Hello one and all, Here's my first stint for the 2009 PHOTO racing season :notworthy As some might remembered I was being loaned out to our materials division last fall, they are now loaning me to a sort of dirt job It's a little closer to home and I'm one of three guys currently on the job so I've got a shot at runnin just about everything, except maybe the D8, but that's ok by me. This is the story as I understand it... this quarry was once a long time ago an underground iron mine, which subsequently collapsed, after that it was changed to a quarry and past through several owners. As of now our job is to reclaim the slopes, clean up the piles of steel, concrete, etc and let it be. Ok, enough of my babbling though, here are the first set of photos. overview of the old yard The most tired 345bL I think AI owns. It leaks from just about everywhere, is dirty beat and scratched, but it still runs, which is more than I can say for that hammer, has a leak from the nitrogen cylinder to the hyd. system, not good. The D8r leveling off a pile to get loaded out. Cat 980g with a Myers yellow paint job I don't know why, but some hoe operators love to leave dirt for the dozer to push up:drinkup That's it for now, but I'm sure I'll have more to come in the following weeks and months, enjoy:drinkup
Jim, good to see you guys are busy. From the sounds of it, work is hurting in the states. I notice the 345 with the hammer has some oil on the undercarriage, and if the hammer is junk is it time to take her to the auction? The 980 looks a little different with the A.I paint, but i like it. Also is the hoe in the last pic the 345 in the first pic with a bucket on her? The bucket looks a little big, and its missing a tooth and maybe even a shank?
Yeah, we have 4 pieces of equipment on the job, one 345, one D8, the loader and an A30d. The A30 and D8 are AAM machines and the 345 and 980 are ICM. The hammer got traded out on Monday for a better one, apparently the nitrogen was leaking out into the hydraulic lines:Banghead More than 70psi of gas and you could here it gurling up the lines. So yeah, the hammer was due for a rebuild I guess. The 345 has a "few" leaks on it... it went through 8 gallons of hyd. oil today, so it needs to be looked at too. It handles the bucket pretty well though, I think it is either a 60 or 66 inch bucket and yeah, it's been missing a shank since before it arrived on the site. As far as work, we're really slow right now, I'm quite happy just to be working right now, hopefully this project will keep me busy till spring:drinkup
Great pics. Love to see more of the job as you progress. Especially if you can take some from the same place every month and then post them all together. Eddie
Another day at the Lake 10pm Sunday night, seems like a good time for an update. Spent the week jumpin between 980 and A30d (when it ran:Banghead). Just cleaning up some concrete chunks... The first slope we are reclaiming... with only one truck, we're making some good progress. This is the first pile on Friday (1/9) and Friday (1/16) more to come...
wheres this job at?
Morgantown, right next to the landfill. We get buzzed by probably a couple hundred seagulls every day It's ok though, there are a few bald eagles that hang around the place too, I find them to be a very cool bird, and not too common around here.:notworthy:usa Everything seems to break down on the cold days:beatsme
ahhh...yea i believe i know where you are talking about..on the other side of the landfill as 10/176?....little closer the driving to MD everyday for you.....any news on that poop plant they are building right there in Coatsville behind Lukins?
thats the old slag pit bethlem steel owned than sheridon corp than us.(aam) i worked in that landfill for bfi. i was their for the first load of trash. long time ago bout 13 years or so. when it opend.
Yeah, sounds about right. From what I keep hearing the lake there used to be a big stock pile then the old ore mine shaft collapsed and goodbye pile. Before my time though. I never realized how long that landfill was there, what all did you do there? Hey dirtdigger, Last I heard the poo plant is gonna keep those guys busy for another year and a half or so. I guess they are rebuilding the whole thing. I don't know I practically live walking distance from it, so I know the least ointhead
thats good...i saw them putting in some big drainage pipe this summer, not AAM...some other outfit then talking with Bob Rube I think it was, he was saying that AAM landed the job in there and i guess started right around the new year too bad you didn't get sent there if you live so close
great pics
Lets see if the photos are working this week... Yes they do!:usa:drinkup Nice work Steve... These are all from a couple weeks ago, I haven't gotten this weeks yet. First shot was pretty cool with the fresh snow and the sun trying to peek through the clouds. Too bad it was the POS 345, mechanic finally came out that Friday and looked at it, I guess 2" of play in the boom's base pin was enough reason to finally try getting a better machine in.... course they brought our newest 345c in:beatsme The rest are that week's progress on the slope.
new hoe This is a few shots from this week of the Cat 345cLME they brought in. It's just shy of 3 years old, 4500+ hours on it.:usa Rumor is, we're getting a second truck too. Oh, and the fuel truck:drinkup
Greta pics Jim thanks for sharing, I really enjoy before and after / during shots :drinkup
Your welcome Rob, I enjoy sharing them, but sometimes I worry that people get bored or tired of seeing them. Good to hear I'm not boring everybody:drinkup:notworthy Got some photos of the new 8 to load one of these days. The d8r we had there had a major issue so it got sent to the shop and our newly aquired D8t was dropped off. It looks so much better than it did in VA
you guys got a what now??? i'll have to see this thing
I know for a fact Myers did buy a D8T @ the end of Dec.
excellent
Cool shot of the bald eagle. Wow.
Yeah, pullpan is right, we bought a new one, I believe we have been renting it for the last year. We also brought the other D8t up from VA, which is the one they brought to this job, apparently VA isn't allowed to have it back:ban What it looked like last April What it looked like Monday after they dropped it off fresh from the paint and fab shop (3rd set of tracks, and new undercarraige):drinkup I just wanted to add this last shot cause I thought it was cool looking with the sun, fresh snow and steam coming off the dirt:usa
asome last pic!
that last ones sweet
sweet pics thanks for posting them up
Great pics Jim... good to see other people are still workin. Looks like I am losing the 2009 pic race though. Guess I better get workin on the "Time to vent pic post". I'll take that 8T off your hands though, and trade you a well used and abused 8R
tell me I've misunderstood, its been rented ? for the last year and its on its 3rd set of tracks :beatsme ......wheres it been, 24/7 on a beach recovery ? Wicked pictures, that last one wants framing and putting on a wall :notworthy
Ah don't worry burnout, you got 10 months left. :drinkup I don't know if corprate would like it if I gave away a dozer... Slightly, yeah. We have two D8t's. We bought a brand new D8t in December that we had been renting. This is NOT that D8t, this one has been run by our VA branch for the last few years. It has 4100hours on it, and yes that is the 3rd set of tracks, might have something to do with the nearly 600 hours it spent in 3rd gear.:beatsme:Banghead I like that last photo a lot better in the original size, I've got plenty more that look good, I'll try to get some of them up this weekend.
Thanks Jim, that makes sense :drinkup
Nice d8!
Video anyone? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ox3MGyydyWo
Nice shots Jim, cant fault the tunes either , hope you weren't the next truck in line.......... I'd want to know why you werent under my bucket
yeah... guilty, I was next in line. In my defense we were starting a new pass and there wasn't room to get in line behind the other truck, so I figured, what the heck:beatsme The song just happened to be the one on the radio at the time, but thanks! :thumbsup Some more photos, couple of these turned out better than I had intended:notworthy:usa enjoy
update Well I'm a little behind, and quite tired tonight, but I thought I'd pop up a quick update. We finished the slope, began/finished topsoiling it. Now we just have to clean up some junk, topsoil any other "disturbed" areas and I guess we're EPA approved:beatsme:usa Today, I got to spend the last hour of the day loading the topsoil, instead of hauling it, one hour closer to a full time hoe operator... some day:drinkup:notworthy:usa enjoy
wrappin up This past week we really started to wrap things up... We now have a 4:1 topsoiled slope, which I'm gonna have to get better shots of on Tuesday, cause the ones I've got didn't turn out at all good. We also had a brief snow squall blow through on us on Thursday as we were removing the slop from the haul road.:beatsme:drinkup:usa
Couple more before I head to bed.... sorry some of them have mud splatter in them... First three were taken from roughly the same location over the last 3 weeks or so And just another shot of the 345 loading topsoil:usa
great stuff!
Great pics Jim thanks. :thumbsup
Thanks guys... Here are the "completed shots" I promised, for the two of you still keeping track of this thread . All we're doing today and tomorrow is sorting out and cleaning up the trash/steel we've come across in the last two months, then we are done (for now anyway).:drinkup Not sure where or when my next photos will be coming from:beatsme so I guess this might be a bit of a pit stop for me in the "pics race" .
That job turned out very nice! Did you keep track of how many loads you hauled in all lol
where you heading from here?...I talked with Chris Falls today...you know him?
Cool pics, nice work, good luck with getting the excavator position!
Great pics Jim, we've seen that slope in grey, brown and even white so I hope you will be popping back in a few months to get a final one in GREEN
Chris, The first couple weeks I did when it was just me runnin truck, and it was about 1087 loads then. After the second truck came in I lost track, on a typical job we keep track of our loads, but since this was T&M so no one was taking our load counts. I would speculate a grand total of 3000 loads (including topsoil).:beatsme Name doesn't really ring a bell, what did he have to say? No offical word yet, but I might be going back to the quarry until/whenever work picks up ointhead Rob, I'll do my best to sneak back in there around May, see if it's green yet:drinkup
hey popcorn how many golf balls did you find in that topsoil? I got close to 300 out of that pile.
Yeah we came across one or two I think I swear golf balls grow in topsoil, I'm not sure I've ever been on a job where I didn't stumble across at least a couple of them:beatsme
ok... i lied ...THESE are the last photos... sorry the last two are kinda blurry... cell phone pics . So as we were doing our earth moving, we had to continually pick up random trash and steel... and kind of "stockpiled" it up top by where we parked. Since Wednesday we now had to sort the junk by metal, not metal, tree, or tires... metal got one dumpter, not metal another, and the trees and tires were piles off to the side to deal with later. What I wouldn't have given for a grapple...:Banghead:Banghead Once it was all done, we had whatever dirt and rock made it up here left over, so I took about an hour today and tried to grade it up a bit. I won't lie, I am NOT a dozer man:Banghead, but in my defense I haven't been in a 6 in at least a year, so I guess I did ok:beatsme On Monday I'm going back to Elk Mills, to do something from 10-6
Great pic's keep them coming
I love this kind of work never gets boring
That's how I feel about all kinds of dirt work:drinkup:thumbsup I miss it, but I'll be back some day:beatsme Thanks for commenting Case 580e, not only for the feedback, but reminding me I need to get a "green" shot for Atlas rob:cool2
you can get a picture of my stupid shiny "green" hardhat...haha
sunbelt handout :beatsme lol...
no, he's offically an AAM newbie, Welcome aboard dirtdigger:usa if you ever get out of that office, we'll scuff it up good for you so it's not so shiny:stirthepot:Banghead
well i am in the office the first 90 days...that is also how long i have that bright green hat...so hopefully when i do get out in the field i wont have to wear that thing anymore i guess i get yellow next?
Congrats on the job, dirt digger!
As long as you're still hourly, yes it will be yellow. I think they are phasing in those new "vented" hard hats, so it would probably be one of those. I dunno, I've had mine for over 3 years now, I snuck in between the "red" phase and the "green" phase, so I only have yellow hard hats
all i know is that green means everyone on the site tries to avoid you...haha I am working on a bid right now that you will like...to be submitted on July 2...also when they will find out...I'll let you know more details as they come available all next week is more orientation and 30 hour OSHA..so i wont be back in the office until the following week