We were at a commercial site today and I saw a large rubber tired J.D backhoe/loader doing some work on the other side of a big trench. He was working between the trench and the building and was basically “trapped” in there.
The trench was about 5′ wide and close to 8′ deep. I wondered how he ever got across it to work where he was.
While I was still watching him, he finished up and drove over to the side of the trench, lowered the front bucket so it touched the ground on the other side and then put the backhoe bucket on the ground behind him and lifted the whole machine into the air and skidded himself right over the trench and dropped the machine down on the other side!!
The ground is still frozen here, so the sides of the trench were pretty stable, but I have never seen anything like that before.
He was obviously good, but I can’t figure out if he was confident or plain stupid!
Replies
I'm not sure how common that is, but that's similar to the things we would do where I used to work- to get the excavator off the trailer ( a mid sized rubber tracked one), put the bucket down and use it to support that side of the excavator, then drive off with the blade skidding on the other side until the tracks were off, then lower yourself down between blade and bucket. It's a little more complex than that, but you get the idea. Pretty cool what you can do with those things if you've got someone to show you some tricks.
zak
That's pretty standard.
If you want to see something scary check out a company called Herzog. I worked around these guys years ago. Best backhoe operator I've seen. Scary but neat.
The video is pretty cool and well worth the time to load if you are on dial up.
http://www.herzogcompanies.com/rrservices/cartopper.php
Na na-na-na-na na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na na-na-na-na !
I need somebody to help me say it one time!
The wildest thing like this that I have ever seen was in Norway. The roadways that run along the fjords are 1 1/2 lanes wide, for two-way traffic. You should see buses trying to get past one another at "wide spots" in the roadway.
Of course, they have to maintain these roadways! One day we came upon a very large crane that was parked squarely in the center of the road, unloading some materials from a truck. Traffic was at a stand-still in both directions. I'm thinking to myself: there's no way out of here, we're going to be here forever. The hillside that the roadway was cut into was perhaps a 7 in 12 pitch, so we weren't going to be able to drive around this thing!
After 20 minutes or so of work, when the truck was unloaded, the crane operator swiveled the crane around so that the tracks were pointed to face going off the edge of the road to the downhill side. He then extended the bucket downhill and lodged it in the dirt. He then drove the crane forward until only three feet or so of the tracks were still on the roadway. That cleared the road for the rest of us, we went on our way.
Looked very skillful and terribly dangerous for the operator, and for the couple of houses that were downhill of the road.
Holy S**t !!! Just about the time you think you've seen it all !!!!
And they show it under perfect conditions. They can get into some real spots.
Na na-na-na-na na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na na-na-na-na !I need somebody to help me say it one time!
I spent a couple of summers working for the local utility. Worked with one backhoe operator who was an artist - he could make that thing do a jig - stuff like you saw no problem. We were ditching sidewalk to underground utilities, and in addition to dancing his way down the sidewalk he could "feel" and excavate around clay drain tile with no breaks. Sure made it easy for the spotter with the shovel (me)!
SamT
One broken hydraulic hose = One dead backhoe operator