Established almost thirty years ago, Earthline has steadily expanded to become widely recognised today as one of the largest independent earthmoving, recycling, and quarrying companies in the south of England.
The company operates from several locations including inert tipping facilities in the counties of Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Hampshire, and Buckinghamshire, along with a wide range of high-quality aggregate production on the Oxfordshire and Wiltshire borders. Operating their own large fleet of 70 tipper lorries enables the company to run fully loaded almost all of the time, taking aggregate and recycled material out of their facilities and returning with inert material for recycling or tipping.
The quarries operated by Earthline produce both sand and aggregates from the yellow-coloured material extracted from the ground. From a variety of sands through 6F1, 6F2, 6F5, Type1 and Type2 – all sizes of graded clean stone from lime dust to gabion stones are constantly produced thanks to a huge range of jaw crushers and screening equipment supplied by Molson Finlay, a specialist division of Molson Group, focused on crushing and screening applications.
Earthline have been operating equipment from the Finlay brand for over 20 years and to this day still operate a veteran sand screening set up comprising of 530 and 830 stockpilers working from a 390 heavy-duty box screen. This older set up was one of the first purchased from Finlay and whilst it has been looked after and well maintained, the build quality of the Finlay product is one of the reasons the company returns to the brand year on year.
Both virgin and recycled aggregates are also produced using a vast array of Finlay Jaw crushers and a range of aggregate screeners at their huge Shellingford quarry. A large stockpile of inert material is being gradually fed into a J-1480 jaw crusher, the company’s largest model from the Finlay range. The J-1480 jaw crusher is one of several jaw crushers operated by Earthline and represents the latest in crushing technology from the Northern Ireland manufacturer. The J-1480 jaw crusher incorporates the Terex Jaques JW55 single toggle jaw crusher which boasts a throughput capacity up to 750 tonnes per hour depending on the application and material it is being fed with. The jaw crusher features a standard 10m3 hopper which is increased to 12m3 thanks to the hydraulically operated extensions and also features a hydraulic wedge clamp to allow it to be set up quickly and easily. The large capacity hopper allows for a steady flow of material to be fed over the pre-screen and into the 1450mm x 820mm mouth of the crusher. The vibrating pan feeder and an aggressive independently driven pre-screen provides optimum separation of dirt, fines and difficult materials and ensures the best material only enters the jaw itself.
Power comes from a StageV compliant 450hp Scania engine, something the maintenance teams are very familiar with as they are present in the majority of their trucks. The diesel engine powers the Finlay’s hydrostatic transmission which allows the machine to be fuel efficient even under extreme working conditions. The hydrostatic drive offers reversible operation for clearing blockages in the jaw crusher, ideal when encountering rebar in the material.
The J-1480 jaw crusher working on recycled material is joined by a pair of Finlay 883+ screens, one being fed directly from the pile to produce finer grade material and oversize which is then fed through the J-1480 jaw crusher and second 883+ producing a further three products. Recycling aggregates can mean a tough life for
The virgin aggregates side of Shellingford quarry is also home to a vast range of crushing and screening trains in the same red colour scheme.
A second J-1480 jaw crusher and 883+ combination handles some of the material trucked up from the adjacent production area. The clean material is again stockpiled with a 38-tonne excavator sitting on top to steadily feed the train. This particular combination produces four products with fines coming directly from the pre-screen on the J-1480 jaw crusher and three final products of gabion stone, Type 1 and Type 2 stone. The 883+ is the most popular screen sold through UK dealer Molson Finlay. Its compact dimensions hide the fact that this little powerpack is capable of handling over 600 tonnes per hour of clean material. The inclined conveyer feeds material across a pair of 4.8m x 1.5m screens on which a variety of screening media can be fitted allowing material sizes to be accurately controlled. Rapid removal of the media can allow the screen to be used on alternative applications such as compost, soil, wood, and metals.
A third train is also on site is producing four materials from 16mm down to dust. This third train comprises a Finlay C-1540P cone crusher running in line with a Finlay 684 Supertrak screener. The C-1540P mobile cone crusher has a proven pedigree in aggregate production applications and incorporates an efficient and productive Terex 1000 cone crusher with direct variable hydrostatic drive, automatic tramp relief and hydraulic closed side setting (CSS) adjustment. The accurate CSS adjustment ensures material is produced at a constant maximum size always ensuring a high-quality product. The 40-tonne crusher is loaded on this application by a 25-tonne excavator which is ideally married to the crusher’s 5m3 inclined feeder. The C-1540P can be fitted with an optional 1800mm x 1220mm pre-screen to remove certain grades of material prior to entering the cone. Scania is again the engine of choice for this particular model in StageV guise with a 9 litre 350hp diesel sitting inside the heavy-duty chassis.
The C-1540P’s cone works to produce a more uniform shaped and sized material from its crusher as opposed to the J-1480 jaw crusher’s irregular shaped material. This material is then fed onto the 684 three deck screen. With an operating weight in excess of 33 tonnes, the 684 boasts almost 72m2 of screening area ensuring it matches the C-1540P’s output. Unlike the other Finlay products, a 109hp CAT is the choice of powerplant for this particular model.
Both the 684 and 883+ screens are fitted with fully adjustable conveyors allowing large quantities of material to be stockpiled prior to one of several wheeled loaders moving it to the huge stockyard where a constant stream of tippers take it out to site.
Earthline Managing Director Philip Coplestone commented, “We have had a long and fruitful relationship with the Finlay team for over 20 years and this has carried on with Molson becoming the UK dealer. The products are well built, reliable and especially in these times, fuel efficient. It is very rare that we have any issues with the build or the components on the crushers or screeners but if there is an issue, Molson have been very quick to come out to site and rectify it. If Finlay didn’t make a good product, we wouldn’t have put all our eggs in one basket and standardised our crushing and screening equipment with them.”
