# BOOKS



## guido (May 13, 2001)

What are some good books in the construction / excavating / paving / snow removal industry that you guys have read?

I picked up a book off of Amazon.com called Moving the earth, the workbook of excavation. Its a 1600 page book from A to Z about excavation, heavy equip, drainage, grading, roadbuilding, everything!! It was almost $100, but it gave me some tips that were well worth the $$.

I also want to check out a CAT coffee table book with a history of their equip and pics of course. I think I saw it on Amazon.com too, but I was wondering if anyone ever checked it out.

Lets hear some of the books you guys have seenor wondered about!


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## diggerman (May 19, 2001)

I think I have all the Cat books that are currently out,it part of a Cat collection I have of toys hats books and advertisements.The newest called "All in a days work" is ok but I like "Caterpillar Chronicle" better,both are good though.If you want a good earth moving book get "Giant Earth Moving Equipment" it has some pretty amazing equipment in it,all of which is massive mine equipment.To many of the books they put out about Cat equipment focuses on the first machines with out giving interesting facts about some of the newer stuff.So if you are not collecting Cat materials the books can get a little redundent,so look them over a little a see that the information is some thing that intrests you.


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## Chuck Smith (Dec 30, 1999)

Guido,

I did a search myself looking for books on snowplowing. There was only one I found. It was out of print, and it was a childrens book. Something like "Riding with the plow operator". Amazon may be able to get it, that's where I saw it listed. My Snowplowing Handbook, is more of a technical manual for those new to plowing. No pics or real history...

As far as plowing, I found a lot of sites with info on it. One was the history of snowplows. An interesting "read".

Here's a qoute:

"Motorization swept the country with amazing speed in the early 20th century, leading to motorized dump trucks and plows as early as 1913. Many cities rushed to motorize their snow removal fleets, abandoning most of their horse-drawn carts. In conjunction with the new trucks, cities began to use Caterpillar tractors equipped with plow blades. To haul the snow away, they used steam shovels, cranes, and railway flatcars to get the snow off the streets and dumped into the rivers. In spite of the technological advances, manual shovelers also continued to be hired as part of the winter work force.

Another motorized invention, the Barber-Green snowloader, was successfully tried in Chicago in 1920, and several cities purchased snowloaders that same winter. The snowloader was an ingenious contraption. Riding on tractor treads, it was equipped with a giant scoop and a conveyor belt. As the snow was plowed, it was forced up the scoop, caught by the conveyor belt which carried it up and away from the street into a chute at the top where it was dropped into a dump truck parked underneath. It effectively made snow removal easier and more effective for the cities by making the process much less labor and time intensive."

Sounds pretty cool huh? Sounds a lot like the Barber-Green road milling machines still in use today too.

You can read the whole report here.

http://nsidc.org/NSIDC/EDUCATION/SNOW/

Enjoy! I sure did.

~Chuck


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## diggerman (May 19, 2001)

There is a couple of loaders advertized in an equipment sales mag I get but they are on rubber.They have a auger that feeds a conveyor that will load trucks that are backed up to them.


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## guido (May 13, 2001)

*Barber- Green*

Barber-Green still makes one of the past pavers out! (in my opinion) I've seen pics of the snow loader before too. Have any of you seen the truck with the torches on the curbside that melted the snow along the city curbs?

(My grandfather told me stories about them) They sounded pretty neat.


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