I have always thought and found the idea of owning and operating a $750,000 fancy a$$ rotator for recovery work totally asinine. Last year there were two rigs like the ones in the
photos below for sale both went for less than $100,000, Both were 100 ton railroad cranes with not much in the way of hours. One of these on a recovery job would make
a rotator look extremely sad. And I know of a guy named Crane Operator to operate it.
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Funny you should mention those rigs. I have seen several also in the last few years for sale. I think the railroad is selling the ones they owned, and just subcontracting out the work (to outfits like hulcher). I thought about buying one, I do some work at our local senic railroad, but they are just such a limited use machine, I don't know that the numbers would work. But they sure are neat machines. I saw one of them that had a square boom like the pettibone that tugger posted, and they had a boom extension you could bolt into it for a little more stick.
Our local heavy wrecker guy retired this spring. Sold the trucks and now is just running his repair shop (cars, pickups, tires, lube). We have lots of guys running around with little rollbacks, but I really don't want to do that
, I just want a heavy. Not a rotator, just a puller with a wheel lift.
I keep kicking it around and looking at big wreckers, and I think it kind of would fit in with a lot of the other work we do. And I always like a challenge. But, if I have a job tomorrow, with my 100 ton crane doing manbasket work at 200' up, I can't take a wrecker call at 1:00 am and work all night, and then do a good job with the crane the next day. I'd like to think I could, but reality says I can't. I wouldn't mind going out and flipping back up a tipped over dump truck or concrete truck once in a while, but you can't schedule around that kind of work. And if you're not available when the customer calls, pretty soon they don't call.