Hi there. My first real post so here goes.... I'm 24 years old and am a very good track shovel operator,my dad also is a owner/operator and has a 953b(old tool but emaculate) the main reason I wanted to drive this type of machine is because good drivers in England are sparce and all the older drivers are retiring. Is there any young drivers on here who choose to operate a shovel. My dad has always said we need young blood on these machines because it's a dieing art. Thanks Hugh
What do you call young blood? I'm 48 but don't feel old, well apart from first thing in the morning. And sometimes in the afternoon. Oh, and evenings, if I'm honest. Mind you, you don't need to be able to run a marathon to drive a drott all day. As long as you can stay awake. Though that can be a problem some days.
What I ment was late teens early twentys.I'm the youngest I know off in my area? And my machine is a 2004 963c
28 here but been opperating our 935c and 43 since i was 16. Not many opperators around here young or old.
Me... V-shift and hystat is what I know.
High lifts have always been in our familys My grandpa used to test the new 955s and 951s before they were released to the public. Ive been running our 953s since I cant remeber when Im 23. Im not a cocky person so Im not gonna say Im good.
20 on a 953c
It's good not to say you're good. Let others say it for you. Generally, when you say it about yourself, you find you aren't as good as you think. What do you think?
Wasn't trying to blow my own trumpet....I guess m going on what peopl have told me..thanks for your imput guys hugh
Just winding you up. When I was young I didn't think I was good, I knew I was. One day I had an argument with a foreman, threw the keys at him and told him to do better if he could. He could, and did, and made me look like a total amateur. The labourers never let me forget it, and I've never thrown that particular gauntlet down since then.
Now that is very rare a foreman doing it better than you?....most of the wankers i have worked for don't have a scooby...but if you are any good you will always have work but remember a good rep travels as fast as a bad one
been running 53's, 63's, 73's. 77's. 55's and more since i was 15. i am 35 now. i would rather run a track loader than anything else. burnout is probably the resident track loader expert, as much as i hate to admit it.***
not me (I'm a wrench) but we've got an apprentice that runs a 963
I worked with several foremen who were excellent operators - you ask any of them!
track loaders my family allways had at least 2 td9 drott skid shovels around.i would use them on occassion as early as 15/16. i bought my 175b when i was 23. didnt use it much. it was too big for any use around the property. my t-340 i have now is all mechanical. foot clutch,lever steering,manual 5 speed tranny,hand throttle and a forward/reverser.its a handfull but i can go to town on it. been using it a lot at the new house. im not a slow operator,im not a fast operator,im a half-fast operator. ive seen 1 track loader on a building site in the last 15 years.it was a 953. everyone up here uses excavators now but just about every farm has a crawler loader hiding some where
started on a 941 when i was 15 and now we have the same 941 , and a 943 and 953b i am 28.. and some days i am better than others
So Q...I am the T.L expert? hmmmmmm. Well lets see I have been stuck in 973's for 3yrs full time now. I am 24 and I think im slowly getting the hang of it. The last few days I have been stuck in a baby unit.... 963D. I hate to admit it but im almost starting to like it. The loader calved tonight and they are bringing me a sexy 973C :drinkup
I miss track loaders I have ran mostly the old 953s-983s. I don't have much time in the seat of the newer rear engine units.
27 here, been running 963's on and off for the last 3 yrs at work. my formans think i'm pretty decent on them. as long as they are happy, i am happy
Hi, im 31 and started off driving track shovels in Dorset when i was 16. Not much call for them anymore, so for the last 10 years my ass has been stuck on 360 excavators! Im yet to see one over here in Ireland. I would love to get back into driving them!
You say young operators I am 27 I have been on a loader since i was 1 yr old and operating them since i could touch the pedals. And yes we are a dieing breed. Not to toot my own horn but most of the foremans cant show me nothing that includes runing a job to most of them were I am from are right out of school with some degree and they think there a expert. I learned on a 250 Int C model loader that was wore out beyond all repair and still could hold a grade with in a inch thanks to my dad who was a loader man of 45 years that gave me some tips. Yesterday I was told that I could not fit 3, 12 foot metal pipes on a uhual utilty trailer that was 10 foot long so I bet the forman100 dollors that I could he said deal so I tracked them down and rolled them up like a paper towel roll and put them on the trailer he gave me the money and walked away hurt and it was the talk of the job that afternoon. So young or old we all had to learn some where an from some one. So as a dieing breed we all need to keep doing things to make be noticed still.
I have been running a 963 my company will not buy a 973 I have run a 973 and like them better than a 963 and can do what a 963 does with a 973 and I told them that and also showed them that. I have ben on a loader full time since I was 18 I am now 27 and have ran jobs as a foreman since I was 22 but where I work to much stress so I went back to my loader. I wish my company had 973 loaders.
started running a 943 at 18 and am now 23 and i like to consider myself pretty decent. I got out of equipment operating about 4 months ago to pursue more of a construction management job which i still think about sometimes but I will still do work for my old boss on weekends... I am best on a 943 with v-shift and 2 lever bucket but we also have a Liebherr with joysticks and a 955 with powershift...the 955 I would consider myself least experienced, the liebherr is just a dog anyway but that 43 is a blast to run
17 part time operator on a 977 now thats some old school
can anyone help me post a question i did 3 test posts how do i post?
I ran a 1155 as one of my first crawler loaders and hated it. I dont think I had a good example as my first go at it. Tracks was way to narrow for sand/hardpan we used them in.
When I was 14, we had a rock job. It was a 12" gas line, It wasn't really a city job, but it was if that makes sense. It was in "town", but not heavily populated at the time (East Tulsa), so we had the ditchline drilled and shot, then excavated with a Koehring 666d, a 225 Cat, and a 266 Bantam. Come cleanup time, the jagged pieces of limestone were ripping backhoe tires apart on a daily basis, loading the leftover debris in a dump truck. So dad decided we needed a track loader. He found a 175C, (I think it was about a 1977 model). The undercarriage was completely worn out, and half the cutting edge was gone off of the dozer blade part of the 4 in 1 bucket. We finished the job like it was, then put new undercarriage under it, and fixed the bucket up. I never ran it much myself, I mostly always ran either a hoe or a sideboom, but it wasn't bad to run. One thing I didn't like, it had lever steer. I've since ran a 175c and a couple of 977K's that had pedal steer, and liked them a lot better. I finally sold it in 1998, we just never used it that much. And I HATED hauling the thing, we should have put new pads on the rails when we did the undercarriage, the pads were worn so bad that you couldn't hardly load it over a dovetail without helping it up on the trailer with the winch on the truck. It was easier to use the double drop 3 axle and just side load it. I never could really grade well with the one we had, but the other 175C i've ran I could grade halfway decent. I think mine was too nose heavy with the 4 in 1, and the small counterweight it had. the other one just had a GP bucket, and wasn't nearly as nose heavy.