International Diplomacy

I bought this McCormick International 434 about ten years ago to replace an old B250 (see Pickled Cabbage on this blog). The 250 was not really man enough to run a 6ft grass topper used to keep the paddock at bay, the 434 features a live drive pto making it much more suitable for these arduous duties. Of interest is the missing tine on the loader bucket - I bought this machine from a farmer in Herefordshire who'd had it from new, when I asked him if the brakes were any good, he grunted some explanation and jumped with all his weight on the pedal, needless to say nothing happened and he buried the front loader into the side of an ancient Claas combine, extracting the lance in reverse gear one of the tines was left behind. I went back two weeks later to collect the machine during one of the foot and mouth quarantine periods so the vendor suggested we meet at Craven Arms in the pub car park to do the deal. Feeling somewhat like a drug dealer I backed my trailer up to his, positioned to allow the tractor to glide, incident free, from one to the other ............. It was a good two hours later that we managed to extract his Land Rover from the ditch some 200 yards down the hill from the pub. As he had been backing the tractor from one trailer to the other, the now weightless ball hitch on his let go and the brakeless 90 headed off in a South Westerly direction, we were both oblivious to this as we were engaged in guiding the 434. I'm only sorry this machine is looking so workman-like and not in the state that some would prefer. MORE TRAILER ACTION.