When SENNEBOGEN material handlers became available in America, Bob Childress was one of the first to put a green machine into service on the Ohio River. Now, he is one of the latest SENNEBOGEN purchasers, too.
“I bought one of the first SENNEBOGEN 825 M units from Brandeis Machinery and Supply (the SENNEBOGEN dealer in this area) for Lanham River Terminal,” Childress recalls. “After Yellow Banks purchased the operation here at Davis County Sand & Gravel, and we needed to increase capacity, I knew where to go, back to SENNEBOGEN and Brandeis.”
Childress recently transferred to Yellow Banks from Kinder Morgan’s nearby Owensboro terminal. Yellow Banks’ facilities include 50,000 sq. ft. of covered storage on a 100-acre property with over 1,500 linear feet of riverfront. The two-tiered barge facility moves a wide range of materials to and from storage: salt, coal, urea, potash and fertilizer, scrap metal and aluminum. Loading and offloading was handled by the SENNEBOGEN 850 M that Yellow Banks owners had purchased in 2008 after seeing a similar model at work at the Kinder Morgan terminal.
It was a year ago that Childress decided it was time to upgrade to a higher volume machine. The 850 was traded in and replaced with a new SENNEBOGEN: an 860 M model fitted with a 5-yard clamshell bucket. What’s on the machine, however, is not as important to him as what’s behind a SENNEBOGEN. According to Childress, one of the most important elements of the SENNEBOGEN operation are its people. “Whenever I have a question, a SENNEBOGEN representative is there with the answer. I really appreciate the attention to detail and SENNEBOGEN’s understanding of our operation.”
“The uptime is unbelievable, and the parts support from Brandeis & SENNEBOGEN is just unreal,” he says. “You can get any part for a SENNEBOGEN any time you want.” Childress was convinced of the factory’s support for its products when he met the Managing Director, Erich Sennebogen, while visiting in Germany. “He was nothing but nice when we were over there. And if you have a complaint about a machine, he wants to know it. We’ve got one machine here, and that’s all we have – it’s got to run every day. If there’s a problem, you can’t just go and rent another one down the street. It’s there, and I know it’s going to run. That’s the main reason I go with SENNEBOGEN.”
In many years as a SENNEBOGEN owner, Childress has seen numerous design changes in the product line. The safety features of the current generation stand out most in his mind. “The sliding door to get into the machine and the catwalk and handrail outside the door make it a lot safer for operators. And the new stairs for getting up to the cab are better when it’s wet, or when there’s snow and ice on the machine. And also, the dual camera system – it works very well for backing around the hopper, and when it has to move around to lift off lids.”
From a performance and productivity standpoint, Childress is again satisfied with his choice. “A year into this machine, it’s done everything we expected it to.”
