Ministry of Defence
Back in the 70’s Britain had 3 Aircraft Carriers built, HMS Invincible, Arkroyal and Illustrious. On these 3 ships Matterson supplied a total of 12 lifting units, 4 per ship.
These units were specially adapted to be mounted on the side of the ship and used as heavy duty lifts from the ship bottom up to the hanger deck.
The main purpose being if the ship had an engine failure they could respond quickly with an engine change. They are also used for general duties for moving goods round the ship.
In June 2010 the HMS Illustrious under went a major refit, during this Matterson got the contract to overhaul its 4 Units. These 4 units were made in 1977 and are still operating as good today 34 years on………
Bombardier
Back in 2004 Bombardier (East Ham Depot) purchased some new trains from Siemens.
They encountered a problem with the gearboxes on the new trains which needed to be rectified before they could be put into service.
The trains were to be used by C2C in four car sets. Timing was of the essence because they needed to lift the four sets in one lift. This meant using 16 Jacks in unison to lift a combined weight of 168 tonnes
Bombardier had sufficient Jacks at their Derby depot but as they were all 10 ton SWL some required up rating to 11 tonnes.
This was to cater for the extra weight at one end of each carriage where the engine/gearbox is located.
The 16 Jacks were brought back to Matterson’s at Rochdale - 8 of the 16 Jacks were up rated to 11 tonnes and all the Jacks modified to suit a new 16 way console. This gave a 16 Jack synchronised lift.