But since then, the popularity of these highly flexible and compact LTR cranes has increased enormously. This is underlined by a current look at the British capital. On numerous and extensive construction sites – our cover picture shows construction machinery in the centre of Londonʼs “Canary Wharf” business district – Liebherr cranes, which are mobile even with a load, are increasingly common sights.

Liebherrʼs telescopic crawler cranes are not just rolling over the rubble on the huge Canary Wharf construction site in Londonʼs Docklands, where a fashionable shopping and residential area is being built on more than three hectares next to gigantic skyscrapers. The machines are also in great demand on the construction sites for “HS2”, currently the largest railway infrastructure project in Great Britain. Our compact lifting units are performing numerous important tasks there, especially when it's not just about lifting, but also about transporting materials on the construction sites.

HS2 – a succinct acronym which stands for “High Speed 2” and is the name given to the ambitious British endeavour to cut rail journey times from London to Birmingham by almost half by the end of the decade, and later further north to Leeds and Manchester. Trains that can reach speed of 225 miles per hour (around 360 kilometres per hour) are required for this, as are new, efficient routes, junctions and stations in the metropolisʼ underground. We visited three interesting HS2 construction sites and saw a number of telescopic crawler cranes in use there.

So letʼs get one thing straight right from the start – the dimensions here are enormous. The gigantic construction sites for this project demand great respect and even greater walking distances from visitors. In future, the largest railway station ever built in Great Britain will be called “Old Oak Common”. For the past six years, it has been carved and built both into and on the ground in the west of the city. The construction site stretches for well over a kilometre. Fourteen above-ground and underground platforms will one day handle 250,000 passengers per day in the 850 metre station concourse. A considerable number of construction machines are at work at this giant hub for the HS2 project. It is also where we meet Amy Jacobs, a crane driver from Select Plant Hire Ltd. The young woman sits in the cab of her LTR 1100 and actually has very little time to chat.

Less than two kilometres away, another LTR 1100 also has a load on its hook, which it lowers into a huge shaft. At a depth of 20 metres, a team of orange-clad workers need a compressor. It only takes minutes for the mobile tele-crawler to drive up to the concrete edge with the tool and lower it down to the waiting men. This black-painted crawler crane belongs to Hawks Crane Hire Ltd and is also hard at work for High Speed 2. Different construction site, same massive proportions. Or at least thatʼs what Elliot Hawkins, company boss and the craneʼs owner, assumes: “The Victoria Road Crossover Box, where we are now standing, is, as far as I know, the largest HS2 construction site as far as manhole work is concerned,” Hawkins tells us. “Five really huge holes have been excavated in the ground here. Several tunnel boring machines are drilling through the London underground and will arrive here.”

Mark Hollet, Operations Director at Weldex, Britainʼs largest, global crawler crane contractor, has a similar view of another hotspot for the high-speed rail project. “Due to the flexibility of their telescopic booms and their ability to transport material, weʼre using three LTR machines on the Copthall Tunnel site.” Here near Uxbridge, on the western edge of the London metropolitan region, the Scottish crane experts have a total of five Liebherr machines in action. To manage the heavy loads, there are also two lattice boom crawler cranes from our sister plant in Nenzing, Austria, at the mobile construction site. An 880 metre long tunnel structure is being built here using the cut-and-cover method. After completion, the whole thing will be filled in again and covered with greenery.

What equipment from your fleet do you have in use here on the extensive Copthall Tunnel construction site?

Mark Hollett: Since low-emission construction vehicles which meet the requirements of exhaust emission level 4 or 5 are specified for all HS2 construction sites, we naturally use our newer cranes for these jobs. There are currently five on site – all from Liebherr. We use the LR 1300 SX lattice boom crawler cranes and an LR 1250 here because of the required radii and lifting capacities. Three crawler cranes with telescopic booms are also in use across the site – an LTR 1220 and an LTR 1040 directly at the tunnel construction site, as well as an LTR 1060, which is used in the storage yard to handle the gigantic quantities of reinforcing steel that accumulate prior to loading. This machine is very compact and simply delivers good lifting performance.

Elliot Hawkins, eight years ago you founded Hawks Crane Hire Ltd. You therefore have many years of practical experience with Liebherrʼs LTR machines. Whatʼs your verdict on our cranes?

Elliot Hawkins: Very good! We are delighted with your products. In addition to our eight large lattice boom crawler cranes, we operate seven Liebherr telescopic cranes with crawler travel gear. The LTR series is so practical simply because of the telescopic boom. The set-up times are extremely short and on huge construction sites like the ones we have here in London at the moment, the ability to move equipment or building materials quickly and efficiently is a huge advantage. The crane can move to another work location in only a short time. Compared to a mobile crane, which takes almost half an hour each time, we can save a lot of time. Here on the Victoria Road Crossover Box site, our LTR 1100ʼs mobility and speed as well as the telescopic 52 metre boom are indispensable.

The fact that Liebherr always has an open ear for us has really paid off. We can see from the upgrades or from the new machines, which often contain the improvements we requested previously, that the people at Liebherr not only listen to our suggestions, but also implement them where possible. I think this partnership is something special.

This article was published in the UpLoad magazine 02 | 2023.