09/09/2026
A significant impact, yet a solid construction even 25 years later.
Our service department was recently called in for repair work on an operator cabin in Zutphen. The reason was an incident in which an object had landed on the cabin’s upper frame member. The impact was substantial: the frame member was deformed, resulting in damage to the windows.
It was then up to our service technicians to assess whether, and how, the cabin could be restored to good condition. The deformed sections were returned to their original shape, and the damaged frame members were replaced. New windows were then installed, allowing the cabin to be put back into service.
What makes this project particularly interesting to us is the story behind the cabin.. It was manufactured by Merford Cabins around 25 years ago. In the meantime, Merford Cabins and Metagro have become fully integrated, and the organisation now operates under the name Metagro.
For service technician Dik van Dalen, this was also not an unfamiliar cabin. He had worked on it in the past, when the windows were replaced with ones offering improved sound insulation. Twenty-five years later, he found himself standing beside the same cabin again, this time together with Jan Verhoeff, to repair the damage caused by the significant impact.
The fact that a cabin can still be restored in this way after 25 years and following such an event says something about the quality and lifespan of the original construction. The damaged sections could be repaired while the rest of the cabin could be preserved.
It demonstrates the importance of a solid construction, but also the value of having the knowledge and experience to properly assess and restore an existing cabin, even many years after it was originally built.
