Hydraulics and Guts

Vaughn McMillan

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My dad (who has spent the last 50+ years on construction sites) sent me these pics. I've known some gutsy equipment operators in my day, but this has to take the cake. Not sure who the craziest person in the world is but I see he runs an excavator. Or he stands below the crazy person running the excavator.

This tower was built specifically to show off the physical strength of the excavator. I'd say there's a lot of faith being put into the tower construction and rigging, too.

Climbing Excavator 1.jpg Climbing Excavator 2.jpg Climbing Excavator 3.jpg Climbing Excavator 4.jpg
 
Larry, in the third pic you can see his tracks are caught between upper and lower "shelves". The weight of the cab keeps it wedged in place. That frees up the boom to hook into the next "socket" for the flat plate at the end of the boom where the bucket would normally be.

I've seen guys work their way into and out of holes with the boom and bucket, but never seen them do headstands on top of a tower. :eek:
 
That's a very convincing demonstration, for sure! :thumb:

Not to take away from the value of the demonstration, but it's mindful of certain truck ads that use a tremendous amount of rigging at who knows what expense to pull off. All of that expense goes into the products the manufacturer then tries to sell. The more some advertisers try to dazzle me, the less impressed I am these days. :huh:
 
That is impressive. It takes guts, a cool head, and steady hands and feet. I saw pics of a guy load a backhoe onto a train coal car. They were repairing the tracks and had gravel in the coal car to put under the ties.

I've seen them, Backhoe was set up to ride on top of the car so it could scoop gravel out.
 
Ah that was just for show. (Although itwas cool)

Chuck ( I think it was Chuck anyway) sent me this backhoe set of pictures a long time ago and I informed him that it was done all the time on the railroad. No joke, just another day for us Brothers of Maintenance of Way.:thumb:

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Yeah man,

I used to load the backhoe I ran (Ford 550 & 555) onto regular flatbed semi trailers like that, without the extra they have to match the railroad cars though. Into the back of 10 wheel dump trucks too. Rail cars are a whole lot higher than truck beds.

That was a loooooooooong time ago. (1979)

(I know, I know, no pictures, never happened)

Aloha, OLD Tony
 
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