Cutting AXV, JCB, Dumper Truck and JP 1979 ...

This was right at the end of the 1979 season as the backfilling of cutting AXV, the big rampart cutting, was nearly at an end. I drove the dumper truck quite a bit during this particular episode of backfilling which was, at times, tricky because we had a big ditch at the bottom and a narrow rampart at the top. Dumper trucks can fall into ditches and off ramparts even if you're being pretty careful and in 1979 they did not come with rollbars. There were some very unsteady, even if carefully planned, pieces of filling where I had to take the dumper across spoil that had not yet become compacted. I'd forgotten until I saw this Phillpotts shot of the JCB and the dumper cosying up to each other that there was more than one occasion where my lack of skill at judging the compaction of the spoil led to the dumper getting stuck. I rather suspect that this picture shows an imminent rescue of the dumper truck by the JCB driver who was very adept indeed at hooking out the dumper truck without damaging it. JP in the foreground.