In the sixty-five years that we have been building bridges, maybe four projects a year are replacements. If my math is correct, which Gary has been known to question when bidding jobs, I’d say about 260 bridges have been demolished by our crews to make way for new structures.
We also did building demolitions in the early days. Truck cranes were nowhere near as plentiful as today, and our cranes were in demand for demo by means of clam buckets and wrecking balls. Anything over three stories, or in close proximity to adjacent structures, could not be razed by the standard crawler loaders with bucket mounted ripping poles. So, they called us. Our good customers for this work were Walt’s Tree Service, Metzgar Demolition, Fitz Maurice Rigging and House Movers in Olean, and a multitude of builders throughout WNY. Along with those companies, we were also on call for fire damaged structures through various municipal building departments.
It was not uncommon to get a call late at night to knock down a building weakened by fire, and then report to regularly scheduled work ASAP.
We were also very successful in bidding for the demolition of abandoned railroad structures. In the 70’s, 80’s, and into the 90’s, the state had a strong program for getting rid of low clearance bridges. It was common to see projects with multiple structures and thousands of yards of concrete abutments and piers to remove.
By this time, the air driven excavator hammers were replaced with hydraulic hammers. The best machine in the early days was the Drott 50 excavator. For some reason, the CAT machines didn’t produce the hydraulic capacity needed, so they required additional hydraulic power units mounted on the counterweights.
The Drott had no problem though. Soon Case bought out Drott and marketed the same machine as the Case 50. These machines also featured a tilting cab which came in handy for hammer work. Now this was back when CAT built a great machine, superior to the Case, along with more productive abilities. However, we did so much hammer work, we had to stay with Case. That all changed when the Komatsu PC 300-3 machine appeared.
At the time, the Japanese were not great innovators but tremendous improvers. But while American manufacturers were happy to ride along with old designs, the Japanese came up with the great machines of the mid 80’s. The first one to buy a Komatsu 300 was Dan Gernatt. He called us to let us know it was available for rent. Shortly after, we had a slope repair on the Allegany River in Red House. We rented the machine, and the first day Dave Hoffman called and told me to get down there and try it out.
Within a week we had a new “300” in the yard.
Rupp Equipment was the dealer, and Larry Kaletta was our sales rep. I remember the price was around $125,000 and it was money well spent.
Today that model is in the low to mid $400,000 range and still worth every penny.
It took CAT about 10 years to catch up to Komatsu, but by then we had a good relationship with Rupp and the Komatsu factory, which we had no desire to stray away from. As I look back, I know we made the right decisions.
In closing this week’s history, I am proud to say our demo history has been a total success. The Ripley job in the early 60’s unfortunately had two men injured as a result of a rented crane. It had shown up with a hook block with the safety latch removed on the previous job by the iron workers to ease the disconnection of the cable from the hook.
From that point on we have had a spotless record for dismantling maybe 800 structures and no one was manned by iron workers.
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