Clearing land

Today, we are going to clear some land with a Cat 312B L and friends. Hopefully you enjoy this diorama as much as I did, I feel it was better than the other ones posted on here.

The contractor is Capital Paving and Ronald J. Wagner Grubbing and clearing. Another company did all the trucking, including dumping debris and trucking in asphalt. The project will be a road paved on a stabilized base.

Crews begin by cleaning up a ditch built by local ranchers long ago to prevent flooding.









There are large boulders present and these are trucked off, but the soil is used to fill in holes around the site.











Some large rocks are loaded up to be trucked down a mile to be crushed for road base.












Crews use the 650h to begin moving soil around and removing the top layer of ground.







Now, Capital paving arrives to finish grading so a reclaimer can be used. Note that the compactor is being used to make the ground stable enough to keep a heavy machine like the reclaimer from sinking in the ground. The ground will be compacted further when this is done.


















A big machine arrives tomorrow, so please tune back in... We will mix in lime and cement

Windmill cranes

Here are some cranes, and very large ones at that, the better thing is I was able to get very close to them. Not 50x feet away with my lens zoomed out- oh wait, no zooming here, only prime lenses. The cranes included are a Manitowoc 16000 with luffer, Terex RT1130, Grove telescopic mobile, Manitex boom crane, plus a Deere 350D Lc and others.



I've actually seen quite a few of these cranes, so the larger Terex RT1130 is not a huge surprise but is a nice machine.



Here it is- The Manitowoc 16000. By no way is it the largest crane I've seen, but it is no where near the smallest, and it is one of the best looking cranes out there. It is much bigger in person, with the counter-weight trays well over your head.







Here is a truck you might find familliar. I think it resembles the Sword/TWH model of the Peterbilt 379 (this truck is obviously a 379). There is the addition of guards below the head lights and the fenders are different (no room for the lift axle to move up) but still the resemblence is uncanny.





Note: All photos are shot in the RAW format with a digital SLR and edited in Adobe Photoshop, the way real pictures are supposted to be handled from a DSLR to get the best results.

Some classy pipelayers

Here they are in their glory, I rode my bike to this project a long time ago. 24" pipeline in non-standard length, most likely from a project manufacturer that makes special pipe. This is probably 60 miles of pipe.




Notice the strange configuration of counterweights- of the two 571's present, one was like this and one had a newer Midwest conversion.



These are flanges for shut-off valves or control valves and the valves missing actuators.