I used to drive the old Cat D10H in the eighties when I worked for British Coal, the most powerful tracked vehicle in the world at that time, and I also drove a Terex motor scraper with two 12 cylinder Detroit engines, one in the front and one in the back, That's the one I blame for my Tinnitus and the problems I have with my hips,It was like sitting on a rodeo bull for a full eight hour shift.
I drove one down the A19 from Ashington to Murton colliery during the night with a police escort, the motorbike cops were shocked at the speed of it, that was the highlight of my driving career so far.
I can vaguely remember the old Cat D6 in the seventies,you had to crank start a little donkey engine then throw a clutch lever to start the main engine,something I used to dread on a freezing winter morning,
Big Geordie was the biggest loader in Britain and was owned by British coal, she could pick up 100 tonnes in one scoop, but she's tiny to the new one's the Germans have,
You just about hit the nail on the head, apart from the sherry bit, only Southerners drink that shite.
This isnt far from me and it would appear to have been a right beast in its day, http://www.walkingdragline.org/
I was working for Pochins in the mid 80's, we did a job for Harris distribution at the freight terminal in Manchester (pet food warehouse! Biggest potential pile of dog shite you ever saw when it was full). The site had been a brick works, and there was a huge pit full of water. It was drained into the Duke of Bridgewater canal. But it had to be cleaned out and then filled They brought a 30RB on site which had just come back from the Falklands, been building runways and such there. It was maybe 10 years old, at most. One of the later models... They offloaded it and parked it up for the safety guy to inspect it. It failed... I kid you not, there wasn't one piece of metal on it that wasn't rusty, it looked like it had been shot blasted and then left in salt, which is what the Falklands is like... It was rejected. The next one on site was a bit older but in far better condition. The driver was very skilled, always just on the edge of setting the bells ringing, not quite.... Very fascinating to watch. He let me have a shot pulling the box back in. It was on site for a couple of months, first cleaning the pit out, then vibro-piling the infill. Thousands of tons... Allinson's lorries were coming on site all day, one every ten minutes or so. All for dog food!
One of the jobs I did in the early 80’s was on machines like this. A Sendzimir, or Z mill, used for cold rolling steel that would eventually be used for razor blades and the like. This is a close up of the roll mechanism, the little ones in the centre are the actual work rolls in contact with the steel strip, the rest are back up rolls providing tons of pressure. The whole thing was like a huge reel to reel tape recorder, with computer controlled tension, which got very messy when it went wrong.
Mrs Big Sandy worked for the company that made the rollers for rolling steel. She says they were made in the foundry, then turned to size on massihoosive lathes. Midland Rollmakers. She worked in the cost office, and detested it. Says the only highlight was going to the foundry for the paperwork for the rollers.
All my big toys were made of steel and cement. Here is California Plaza 1. I was on the engineering.crew.that ran this from 1997-2004. She is 42 stories.above ground and 5 more below grade: Here is another job I ran for 4 years for the State. This is a small one only 12 floors above grade and 1 story below grade ...J.D.
