...but the light changed and I did not want to listen to the people behind me with their irate honking. So I moved on through the intersection to get to the appointment in the nick of time. But watching the guy with the heavy yellow equipment in action was fascinating.
The vehicle was on big tracks like you see on caterpillars (or army tanks), but it did not look awkward, actually remarkably smooth. Like the videos you see of tanks traveling at full speed across the desert during the early days of the Iraq war. Moving much faster than you would think something that weighs tons could travel.
There was a bucket, with teeth on the end of the 'elbow' he was using to dig into a big pile of dirt. The dirt looked fresh, like it had been brought in by a truck and dumped to be use as fill. So the guy with the bucket, that had metal 'teeth' along the bottom edge, was transferring dirt from the pile into a depression. I guess it was a backhoe, but on tracks instead of mounted on a tractor. There was another guy with a front end loader, picking up huge pieces of concrete from a building foundation and putting in the back of a dump truck.
It was amazingly 'graceful', so smooth it did not look like a huge, twenty ton machine in operation - but rather a well-rehearsed dance, with carefully choreographed moves of a ballet. I wish I had been able to sit and watch these guys at work, they made it look so smooth and easy to the untutored eye. I've always been fascinated by HeavyYellowEquipment and would love to be able to operate backhoes and front end loaders, digging holes and chugging around on tracks.
The area where they were working was at one time a huge brick building that covered more than a city block. Originally a mill or clothing manufacturing site, but had been damaged by fire, and occupied by vagrants in recent years. I am guessing someone will develop the land, and likely build apartments, dense housing.
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