Loading Shovel Training

How to drive a loading shovel safely

A loading shovel looks simple, but most incidents come from visibility and speed rather than digging. The machine moves quickly between the stockpile and the lorry, often in reverse, with a raised bucket blocking part of the view and people or vehicles working nearby. Good loading shovel operators drive to a pattern, keep the bucket low when travelling, and know exactly where pedestrians and lorry drivers are allowed to stand.

• Pre-use checks, including tyres, lights, mirrors and cameras
• Bucket control, loading and carrying with the bucket low
• Loading lorries and hoppers from the correct side and height
• Stockpile work and avoiding undercutting the face
• Reversing, blind spots and pedestrian exclusion

Where loading shovels are used

Loading shovels work in quarries and sand and gravel pits, recycling and waste yards, builders' merchants, grain and feed stores, and on larger farms. Each brings its own hazards: soft ground and faces in a quarry, mixed traffic in a merchant's yard, and dust, slopes and livestock on farms. Training on your own site lets the instructor deal with the hazards your operators really face.

Loading shovel driver training for different experience levels

A new driver needs the full course, while an experienced driver who has never held a card needs less time and a focus on the test. Drivers who also run a telehandler or a telescopic wheeled loader should tell us, because the stability of those machines behaves differently once a boom extends. Getting the right route at the start keeps the course to the length it needs to be.

Planning the course

Tell us the size and type of loader, how many operators need training and whether each is new or experienced. We then confirm the category, the course length and a date, and quote for the booking. Loading shovel training can be combined with other machines, such as dumpers or excavators, under plant operator training.

Daily checks every loading shovel operator should know

A large share of loading shovel faults are found, or missed, at the daily check. Operators learn to walk round the machine before starting, looking at tyres and wheel nuts, hydraulic hoses and rams, bucket teeth and pins, lights, mirrors and cameras, and the condition of the steps and handrails. Inside the cab they test the horn, the reversing alarm, the brakes and the seat belt. Faults are reported and recorded rather than worked around.