Planes, trains and cranes?

So this past week I had the opportunity to go on a little adventure. And since people are always asking me what I do for a living, this little story will help clear things up.

In a nutshell, I sell Cummins industrial diesel engines. Big ones, small ones, new ones, reconditioned ones, for everything from road paving equipment, agricultural machines, military equipment, power generators, cranes, forklifts, dump trucks, mining equipment, logging equipment, hydraulic pump equipment etc etc etc.

A few weeks ago, one of our customers asked me if it would be possible to re-power (in simple terms, replace the engine) in a container stacker. That machine looks like this:


The job of this equipment is to run around a rail yard, and unload containers off of trains, and onto and army of waiting trucks.

Cool, isn't it.

That's the neat part of what I get to do, one day I'm in a rail yard, the next day I'm in a factory. One day I found myself in the bottom of an open pit coal mine, standing in the bucket of a huge shovel.

Well, the only issue with this project is that the machine is located out in Columbus, Ohio - a 6 hour drive from home.

"That's no problem" our customer, Keith told me.
"We'll just fly out on my plane"
"Your plane?"
"Yes" he replied, "I have three of them, you know"

Next thing I know, Wednesday morning I am standing outside a hangar at Lancaster Airport, ready to board.

Here is his airplane:

Sweeeeeet.

So we flew, first class, all the way to Ohio in just under 2 hours. Flying in a small plane is much more fun. You really feel like you can reach out and touch the clouds.Mike (our resident engineer) came along for the trip, here we are sitting in the back seat.


The flight back was even better, we flew out in between these beautiful, huge, puffy, cumulus clouds. They were like giant castles in the sky.


Anyway, here are a few more pictures of the Crane. Mike and I had to climb up to the top of the thing to take a look at their electronic setup. This is the view from up above, where the driver sits - not for those afraid of heights!!!


Here is the engine compartment, this is what we are going to take out and replace with a shiny new Cummins.

Anyway, so there is a day in my job. Here is the shameless plug for our corporate website:

www.cummins.com

Big thanks to Keith for being a great guy, and a class act.

Sean.