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The Single Row Harvester Story |
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In the beginning there were single row harvesters, and only single row harvesters.
All they were asked to do was to work behind a 20HP tractor, and to harvest over an acre a day in reasonable conditions. They were expected to top each beet cleanly, to preserve the tap-root (in which lay a higher percentage of sugar than in the rest of the beet), to achieve a degree of soil removal, and to put the beet into a trailer.
The first commercially produced single row Standen harvesters were the Junior and its later brother the Universal. These progressed to become the Beetmaster, a very successful harvester which met all of the grower's expectations in the 50's and early 60's.
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The Standen Beetmaster was the first model which had the appearance of a modern machine. The odd one is still used today when the conditions are too wet for anything else.
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The original prototype Rapide which was designed and built in a matter of weeks. Sleek, compact, strong, it was what growers wanted.
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The Rapide Tanker Arrives |
It was the model that followed the Beetmaster which set Standen on its way as the largest sugar beet harvester manufacturer in Europe during the late 60's.
This was the Rapide, whose introduction readers may remember was prompted by the boast of a competitor that Standen had no long-term future. That competitor is no more, whereas Standen has gone from strength to strength.
The first Rapide was novel in that it was actually streamlined in appearance, so was probably one of the first farm machines to be "styled". One may scoff at the concept of styling something as slow and basic as a beet harvester, but scoff not.
Over 10,000 Rapides were manufactured in total, a number that has never, and will never, be equaled. This was one of Peter Standen's master-strokes, and shows it is dangerous to tweak the nose of a Fenman!
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The Development of the Rapide Range
1960 to 1990 |
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There were several major steps in the development of the Rapide. These we will see in the following pictures. Let's summarise them:A holding tank was added, so that there was no necessity to have a trailer in constant attendance. This saved on man-power, and meant less compaction of the soil in the field.
A top-saver was developed, so that the beet tops could be gathered up and left in piles or rows in the field for stock to feed on.
An "in-line" model was introduced, to overcome the small but irritating problem of topped but unharvested beet at the end of the day.
A special type of topping unit was added to the choices open to the purchase to specify, this being the skew-bar topper.
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The Rapide Tanker, which set the range on the way to the Mk 2, Mk3 and Mk3A
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The extraordinarily successful Rapide Mk 2, fitted with a top-saver
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The final model of the Rapide was the Rapide Turbo, which was based on the Mk 3A. It included a front mounted topper which was hydraulically driven from a pump mounted on the harvester
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Part of a consignment of 50 Rapides on their way to France in 1964
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One of ten Rapide Turbos which were supplied to a sugar factory in Syria
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