Former colliery becomes a quarry

Eppleton Quarry products in North-East England is producing limestone and sand from a former colliery

A colliery reclamation area is now a quarry producing limestone materials and a high quality yellow building sand.

For the last 11 years Eppleton Quarry Products, a 6207 Hall Construction Services company based in Sunderland, north-east England has been processing this material, which is then sold to block makers and also used for pathways and speedway tracks.

Recently 0 Finlay Plant Northern supplied a 668 Terex Finlay I-1310 Impactor plant, which is being used for a variety of projects at the site, and which is said to be proving a versatile and efficient addition to the screening and crushing fleet at Eppleton Quarry Products.

Uses for the impact crusher include the processing of red shale, which remains on the quarry’s land as a by-product from Eppleton’s coal producing days.

The I-1310 Impactor is also being used to process the Permian limestone at the site and is also available to help produce the pure, yellow building sand, used for construction projects across most of the north-east of England and in County Yorkshire.

As well as the Impactor, Terex Finlay 683s are also used at Eppleton, again all supplied by Finlay Plant Northern.

A 683 currently works off the Impactor on the red shale processing to deliver a 15mm product, while 683s also work in tandem with the impact crusher to process sand.

“We use the I-1310 because it gives a better shape and higher throughput than the other crushers we have looked at,” says Jeff Stephenson, a manager of Eppleton Quarry Products.
“It can produce sand and various aggregate, and the versatility for us is that it can work with different materials, such as soft rock, coal and shale.”

Charlie Nairn, a director of Finlay Plant Northern, said: “The Terex Finlay I-1310 is a very useful addition to quarrying environments and is proving its worth at Eppleton.

“It has a simplified maintenance requirement, is rapid to set-up, compact and easy to transport and is exceptionally durable.”
Eppleton Quarry Products operates a number of sites for the recycling of aggregate materials, while Hall Construction’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Coal Contractors, is one of the leading open cast coal producers in the country.

Across the business, Finlay Plant Northern has provided a fleet of machinery which, as well as the Terex Finlay I-1310, includes six Terex Finlay 683s; two 883 primary screeners and both J1175 and J1160 jaw crushers.

Willie Lambert, operations manager at Eppleton Quarry Products, said: “We have dealt with Finlay Plant Northern for years. During this time they have helped us select the necessary machinery to support our broad-ranging work and we also benefit from good service back-up.”

Hall Construction Services was established in 1974 in the north-east and has expanded from its early roots as a plant hire company into a successful building and civil engineering company employing more than 250 staff operating from offices in County Durham, South Yorkshire and Scotland, while Finlay Plant Northern is part of the Finlay Group, which comprises 11 stand-alone companies with a national reach across England and Wales.