WR Shaw's hire tractor business continues to grow

In March of this year, Ireland felt the full force of Storm Emma with heavy snow recorded across much of the country. The so-called Beast from the East brought many parts of Ireland to a standstill with roads closed for days and public transport cancelled.

However, at Dublin Airport, a fleet of New Holland tractors was busy clearing snow from the aprons and taxiways of the airport runways to keep planes on the move in and out of Ireland. The fleet of New Holland tractors at Dublin Airport, which number 45 this year, is supplied by WR Shaw, the Tullamore-based tractor company.

Speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal ahead of this year’s Ploughing, WR Shaw managing director Billy Shaw says the fleet of tractors at Dublin Airport are there on a short-term hire contract.

“We’ve had 45 tractors hired to Dublin Airport over the last year,” says Shaw, whose company has had a contract to supply Dublin Airport since 2011.

“We would also hire a lot of tractors every year to Bord na Móna, as well as some contracts with smaller peat companies,” he adds. In all, WR Shaw leases out a fleet of 90 tractors every year between Bord na Móna, Dublin Airport and private contractors or farmers. The group also hires tractors to Gurteen College and Teagasc in Athenry and Trim.

“We have two big accounts with Bord na Móna and Dublin Airport but even if we hadn’t got those we’d still be able to hire out 70 to 80 tractors every year. The amount of calls we get from people looking to hire out tractors for the summer or a couple of months is amazing,” says Shaw.

Size

WR Shaw first started leasing tractors in the late 1990s but it wasn’t long before the size of the hire fleet began to grow, with increasing demand from contractors and farmers every year on top of the big contracts.

“It’s mainly contractors who look to lease tractors but you get the odd farmer too. If you have a bad spring or if it’s coming close to silage season, you might get a call from a farmer looking to hire a tractor for a couple of months’ work,” says Shaw.

Tractors are leased for a 12-month period or 1,000 hours, depending on which the customer hits first. After 1,000 hours, the cost of the tractor is €15/hour.

According to Shaw, the main benefit of hiring a tractor is the peace of mind it can deliver. The cost of the tractor is fixed for the year, and the customer knows they’re getting a new tractor every year and will have no downtime in terms of repairs.

“Hiring a tractor suits some people but really and truly you need to be doing about 1,000 hours per year to justify the hiring of a tractor.

‘‘If a customer is hiring out a tractor for 300 hours a year, they really should be buying a tractor,” he says.

After the fleet of hire tractors come back to WR Shaw, they are sold secondhand usually at a price €10,000 to €15,000 cheaper than a new machine.

“If you take a tractor that’s come back from Bord na Móna with 300 or 400 hours on it and it’s €12,000 cheaper than a new tractor - that’s a very attractive deal for many farmers. It suits a lot of people who can’t go for a brand new tractor. There’s a bit of value in them,” says Shaw.

Good year

Despite the challenging weather conditions throughout the year, 2018 has been a good one so far, according to Shaw. Over 200 tractors have been sold in the year to date, which is ahead of all of 2017.

“We sold all our hire tractors from last year and brought in another 20 from the UK and sold them. We never had such a year,” he said.

Looking ahead to this year’s National Ploughing Championships in Tullamore, Shaw says it will be interesting to get on the ground and gauge the mood of farmers.

“The Ploughing has always been a good barometer of the mood of farmers,” he says. “If it’s anything like the Tullamore Show we will be very happy. I was expecting there to be a real doom and gloom at Tullamore after the weather this year but it was quite the opposite. Farmers were in a good mood.”

At this year’s Ploughing, WR Shaw will have a lineup of its ex-hire fleet of tractors available for sale. The company will also be showcasing the T6 Dynamic Command New Holland tractor, which is the new generation of New Holland tractors. Shaw will also be bringing the T7 165 F, which is a scaled-down tractor that comes at a cheaper price than the top-of-the-range models.