New backhoe for the museum.

[Brendan Barry]

Dave Allan of Chesterfield Associates, Inc. arranged the sale and donated the purchase price of a Massey Ferguson HX-50 4x4 backhoe for the museum.   Chesterfield Associates, Inc. is the company that did the pile, sight work, and donated heavy equipment use for the Trout Brook project.  Chesterfield also moved bridge from the parking lot to Trout Brook.

Maine Locomotive and Machine hauled the backhoe to the railroad yesterday afternoon.

[Ed Lecuyer]

Dave Allan of Chesterfield Associates, Inc. [...] is the company that did the pile, sight work, and donated heavy equipment use for the Trout Brook project.  Chesterfield also moved bridge from the parking lot to Trout Brook.

Dave Allan/Chesterfield also placed the turntable on its pedestal at Sheepscot. IIRC, Dave also was instrumental in arranging the transfer of the Event Pavilion from Maine Maritime to the WW&F.

A BIG thank-you to Dave for all his support over the years!

[Bob Holmes]

Dave's support has been Over The Top.

This is a significant contribution to us!!

Bob

[Bill Piche]

Always nice to have a loader on hand. Great at diggin' holes and moving piles from point A to point B in an expedient manner.

Just out of curiosity, if this were to be used to load coal is that big bucket wider than the bunkers on the locos? We've had a problem with our Case loader in Portland where we lose a bit to falling off the sides that I know doesn't happen with Fred's tractor.

[Mike Fox]

Dave has been a great supporter of us, as has all of our members.

This will be a great addition to our construction fleet. Each piece we have has a purpose, and this one will too. It is too big to replace the Kubota, and not big enough to replace the loader. Backhoes don't make good front end loaders because the front end is too light.

One thing to note is the tire chains in the bucket. These came with the machine and will be going on shortly to get ready for winter operations.

[Graham Buxton]

So, does our new backhoe have a name yet?


If not, it seems to me that 'Chester' might be appropriate!   Somehow that seems a better choice than 'Fergie'.