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Trio of Doosan wheel loaders powers agricultural enterprises

Winter 2012

The 400-mile-long Central Valley of California is one of the world's most productive agricultural regions, supplying about a quarter of the food America consumes.

Agricultural enterprises operating in this fertile area between the Sierra Nevada range and the coastal mountains need plenty of power — man and machine — to meet the demands of the marketplace. Mike Barry has both.

He started Central Valley Ag Transload, a company that off-loads rail cars of grain from the Corn Belt, warehouses the grain and distributes it to processing plants and farms throughout the west. His 60 employees, including 18 equipment operators, supply the manpower. A fleet of 14 wheel loaders are on site to handle a number of chores, including moving the grain from the warehouse to as many as 200 outbound trucks a day.

Barry is also owner and president of Central Valley Ag Grinding, a 15-year-old firm that recycles wood and organic material that comes from construction jobs and yard waste and turns it into landscaping materials, livestock bedding and fiber for a variety of markets.

Wheel loaders kept busy
Since starting the Oakdale, Calif., transload facility, Barry has relied on wheel loaders to handle the grain, and averages 3,000 to 5,000 tons a day. He has owned several major brands of wheel loaders and keeps them busy six days a week.

"I've tried them all," he says, "and in my opinion, they are comparable in many ways. They all do what I need them to do."

Barry purchases one or two wheel loaders every year. When his long-time skid-steer loader dealer, Bobcat Central in Stockton, Calif., took on the Doosan line of equipment, he decided to take a look at the Doosan machines.

"I had no previous experience with Doosan," he says, "but I had confidence in the dealer and I was really comfortable with the warranty. I like it when a company is willing to back up and support its products. The Doosan warranty is outstanding. I also like the 48-hour parts guarantee."

All of Barry's most recent wheel loader purchases have been high-production Doosan units — two DL300s and a DL250. "When you consider the investment, warranty and other factors that are important to me, you know why I bought the Doosan wheel loaders," he says. "They are an excellent value for the price."

DL300
The DL300 is powered by a turbocharged 217-horsepower Doosan diesel engine and has a standard bucket breakout force of 36,419 pounds. Four forward speeds range from 3.9 to 21.4 mph; the three reverse speeds range from 4 to 14.3 mph.

DL250
The DL250, with a standard bucket breakout force of 29,101 pounds, is driven by a turbocharged 163-horsepower Doosan diesel engine. Four forward speed options range from 4.1 to 21 mph; three reverse speeds range from 4.4 to 14.6 mph.

When evaluating wheel loaders — which Barry is poised to do given that he currently owns four different brands — a good, durable and dependable machine such as the DL250 stands out. "I don't want too many fancy electronics — that can be a negative. I want equipment that has easy-to-operate instruments and is simple to maintain. I don't like to see machines in the shop."

Easy to maintain
The Doosan wheel loaders feature easy monitoring of critical systems, including convenient sight glasses for all fluids, quick access to all filters and the ability to access all grease points from ground level. All of this makes his Doosan wheel loaders easy to maintain and perform routine repairs.

"My operators like the Doosan wheel loaders," Barry says. "They are impressed with the breakout force, lifting power and cycle times. All those factors make a big difference when you are continuously unloading and loading material. They also like the excellent visibility, which is very important with all the activity taking place, and the comfortable cab that can be easily adjusted to operator preferences."

His Doosan DL300 wheel loaders are dedicated to the transloading business. Hour after hour they scoop up grain in the 5-acre warehouse and load the 40-foot, 25-ton capacity trucks that head out to livestock farms and feed processing plants throughout the west.

The DL250 works at the nearby Central Valley Ag Grinding facility. "We use it for a little bit of everything, including loading trucks and moving material to the screening and grinding equipment," Barry says. "It has no problem handling whatever comes in, including heavy brush and lumber, which can be difficult to move around."

As Barry surveys what has been called the "organized chaos" all around him — rail cars dumping grain into a conveyor system on one side of the warehouse and trucks taking it out the other side — he knows the value of manpower and machine power working together.

"It's quite a sight when everything is up and running," he says.