It’s a Big Job, Tim!
Ten truckloads of parts arrived in Tairua recently, as part of the Pepe Stream Bridge replacement project. It was important they turned up in the right order. Fulton Hogan crane driver, Tim Warburton, explains.
“Huge cranes are too big to travel along roads, so they’re assembled piece by piece on site. And we have to ensure parts arrive at the construction site in the right order so we’ve enough room to lay them out and put them together.” The biggest cranes need up to 16 truckloads. Imagine that. Assembly starts with the car body or cabin. Then the tracks are installed, then the counter weights and finally the boom, which can be up 100 metres long! (The Tairua crane is set up with a 42-metre boom for best lift configuration.)
Tim has operated cranes for 15 years and worked for Fulton Hogan for ten. In his youth he wanted to be a top dressing pilot, but started working as a farmer. Then he was employed by Wrightsons, followed by a job at Hinuera Natural Stone, where he was employed as the ‘dog man’, who is in charge of overall crane operation and planning.
“Then one day the crane operator didn’t show up, I was asked to take over, and I’ve been working on cranes ever since,” smiles Tim. I can tell he enjoys his job. The biggest loads he has lifted so far were steel girders for a bridge built in Tauranga.
Each was 32 metres long, weighed 62 tonnes, and had to be hauled 22 metres in the air, up and over a bridge before landing on the site of a new bridge. On some jobs he does ‘blind lifts’, where he totally relies on radio contact. He works on a lot of water treatment plants and bridges, including a bridge replacement following the devastation caused by Cyclone Gabrielle near Napier.
Perched up in a crane, Tim has some interesting views. With forest, ocean and mountain ranges, Tairua must have some of the best. “Operating in Tairua has been one of the better sites because it has beautiful views and friendly locals,” he says.
Qualifications
So, what skills do you need to be a crane driver? You need certificates to drive those giants, with modules up to level four and a national certificate.
“You need excellent eyesight as well as spatial awareness and good hand/eye coordination,” says Tim. “You also need the ability to multitask. And it helps if you have a calm nature.”
The 120 tonne Sumitomo crane that he is currently working on (crane SCX1200HD-2, to be precise) is set up to lift 32 tonnes and has been putting foundation piles in place for Pepe’s two-lane bridge. The cabin has air conditioning and a meter that monitors wind speeds, with a guideline to operate up to 11 metres per second.
Tim enjoys working for Fulton Hogan and likes the family atmosphere. “The company looks after us and we can talk to everyone. Another good thing when working in the civil sector is that you are on one site for a while and get to know the locals. In jobs such as the cyclone recovery work that we did near Napier, we find the residents appreciate us being there.”
He reflects, with nostalgia, that back in the 1960s his grandfather, Ken Pollitt, worked on construction of the road from Hikuai to the top of SH25A.
While Tim’s job sees him travel to construction sites around the country, he loves living in Te Aroha with his wife Cassie and sons, Liam (20) and Michael (17). Cassie works as a planner for a local surveyor. The couple are both ‘car mad’. They have two rally cars and love being involved in motor sports. Maybe that’s why Liam is interested in being a mechanic. Michael is still deciding his options.
Meanwhile, on the Coromandel Peninsula, Fulton Hogan is on track to deliver a two-lane bridge by December 2027, and motorists are a step closer to a smoother ride into the friendly village of Tairua and beyond.
Note: A timber Pepe Bridge was built in 1911 and widened in 1926. This was replaced in 1943 by the bridge now being demolished.
Words by Pamela Ferla
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