There’s a lot of big machinery out there, and that means heavy equipment operators are working. Heavy equipment is a category of machinery that is designed to do big jobs that involve moving things that are too big or bulky to move any other way. The types of heavy equipment ATS trains students on include:

• Backhoes
• Scrapers
• Bulldozers
• Graders
• Skid Steer Loaders
• Wheel Loaders
• Excavators
• Off-Road Haul Trucks
• Front End Loaders
• All-Terrain Forklifts

Each machine is a little bit different because it is designed to do specific jobs. But heavy equipment operators don’t just learn to operate a variety of equipment because sitting in the driver’s seat is only one part of the job description. Operators are trained to know how to properly inspect their equipment for safety and maintenance purposes. They learn how to monitor materials, events, and environment so the changes in the job site are adapted to and everyone stays safe. The job of a heavy equipment operator changes the world around them, so the operator needs to understand what to do in a changing environment.

Operators Do More Than Drive

Heavy equipment operators also understand their machine and the regulations it falls under. There are lots of laws covering the skilled trades industries because this is a dangerous career — not just anybody can operate this machinery safely. Employers look for well-trained heavy equipment operators because it is cheaper in the long run even though the wage guidelines are good in this career. It’s cheaper for the employer because the job gets done professionally and safely.

Heavy equipment operators do an important job that cannot safely be done by an untrained person.

On February 15, 1854, an engineering marvel was opened: The Horseshoe Curve in the Allegheny Mountains of Pennsylvania. This piece of railroad track meant that travelers between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh could make the trip entirely by rail in about 15 hours. That was a big improvement from the 4 days of canal & train the trip involved in previous years.

Here are the statistics:

• length of the curve — 2375 feet
• the degree of curvature — 9 degrees; 25 minutes; the central angle is 220 degrees
• elevation of the lower east end — 1594 feet
• elevation of the upper west end — 1716 feet
• total elevation climb — 122 feet
• grade — 1.8% (1.8 foot rise per 100 feet)

And what kind of heavy equipment did they use to do this excavating? Men with hand tools. About 450 workers, many from Ireland, were paid 25 cents per hour and worked 12 hour days to carve out the mountain at Kittanning Point and get the railroad through. That was some serious shovel work for 3 dollars a day.

Today The Job Market Is Different

The maps on the ATS Heavy Equipment Operator Training School listing recent wage guidelines for skilled operators list 2011 wages going from entry-level $12.85 an hour up to $24.57 an hour for specialty industries.

The job is more complicated than excavating with a shovel alone and the work goes much faster with the machinery doing the excavating. But the skill of the worker still has to be there, and the satisfaction of seeing a permanent benefit from your hard work might be just the same as those guys leaning on their shovels looking at the work they did on Horseshoe Curve.