Crane sections and masts
Tower crane mast sections and jib runs loaded flat and delivered to the erection site in the order the crew needs them.
ALLMI trained driver / operators · UK-wide
Lorry loader hire
The crane and the lorry are the same vehicle. One booking moves the load, lifts it into position and leaves — no separate crane, no second contractor, no waiting.
The word itself
Lorry loader, loader crane, hiab — one machine
A lorry loader is a hydraulic arm bolted to the chassis of the lorry that carries the load. ALLMI, the trade association, calls it a lorry loader. The manufacturer HIAB gave the industry the name most customers type. Engineers say loader crane. They all mean the same vehicle.
Why it matters commercially: a mobile crane has to be hired, delivered, set up and paid for separately from the haulage. A lorry loader arrives with the load already on the back. The crane is on the lorry, the driver / operator is in the cab, and the same visit does both halves of the job.
Where a lorry loader stops being the right answer is height and duration. If the lift is above roughly twenty metres, or the machine has to stand on site for days rather than an hour, a mobile crane is the honest recommendation and we will say so.
What we load with them
Typical lorry loader work
Tanks and vessels
Cylindrical loads sit badly and roll easily, so they travel chocked and strapped on the deck and are lifted off on the crane.
City-centre construction
Deliveries into live sites where a mobile crane could not be set up and the road cannot be closed for long.
Containers and site boxes
A wagon and drag carries two loads on one journey, and the crane on the front of it puts both of them exactly where they are wanted.
Machinery onto rough ground
Structures and machines placed off the deck onto ground a mobile crane could not stand on, with the legs padded to spread the load.
Two cranes, one lift
Where a load is long or unbalanced, two of our loader cranes lift it together to a single plan and a single banksman.
Competence
Who is operating it, and what they hold
One of these is only as safe as the person setting the legs. Most of our driver / operators hold ALLMI lorry loader certification and CPCS cards, and several of them hold Rail Track PTS for work inside the railway boundary.
We have our own appointed persons, and we can supply a lift plan and the RAMS that go with it, generic or written around your site. The health and safety page sets out how that works in practice.
The stabiliser compliance label pictured is the sort of thing worth asking any lorry loader supplier to show you. Stabiliser legs are where a machine like this most often fails in the field.
The cranes
What each loader crane will actually lift
Ratings from the manufacturer data sheets, not from the model number. The 858 is a 66.1 tonne metre crane, not an 85 — the number in the name is a model, not a capacity.
| Loader crane | Lifting moment | With ADC | Hydraulic outreach | Max lift |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HIAB X-HiPro 858 E-8 | 66.1 tm | 71.5 tm | 19.6 m | 18,000 kg at 3.8 m |
| HIAB 855 E-8 HiPro | — | — | 19.4 m | 18,000 kg at 3.8 m |
| HIAB 658 EP-6 HiPro | 51.2 tm | 55.5 tm | 17 m | 10,900 kg at 5.1 m |
| HIAB 622 E-6 HiPro | 50 tm | 54 tm | 15.8 m | 22,000 kg at 2 m |
| HIAB X-HiPro 558 EP-5 | — | 49.7 tm | 14.5 m | 10,800 kg at 4.6 m |
Max lift is the load at the crane’s shortest working radius, and it falls as the boom extends. Every capacity-at-radius table is on the lifting capacity page.
Before you enquire
What to send us, and what you can safely leave out
Short version: describe the job in a sentence and let us do the arithmetic.
Useful
What the item is, in ordinary words. Where it is now and where it has to end up — two postcodes will do. And what stands between the road and the landing point at the far end: a wall, a hedge, a gate, a run of parked cars, a garden that has never had anything heavier than a wheelbarrow on it.
A photograph taken from where a vehicle would have to stop is worth more than any measurement you could send us. It shows the access, the surface, what is overhead and how far out the reach has to be, all in one go.
Not needed
An exact weight. A measured distance. Any of the figures on the specification tables further up this page. Those are there for people who want them — quantity surveyors, site managers, anyone writing a method statement — and they are genuinely useful to that reader. They are not a form you have to fill in before you are allowed to ask us a question.
If a rough guess is all you have, give us the guess and say it is one. We will tell you quickly if the difference matters, and most of the time it does not.
Common questions
Lorry loader hire, answered
What is a lorry loader?
A lorry loader is a hydraulic arm mounted on the chassis of the lorry that carries the load. ALLMI, the trade association for the sector, uses "lorry loader"; the manufacturer HIAB gave the industry the word most customers use. They are the same machine. Because the crane travels with the load, one vehicle and one driver / operator do the delivery and the lift, with no separate crane to hire and nobody waiting on site.
How big are your loader cranes?
Most of our lorries carry a loader crane. Maximum reach runs from 14 metres on the 558 rigid to 19.6 metres on the 858 rigid, with the 658 rigid, the wagon and drag and the artic all at 16 metres. What each one lifts and carries is on the lifting capacity page, because the figure that decides a job is the weight at the distance you actually need.
Are your driver / operators ALLMI trained?
Most of them are. Our driver / operators hold ALLMI lorry loader certification and CPCS cards, and several of them additionally hold Rail Track PTS. We have our own appointed persons, and we can supply lift plans and RAMS, generic or written around your site.
Can I hire the lorry loader without a driver?
No. Every vehicle goes out with our own driver / operator. A loader crane is not plant you sign for at the gate — the driver / operator is the person who reads the ground, sets the legs and works to the lift plan, and our insurance and our ALLMI obligations both sit with them.
What is the swing-up stabiliser sticker on your cranes?
It records that the stabiliser system has been checked and found compliant. Stabiliser legs are the part of a loader crane that most often goes wrong in the field, so the check is worth asking any supplier about — and worth their being able to show you.
Do you hire lorry loaders outside the North West?
Yes. Manchester is the depot; the work is UK-wide across mainland Great Britain - England, Scotland and Wales. Lorry loader hire, loader crane hire and lorry mounted crane hire all mean the same vehicle, and it goes wherever the job is.
Truck-mounted crane hire · Hiab and driver hire · What it costs
Tell us what needs lifting
A line about the load and where it has to go is enough. We will pick the crane and come back with a price.
