Doug Hamilton’s machine memories (Part Seven)

by Nick Drew | Fri 19 Jul 2019

Doug Hamilton’s machine memories (Part Seven)

Continuing our series featuring the memoirs and the photos shared with us by retired plant man Doug Hamilton.

Doug had gone out to Canada to work with his mate William (Bill) Peters. There was plenty of work to get stuck into operating the machinery. One of the favoured trucks out there was the Terex including a variety of models from its successful 33-Series of off-highway trucks.

There was great camaraderie on the job in Canada and the lads were always up for a group photograph! Of note in this shot below we see on the left William (Bill) Peters, the short guy was a Canadian driller and his service guy colleague, and on the far right, looking like a Donald Trump double, this fella identified as Dick Shadbolt, was another English loading shovel operator. Interestingly, Dick who hailed from London, had previously been to work in Nigeria, a place he described as being corrupt as hell, he related a tale that you even had to bribe people to get your luggage out of the airport back in those days, consequently he didn't stay out there very long!

Doug and a friend took the opportunity to travel to America to check out some heavy iron at both Caterpillar and international Harvester. They arrived in Chicago a day early and spent the day visiting the city and taking in the sights like Sears Tower and the like. The next day they set off for Peoria by taxi, which cost them $20, a lot of money back in those days. Doug said, “American money all looked the same back then, so when we got there, we gave the driver what we thought was a $5 tip, we discovered later it was actually a $50 tip, ouch that hurt!”

There was plenty to see at Caterpillar’s spiritual home in Peoria, Doug takes up the story, “While we were visiting the Cat factory for only the second time in history the assembly line was shut down. We were told that the first time was when they changed to metric, and on this occasion, they were going back to imperial”.

As is often the case during factory tours, although it is improving these days, the guys were not allowed to take photos inside the factory, but they were able to take some shots of ready for shipment machines out in the yards.

It was a similar scenario at the International Harvester facility, but once again they were able to capture some machines which were out in the yard.

Pictured below: International Pay Scrapers lined up and ready for delivery to customers.

Pictured Below: Doug was reunited with an International Pay Hauler, examples of which he had driven back home in the UK. This one was the newer and larger 350 model.

The guys later visited Wabco/Haulpack the dumptruck and motor scraper manufacturer and from there they by the legendary Greyhound bus to Toronto. Doug said, I then took the train to Winnipeg, I should’ve flown too but I wanted to see some scenery, but in reality, all I saw for 32 hours was trees and more trees too many damn trees, that was a foolish move!” More of Doug Hamilton's memories in the next instalment here on the Digger Man Blog.

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