Take your kid to work

[wrc]

Got mine with me today. On of them anyways.

 

[kshansen]

Guess in a way I was the kid who followed his dad to work. And 45 years latter I retired from that place! Unfortunately dad did not live to see that day but he did stay there till he retired for the same quarry.

I recall near the end when he was in the hospital and still able to converse he said to me "We had some good times at the quarry, didn't we?"

I'd have to do some digging to be exact but seems I had about 10 years more at the quarry than he did when he retired!

 

[colson04]

If I'm going outside, he's right beside me

These pics are a couple years old. I drowned my phone last summer and lost a bunch of pics and videos, including the one of him sitting in my lap last summer, running the controls for the hoe. He picked up on the Deere pattern super fast and had a blast digging dirt in a 'real' backhoe.

 

[kshansen]

If I'm going outside, he's right beside me
These pics are a couple years old. I drowned my phone last summer and lost a bunch of pics and videos, including the one of him sitting in my lap last summer, running the controls for the hoe. He picked up on the Deere pattern super fast and had a blast digging dirt in a 'real' backhoe.

View attachment 194565
Looks like a born operator to me!

 

[cuttin edge]

Kids are smart. One of my boss's sons was sitting on his father's lap as he piled up top soil with 350 jd. After half an hour of this, his father stuck both hands out the window as the hoe kept piling material. My father used to take me to work when my mom's back went out which happened a lot. I was always truck crazy so I loved it. I learned how to feel a wrench at a young age, plus we spent time together. My father died just shy of his 70th and he hadn't stopped working. He went to work when he was 16. He died of a brain hemorrhage caused by Melody spalastic syndrome, which was caused by exposure to chemicals in petroleum products. Doctor said it was rare and I need not worry but let's just say I don't wash my hands in gas or fuel anymore.

 

[Nige]

My young fella getting ready to fire up the dyno back on 2004 ......... where did the time go..?
What was on there at the time is just in the top LH corner of the photo.

 

[farmerlund]

It’s never to early tho learn how to put on thread locker in the first pic. Definitely loves flying, let her take the yoke last fall kept it nice and level with a little coaching over the radio. Helping move the excavator in the last pic.

 

[farmerlund]

Good lord Nige, how many HP is that beast? Is it two engines coupled together? must be one heck of a dyno.

 

[Mother Deuce]

My young fella getting ready to fire up the dyno back on 2004 ......... where did the time go..?
What was on there at the time is just in the top LH corner of the photo.

View attachment 194570
View attachment 194569

Sick or repower? 797?

 

[AzIron]

Of all the good mechanics and operators you know. How many of them DID NOT start when they were like 3 years old?

You have to strip out, snap off, crack or otherwise destroy a lot of your own (or Dad's) stuff before you learn not to do it to the customer's.

When I turned 18 my dad gave me an invoice for 300 grand said that was what it cost him to get me where I was in capability i thought it was pretty funny

 

[Mother Deuce]

It’s never to early tho learn how to put on thread locker in the first pic. Definitely loves flying, let her take the yoke last fall kept it nice and level with a little coaching over the radio. Helping move the excavator in the last pic.View attachment 194574 View attachment 194575 View attachment 194576

She has the most styling work boots! )

 

[RZucker]

Of all the good mechanics and operators you know. How many of them DID NOT start when they were like 3 years old?

You have to strip out, snap off, crack or otherwise destroy a lot of your own (or Dad's) stuff before you learn not to do it to the customer's.

I started riding the grader with grandpa at 3 years old, later followed my uncle around the shop "helping" him, and riding in the trucks when he hauled equipment, occasionally rode the scrapers with Dad. When I was 9 I was pushing sand with a 9G, when I was 13 I was on a Wabco 252 chasing everybody else for an 8 hour shift when I had a chance. Actually built the fill for our new house in 1977. It had 3 sides for a daylight basement, Imagine a kid reading grade stakes at 13-14 years old. I also ran the crane truck to set an I beam for the carps when they started pounding nails.

 

[RZucker]

Mom has some old pics from way back, me on the grader with gramps, you can just barely see my pups tail over the door sill in one of them, she also has pics of me on the scraper build in the house pad after school every day for 2 weeks. I'll see if I can get her to dig them out.

 

[Nige]

Good lord Nige, how many HP is that beast? Is it two engines coupled together? must be one heck of a dyno.

It's a Cat 3524, the original 797 engine. It was actually two 3512's coupled together. 3300 BHP give or take. We'd just commissioned a new dyno for testing those engines, up to then we could only go to a maximum of 2500 BHP which was fine for 793 engine but nothing any bigger than that. So we installed a 2nd identical dyno giving us the capability to test two engines simultaneously if they were less than 2500 BHP each, or one engine up to 5000 BHP with both dynos coupled together.
The latest engine for the 797 is a purpose-designed V-20 C175 engine - 4000 gross BHP, 3800 nett.

 

[kshansen]

It's a Cat 3524, the original 797 engine. It was actually two 3512's coupled together. 3300 BHP give or take.

Now that's a real engine for a real truck.

I always got a kick out of guys like the UPS drivers who came in to our shop and commented on the "HUGE" trucks we had, 769C,D and a 773G! Don't think they believed me when I'd tell them that there were trucks out there that could haul ten times the load ours could.

 

[Raildudes dad]

I was a volunteer with the local tourist RR. My son was 10-11 when we were out with a work train, couple flat cars and a 25 ton American self propelled rail crane (all levers and foot pedals). It's end of the day, I'm dead tired, leaning on the flat car waiting for the crane to couple up. We get coupled up and I lookup at the operator. It's my son. I said to him, who taught you how to run this? He says I stand behind Rick (the usual operator) and watch what he does.
Another time I need to clear up the yard tracks for the weed spray truck. I'm shoving a couple of the little 4 wheel track work carts when I derail one at the worst place to have a derailment. It's the heavy one, takes 4 guys to lift it. It's just me and my son. Can you run the crane (lifting since I already know he can move it)? No hesitation "yup", me "go get it". He gets the DD fired up, builds his air and brings it over. I hook up the cart, he lifts, swings around and puts it down on the flat car.
One Saturday I'm running a CAT 416 loading stone into a hi rail dump truck (one of our volunteers worked for a track company and borrowed them for the weekend). I'm running the TLB and the other guy is driving the dump truck and repairing stuff while I load. I'm pretty much a one function at a time guy - not a lot of equipment experience. My son is pestering me "let me try dad". After a 1/2 hour of pestering I finally I say "try it". He gets on it and within a few minutes he's doing everything on the fly. The other volunteer says to me "dad, I hate to tell you this but he's a natural operator and he's loading me a lot faster than you". We let him run the loader the rest of the day.
One of the engineers would let him run the locomotive on occasion with him standing behind my son. He had a ball doing stuff like this.
So............. I get a call from his teacher. "I need to talk to you about your son". Me - "about what?". Her - "he is telling lies at school". Me -"such as?" Her - "today he was telling the class he ran a RR locomotive this past weekend". Me - "he's not lying, he did, plus he can run the TLB and the crane".
All good memories of him growing up Unfortunately no photos, this was all be before cell phones with a camera

 

[wrc]

Not to steal your thunder railroads dad, but I can do one better then the teacher calling from the school saying he is telling lies.
My oldest daughter who was in preschool at the time. She was out of school sick for the day so she had no choice but to go to work with dad. I had a pretty light day lined up. Only thing on the schedual was a 10:00 am grave to be dug in the local cemetary. So she rides along and kept asking me what we were doing and I tried to explain but all she caught was "burying a lady". When she arrived at school the next day she told the whole class and the teacher she help me bury bodies on her day at home. Boy oh boy did the school call me very fast demanding answers. I had some fun with that!

 

[Vetech63]

Not to steal your thunder railroads dad, but I can do one better then the teacher calling from the school saying he is telling lies.
My oldest daughter who was in preschool at the time. She was out of school sick for the day so she had no choice but to go to work with dad. I had a pretty light day lined up. Only thing on the schedual was a 10:00 am grave to be dug in the local cemetary. So she rides along and kept asking me what we were doing and I tried to explain but all she caught was "burying a lady". When she arrived at school the next day she told the whole class and the teacher she help me bury bodies on her day at home. Boy oh boy did the school call me very fast demanding answers. I had some fun with that!

LOL...…….Had something similar happen to me too. My daughter was in 2nd grade and we had installed a drug education class in our elementary school ( I was the school board president during this time of course). What I DIDNT know was that smoking cigarettes was part of the curriculum and was being taught as a drug. I have smoked since I was 14 years old and still do and it was always around my kids. My Superintendent called me a couple of weeks after this class started laughing hysterically...……...My daughter was telling EVERYONE in school that " My daddy does drugs".) Needless to say, that took ALOT of explaining!.

 

[Vetech63]

Keep up with the pics and stories fellas! Great entertainment going on here!

 

[8V149 Detroit]

I like reading stories and seeing the pics of kids working with their parents and learning what their parents do and some being able to do things most their age can't. Gives me some hope for the future that there will still be working folks.