The Playground: JCB Equipments

Big boy’s toys – and not one, but three! Oh, how I went silly…

People tell me I have the best job in the world. I mostly smile back and say, “well you know, it’s not always fun,” and that’s true because not every day is fun-and-games routine. Sometimes we have slow days where we don’t know what to do and sometimes we have super hectic days where we don’t have time to indulge in our regular monkey business and fun. Either way, on this day I definitely had one of the best jobs in the world – I got to go to a grown man’s playground. As a kid we all had little toy trucks and trains and some of us even had toy cranes and other construction equipment. It’s naturally engrained in a little boy’s DNA to want to have little toys of the big things they see in real life. But today I am no little boy, far from it actually, and more importantly I am not playing with little toys – I am, in fact, playing with the full range of the actual JCB loaders, excavators and lifters.
JCB needs no introduction, but if you are a yuppie boy, who has a fond interest for things other than mechanical marvels, JCB – J C Bamford Excavators, if you like – makes construction and agricultural equipments with bases all over the world, and JCB India is the largest construction equipment manufacturer in the country. They are the real deal and their products show it.

We were taken to the outskirts of Jaipur, just outside the new site where JCB is planning to develop a brand new state-of-the-art manufacturing facility. It was a large barren plot of land and awaiting us were JCB’s brand new products from its wide portfolio. They were all lined up and we were allowed to get inside any one of the machines. Obviously, I got inside the biggest one – the brand new JCB 3DX Super Bakhoe Loader. It looks like a massive truck that could bulldoze anything in its path – and that’s no exaggeration. The 3DX Super is super-huge, it’s the biggest of the 3DX range and it comes with special (not to mention massive) tyres and a JCB 444 92bhp turbocharged engine. The 3DX Super is meant to operate in the toughest conditions, so the engine coolers have been increased in size for better performance in hot and dusty work conditions. What was really a shock to me, however, was how comfortable the cabin was. Obviously the operators of these machines need to be kept cool and calm when working in dangerous places so they don’t go crazy in a machine like this. After a brief tutorial, I got behind the wheel and took it for a little spin and I was, really, even more surprised to see just how easy it is to handle the machine. The steering is so light that you could maneuver it with your pinky. The hydraulic controls are also a breeze to operate and you really just need to focus on what you are doing and get used to handling the controls. I always assumed that it was a daunting task to handle these big toys, but I was shown differently.

Next I took to the JS 81 Tracked Excavator. Unlike the 3DX, this uses tracks instead of tyres, and this was the first time I was operating such a machine. Each track has its own lever for movement, and that is how you turn a machine on tracks, which I never knew how to. The cabin is equally comfortable and the hydraulics are very easy to operate. The whole experience was truly exhilarating and I learned quite a bit as well.

JCB has just launched these two products including the JCB Liftall 1553 that can lift and travel with a capacity of 15 tonnes. The new plant in Jaipur will produce all these products for the domestic as well as international market.