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Joined: Dec 2000
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old hand
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OP
old hand
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 1,055 |
o.k. so everyone's familiar with a good old bulldozer, but what if it's not a massive machine but nevertheless has a hydraulic blade at the front. Maybe a dredger (on water?) or an excavator?
Where does the front-end loader come into this? Or a (mechanical) digger?
What about those ones with the scoop at the back?
In Australia I've heard those really little ones dubbed Cats or Bob-Cats too.
What would each of you say? Though more importantly, which terms are understood by English speakers world-wide?
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Joined: Aug 2000
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204 |
In UK, the generic term "JCB" is understood very widely as a catch-all for the sort of machines you've described. Incidently, John C Bamford, the man after whom they are named, died this week-end, aged 80.
Excavation tools attached to tractors are called "back-hoes" among the farming fraternity over here, and I have heard the term used by civil engineering workers, occasionally.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Unless you have a big bank balance, you have to be satisfied with a big shovel and a strong back.
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439 |
Front end loaders are the big ones with bucket type attachments in front ... used a lot in Sierra Nevada mountains for snow removal as the "plows" used elsewhere can't do the job ... a snow depth of 10 to 15 feet not unusual in Sierra or Rocky Mountain places at/above 10,000 feet altitude. Around New Hampshire Seacoast plows are used... big one from Department of Public Works and some local guys who plow driveways just put a blade on the pickup truck. Boy-O-Boy are we glad to see 'em when it snows!
Right now we are expecting Three Feet of snow with driving winds and full moon high tides. Market shelves stripped of bread, milk, peanut butter-and-jam, bread, batteries and candles. Hatches being battened down and shovels at the ready.
Hold good thoughts
wow
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204 |
and a strong back.
Preferably someone else's! You could really confuse things by providing two shovels and then asking them to take their pick!
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Posts: 1,981
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981 |
>So I want to dig a big hole .. what do I need? Nothing. I can dig a big hole for myself without any help at all! 
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,773 |
Around here, a bulldozer is a large piece of equipment with a front blade used for moving earth. A smaller blade on a truck or tractor is a plow. A front loader has a large bin on the front which can lift materials, including earth, and dump them higher up, such as in a dump truck or snow truck. An earthmover with a digging device on it, which scoops earth by motion toward the base of the equipment, is a backhoe.
In addition to plows and front loaders, in Michigan we also use giant blowers to remove snow from streets. Up north, the blowers are essential, since the piles of snow alongside the roads become too high for the other equipment to reach.
Good luck, all New Englanders, with the oncoming blizzard. I think it will pass us by here.
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
I have wondered why the equipment used to remove snow from roads are called plows, they are so different from agricultural plows. I was surprised when unable to use Blue Ridge highway because it had not been "scraped" of glare ice. But on reflection, had to admit it was more accurately descriptive than the term I was used to.
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289 |
snow "plows"
If you can find any old pictures, you will find that the first snow plows had large V-shaped blades, like an agricultural plow [plough]. I suppose that on the narrower roads before WWII, they could run the plow down the middle and it would throw up the snow to both sides, clearing the whole road. With the wider roads now common, you need at least 2, sometimes 4 trucks with the rectangular flat blades running side by side to clear the whole width of a road at one go.
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Joined: Jan 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
I can remember when the roads were not ploughed at all, just packed down by flat bottomed sledges, or by wagons with something like over sized skis,in the early 20's. What I meant is that agricultural plows dig deep into soil, and just turn if over. The snow plows must move the snow several feet away from its original position, instead of just turning it upside down.
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