As heavy equipment technology develops, the types of equipment available to operate grows. In the beginning there was the humble dozer, and that was just a tractor with a blade attached. Over time we have developed graders, backhoes, excavators, I could go on. If you like at road and rail construction, some of the equipment used is simply mind boggling.

One good example is the huge machines used to cut holes through mountains. We drive through these road tunnels and think nothing of them. The machine used virtually eats its way through the rock, no matter how tough it is.

Other heavy equipment that looks quite different are some of the specialist fork lifts like the all terrain fork lifts and the store picker fork lifts. As the name suggests, store picker fork lifts move up and down the aisles of warehouses picking items that are required. Picture a standard forklift. Now raise the upright arms 10 to 15 feet and extend the forks by a few feet. To counter balance the forks at f feet or more, the rear end of the fork lift can be huge. To navigate the warehouse aisles, it needs to be narrow. So you end up with a huge grass hopper like creature. A large heavy rear with these two arms sticking out way above your head.

All terrain forklifts on the other hand at least look a little more normal. The heavy equipment technology that ensures their safe use comes in the form of suspension, four wheel drive and a heavy counterweight to ensure the load doesn’t rock dangerously going over rough terrain.

Undertaking all-terrain fork lift training is a must if you want to successfully operate one. This training is sometimes offered as part of a heavy equipment training program. If you get the opportunity to have fork lift training included as part of your heavy equipment training, grab it. They are skills that always in demand across a wide range of industries and as heavy equipment technology expands, the ability to acquire skills across a range of equipment may become harder.

From the “How NOT to do it!” Department:

So after a freezing cold, thirteen hundred mile flight in an ancient DC3, I arrived in Echo Bay in the Northwest Territories, 12 miles south of the Arctic Circle. It was my twenty-fifth birthday, but I wasn’t celebrating. We landed on an ice strip – apparently right in front of the mine, but I couldn’t see anything but white. I have no idea how the pilot landed that thing. Two guys looked out the window and refused to leave the plane.

The rest of us newbies shuffled off the plane and onto a bus that took us up a winding goat trail to the office, where we were given a room, a list of rules, and were told to report to work within the hour. By the time I had put my stuff in one of the worst bunkhouses I’d ever seen, the weather closed in and the plane was grounded. For two days as it turned out.

Through near white-out conditions, I made my way down the 117 steps to the garage. After introductions the consisted of a nod, a grunt and a really bad cup of coffee, the foreman said, “Get on that six and put the blade on it. Push the road to the dump”, then he turned and left. I looked at the ancient mechanic, wondering what a six was. He tilted his head toward a bulldozer at the other end of the shop. A Komatsu D6. AHA…, I get it! Then to myself, “They want me to run that? I thought I was here for a forklift job?”

Then it sunk in…, I had never even sat on a bulldozer before, let alone had any training. I smiled a sickly grin. The old mechanic stared at me and spit on the floor. I smiled wider. He didn’t – he just stood there waiting for me to do something. So I gave him that time-honored line, “Huh! What d’ya know? She’s not quite like the last one I drove!” He rolled his eyes, sighed far too loudly, and pointed to the floorboards – he knew exactly what was going on. He’d probably seen hundreds of guys like me.

Humbled, I asked him where the blade was, and he pointed out into the now raging storm. “bout a hundre’…, up…,” I couldn’t hear him after that because he opened the big doors and walked out in the howling wind. Folks, here’s where I could really have used some training!

But at least I was alone! I climbed on my new “six”, and eventually found the starter – near the floorboards. I got lucky – it was an electric start, so that part went better than I deserved. Like I did on the sawmill forklift, I played with things until the machine lurched. After nearly stalling it a dozen times, I finally figured out what made it lurch in which direction, and backed out it out the door into the storm. Once I was clear of the building, I pulled the levers until it started to swing. It was the slowest turn ever made on a dozer – I had no idea if I was going to be able to stop swinging! I could just picture them finding me in the spring, frozen solid and still turning around in circles. I was so glad that no one could see me.

“Up” turned out to be fairly obvious – the place was built on a cliff. So I pointed the machine “up”, and trundled off into the blizzard. I had no idea where I was going, and within minutes, I couldn’t even see the buildings in the growing dark. “But…,”, I thought…, “But no one can see me, either!”

Several hours later, I was getting a bit better at making that monster go where I wanted it to, although I’m sure that I took years off the life cycle of those clutches. I still hadn’t found the blade, which is just as well – I had no idea how to mount it. They eventually sent a search party out for me. The foreman waved me back to the shop, and when I climbed down off ‘my’ six, he asked me, “Did you get it figured out?” “Oh yeah”, I said. He rolled his eyes and sighed way too loud. He knew.

So…, the long and the short of my story? Even if you have an “opportunity” like I that, don’t do what I did. Get some training. The machines will thank you.

From the “How NOT to do it!” Department:

When I was young, it was a lot easier to get into running heavy equipment. On-the-job training was the usual way to learn, and even if you had a certificate, no one ever asked for it. As a result, there were “opportunities”, even if you had never seen the machine before!

My “opportunity” came when I was looking for a job in the Canadian North as a welder. My business had just gone under, and I was desperate for work. I found myself in Edmonton, Alberta…, in February. It wasn’t a great time to be looking for work – partly because the economy was bad, and partly because I was freezing my tail off as I slogged around to the various hiring halls.

After two very long weeks of searching, no one held out no promise for a welding job, but one personnel guy asked me if I’d ever ran a forklift. Of course, I said, “Oh yeah.” He said, “Well, you’d better have, because you’re going to be loading planes, and if you hit one of them, we’re both going to be looking for work!” I nodded wisely to show that I knew exactly what he was talking about.

Now…, I didn’t lie! He didn’t ask me if I knew how to run a forklift, and he never asked if I ever been trained – he only asked if I had ever run one.

I had…, on a sawmill job years earlier, when I needed a piece of plate steel for a conveyor I was welding up. The forklift was idling in the yard, forks in the air, and a perfect piece of plate was directly ahead of it about two hundred feet. The operator was no where to be found, so I jumped on board. After a few minutes of jamming gears and pulling levers, I got it to move. Did I mention that is not the way to learn?

I drove straight ahead, dropped the forks to the ground, and man-handled the steel onto them. For some reason, the forks wouldn’t go back up (??), so I found a chunk of rope, tied the steel to the frame, and dragged it back to my project.

Bad idea – I was written up by two unions: labour for moving a piece of lumber that was in my way, and operator’s for.., well, you know.

However, in that February morning in Edmonton, it allowed me to truthfully answer that man’s question, “Have you ever run a forklift?” I got the job, and two days later found myself on the shores of Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories, where it was REALLY cold! And where my lack of equipment training got me into even bigger trouble.

More on how not to learn to run heavy equipment later…,