up.

Steven Vale uses interviews to highlight some of the choices and issues faced by the operators of these machines.

He finishes by offering us an insight into an even more exciting future - that of the Backacter BA1100, one of a new class of hydraulic dredger that is specifically made for the task.

Some stills from the filming can be seen on the blogs of 8 July and 30 April.

For more programmes by Steven Vale see the Earthmoving and Demolition section of the Old Pond website. 

Harwich & Dovercourt new book advance information

Harwich & Dovercourt: the photographs of Alfred Smith by David Kindred and Peter Goodwin. Paperback, 234 x 169 mm, 128 pages inc. 210 photographs. ISBN 978-1-906853-49-5. In stock at Old Pond at £12.95.

 

Standing on a narrow peninsula in north-east Essex, Harwich has had a long maritime history. The old port of Harwich with its fishing boats, the more modern terminal at Parkeston Quay and the promenade at Dovercourt are all reflected in the many photographs in this book.

Alfred Smith started his commercial photography business in 1952. The majority of the images in this collection are of the 1960s and ’70s. Besides many fine photographs of the shipping and quays, there are sections on the streets of the time – some facing demolition – events such as the Queen’s visits, the Guy Carnival and the distribution of the spicy buns known as Kitchels. The shots of sporting teams of the period will bring back memories to many readers.

Harwich and Dovercourt has a very special character, as depicted in this fine compilation of photographs.

David Kindred, whose extensive archive of photographs is a major source of information for Ipswich and the surrounding area, has prepared many photographic books of local interest. Some of these titles are available from the Old Pond website at the photographs section.

Peter Goodwin, born and bred in Dovercourt, is a keen collector of local photographs and local history.

Farming Diaries Volume 2 - new DVD in stock

Lots of elements draw together to make Tractor Barn's Farming Diaries Volume 2 something special. It features Stephen Richmond who has a wealth of experience of farm work and an enthusiasm for farm machinery going back to young childhood. He and Jonathan Whitlam have been involved in DVDs since 1998 and know just what you enjoy watching. Their new programme is now available from Old Pond at £15.95.