BDFT
Senior Member
I've been working at a small open pit mine in northern BC for about 8 months now as a truck driver, Cat operator and grader operator. Up until this last shift I have been running one of two old 16G's. The 200 year old man that usually runs the 16M finally went on holidays and I found myself in the drivers seat. I was surprised at how easy it was to transition to the joystick machine. After about two hours I had it figured out and by the end of the shift I was grading like an old pro. Maybe the 10+ years of experience on John Deeres, Champions and Cats helped but it still was remarkably easy to make the switch. I never realized how tiring it was grabbing all those levers and cranking the steering wheel (9 turns lock to lock) for 12 hours until I didn't have to do it anymore. I'm definitely convinced. Its going to be difficult to switch back to the old machine when I go back in.