Suffolk Sugar Beet Campaign 2007

OUT OF HOURS TRANSPORT PHOTO FORUM (MEMBERS ONLY)
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Autumn and winter in Suffolk means muddy roads and a strong smell of sugar beet in the air. It also brings out a lot of interesting trucks onto the roads, many of which only see service in the grain harvest and then again in the beet harvest.

As the campaign will last over the winter, I thought I would start a thread now so that I can post up pictures of the harvest, and if you have any yourselves, you can add them too!

Starting off down quiet, narrow lanes in the middle of nowhere…

…you find the fields of beet awaiting harvesting, which could start any time from November to January. Look at the lovely Suffolk sky…no hilly bits to make the job difficult!!

The tell-tales signs on the side of the road warn you what’s happening…

The actual harvest is mainly done around here by specialist contractors, because the machinery used is so expensive. Here is a beet harvester at work near Great Barton:

The end result is one of the many hundreds of sugar beet pads at the edge of the road being filled with beet.

The beet, loaded into bulk tippers or tractors (you get all sorts arriving at the factory) is then moved to Bury to the British Sugar factory. These two are coming from up Earl Soham way, the rest are just various shots I took.

Seen from near Ingham, the British Sugar factory is massive. The beet is unloaded and processed here…

…and seen from the A14 I’m sure this is a familiar sight to many of you.

The trucks come from far and wide - as you can see from this old ERF:

As the campaign goes on I’ll try and post some more pictures up here, but please add to them if you have any!!!

Hope you enjoy.

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Interesting idea for a thread!

Thanks for sharing the pics, hope some others can contribute, I don’t think I’ll be going that way soon but if I do for any reason I’ll remember to keep an eye out.

Alex

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Good pics, looking forward to some more

TC

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nice pics and good idea for a thread - we worked at wissington on a couple of jobs earlier this year just as the campaign finished, i found it amazing that they took in upto 21000tonnes per 24 hours - that’s 800 top weight artics - mind boggling!

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Thanks guys. I’d particularly like to see some pics of Godbold’s old Atkinson, I know Euromat posted a pic of it tipping at Bury last year…and any of the old farm trucks, including the lovely old F7 tippers that only come out of the yard once a year. There are some old British motors working for some of the old Suffolk farmers like Munters at Bedingfield that would be worth a picture or two.

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wish i had seen this thread earlier as was tipping with the seddon this afternoon at icklingham! who do you work for btw?if you dont mind me asking?

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you will have to go up with your box brownie and take some pictures of the pea harvest in Yorkshire. The trucks are not so exotic but that was the first Just in Time operation that worked.

90 minutes from field to freezer whether you have a full load or not :stuck_out_tongue:

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Here are a couple more, this time a couple of Whitton & Frosts loading beet at Woolpit, as you can see the roads are getting muddy!:

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well due to my load of soya falling out of bed friday i ad to begrudgingly drop my trailer and do a load of beet so i took a few snaps!
went to one of our many beet pads and met one of our tractors topping up the pile

then cheated as it was a friday and had a load put on without using the cleaner!

trundled off to b.s.e beet factory and due to one of the samplers being broken was a bit of a queue

weighed in and then queued to have a sample taken. there is not a lot of room in the sample bays and is certainly good fun in a renault premium(not that i have one anymore :blush: ) due to the mirrors sticking out so far. the big silver probe in his trailer is taking a sample of the beet


obeyed the traffic lights whilst they took my sample and looked over at the factory

drove up onto the pad to tip and its in the shadow of greencore barley silos

heres a jcb pushing the beet into the middle of the pad where a converyor takes it away

this was my view from my drivers window whilst tipping


then took one more on the way out

then thought i would share a couple of our gems which are on beet at the moment


sorry about the quality of photos as i am a ■■■■ photographer and have a cheap camera!!! i will try and get some more but its not often i do beet as its to dirty for my liking!

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and i i get time i will get some photos of our beet harvester/tractors and trailers in action but its getting dark now. impressive to see it being harvested,put into tractor and trailers while about 200yards behiend the harvester is a tractor ploughing the field again and a quadtrac steiger drilling it behind the plough!

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ya could make a few cuppas with that lot !

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here is a link to the diary i did last year, doubt i will be doing any this year, great thread, it can be a right laugh on the beet.

trucknetuk.com/phpBB2/viewtopic. … highlight=

also that banks and david stennet are not on the sugar beet, both are sheeted, and the banks is empty probably going into greencore behind the ‘treacle mine’ to load malting barley out

ah it would appear i have removed the pics from photobucket, but i think i have them on disc ill have a look later

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yeah i noticed they had their skin on
edit
stand corrected as lift axles are up

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steve o:

pride of the fleet still i see!! what a shed!

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Great photos Steve O - I’ll try and get some more in the next few weeks!

I worked for Banks’ once (about 20 years ago!) so I should have known about that sheeted trailer.

here is a link to the diary i did last year, doubt i will be doing any this year, great thread, it can be a right laugh on the beet.

trucknetuk.com/phpBB2/viewtopic. … highlight=

BTW, Mat, the pics have all gone off your old thread! Shame as they were great!

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and one of the more frustrating sights, esp when your in your car!!

beet harvester and tractor on the roads going slow!

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Thought you said there were no hills.

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I have added an extra harvest to give you some beautiful colours :stuck_out_tongue:

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it would be just my luck to get a job there peelin em !. :open_mouth: :open_mouth:

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really interesting thread thnx for sharing these!!