I was on a service call to replace a starter on one of our JCB 508's and saw this so I stopped and snapped a couple of pictures. I'd never seen one before, Has anyone ever used one? It looks like it would work well for back blading but must be a real pain in the neck to use. The green thing on the front is a snow blower, sorry I didn't get a better picture of it.
That would be called (colloquially) an "Irish Loader" down here... No offence intended to those descended from Lepricorns I don't know about NH but Massey, Landini, Case and Lamborghini have those something backwards tractors here, normally setup for vertical forklift. Which way was the seat facing??
That NH is able to be driven with the operator facing either direction...they use them to run really big cutting heads here www.loftness.com look at the video for the Timber Ax Extreme...pretty neat tractor!
Howard, CHTucker ( I believe is a member here) just picked one up. He has some pics posed over @ http://letstalksnow.com/forums/
they are called a Bi-directional tractor and have been out for over twenty years. I think Versitile developed them and then the company was taken over/bought out by new holland and ford. there are actually a lot of them on the canadian praires. beside the loader/snow blower, you can get all sorts of attachments for them. I have seen grain swathers, sprayers, mowers, power brooms to name a few. there is a 3 pt hitch on the back, (the loader arms will come off with just a few pins and quick connects) some tractor models have a 3 point hitch on the opposit end as well . both ends have live pto's . The platform in the cab that has the seat/wheel can swivel 180 degrees and the loader controls are run by foot peddles. fwrd/rev is conrtoled by a hand lever. they take a few minutes to get used to, but they can be very handy for a farmer. ( i used to have one on the farm till i couldnt afford to farm)
JCB makes one that is very similar.
It does look like it would be hard to beat for snow removal. I found some more info about them and you can see how the tractor can be drive facing the loader. http://www.newholland.com/au/tv140.htm#
I ran one on my friends dairy for an Ag loader it worked very well it’s no frontend loader, but a lot better then the old Hough it replaced.
we had an older one at the last company i worked at used it mostly for snow put a snow blower on one end and a scraper box on the other, they put a bush hog mower on it in the summer. http://www.jamconstruction.com/ theres a picture on the main page of it blowing snow
Very interesting piece of equipment. I haven't seen anything like that around here except the fork lift like Squizzy said.
We have one, it's a New Holland TV145, the newest model available. I started attaching pictures, but the limits are just so tiny. So here's a few of our's for those that are interested: http://talk.newagtalk.com/forums/get-attachment.asp?action=view&attachmentid=6601 The ones ending in a number will ask you to open them in your viewing program, the ones ending in .jpg can be viewed right in your browser window. I have too many pictures, and more information on these machines than you'll ever care to know, any questions you have feel free to ask. -Josh