However, crawlers did the job asked of them a lot better than wheel tractors because of their much greater traction and lack of soil compaction. He was covered in thick dust from head to toe, and a ring of mud surrounded his nostrils and mouth (and eyes too if he failed to wear goggles).
#Lawn mower mini dozer driver#
When the driver stopped at noon or in the evening, his ears would be ringing. To say that operating a track-type tractor hour after hour was a miserable job is an understatement. The constant loud squeaking of the tracks’ “dry pins” compounded the noise problem: As the pins went around, every pivot point was metal-to-metal. The driver also endured extreme noise: The diesel engine was unmuffled with the exhaust stack only a short distance from the driver’s seat. Since crawlers of that era were all open, the driver sat out in the heat or cold, exposed to the wind and almost constant swirls of dust kicked up by the tracks and the implement being pulled. A friend told me of working on a field so large that he started out at 7 a.m., made one lap and it was time to stop for lunch. with time out in the middle of the night to eat your lunch. If you worked the night shift, you started at 7 p.m. Even though the Cat could pull quite large implements (we pulled a 6-bottom, 16-inch moldboard plow and harrowed with 10 5-foot sections of harrow covering 50 feet), hundreds of hours were spent every year on every field. The D4 Cat I drove most of the time traveled at 3.7 mph when working. Since those fields needed to be plowed, disced, harrowed, summer fallowed (worked to keep weeds from growing and preserve moisture) and then later seeded, they were worked several times a year. In south central Idaho (where dry-land winter wheat is common), farms ranged from 1,000 acres up to several thousand, with individual fields commonly 60 to 160 acres in size. Occasionally one would run across a farmer using an Allis-Chalmers HD-5 or a larger model from that line. Less popular were International TD-6s, TD-9s and large TD-14s. Mid-size farms used one or more D4s bigger operations utilized D6s.
Small farmers used gasoline-powered Twenty-Two Cats and the later diesel-powered D2s. The tractor of choice in my part of Idaho was Caterpillar. Large grain-growing areas of the Great Plains and mountain states relied on crawlers almost exclusively for several decades. Track-type tractors were the dominant form of farm motive power in some parts of the country up through the 1960s. However, when it came to getting farm fieldwork done, crawlers excelled. They leave their mark traveling straight ahead and are noted for tearing up the surface when turning. Additionally, track grousers (also known as cleats) damage the ground. (The rubber-tracked tractors of modern times are not crawlers: Crawlers had steel tracks.) Secondly, track-type tractors are heavier, slower and much harder to transport than a tractor on wheels. At their peak, crawlers accounted for just a small part of total tractor production in the U.S.
They are rarely displayed at shows, and only occasionally appear in calendars and books and on TV. Crawlers remain relatively scarce in antique iron circles today. But few did that work on a crawler.Īmong that shrinking pool of farm workers, only a small number ever used the track-type tractors commonly known as crawlers or tracklayers. Front-line soldiers, sailors and airmen were unique.Ī similar situation existed in American agriculture, in what might be called the “Early Tractor Generation.” In the first half of the 20th century – before the great migration from the farm to the city first recorded in 1930 – millions of people performed various kinds of farm work. In fact, even in the wartime military of 15 million, only one in every 26 soldiers was in combat. It is well known that the phrase “Greatest Generation” applies to those responsible for victory in World War II.īut relatively few alive during those years were involved in actual combat.
For 40 years, author Clell Ballard has used a Struck Mini-Dozer to clear his driveway, using a rotary blower.
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