Cat Electric D7

[stehansen]

I've seen quite a few of the John Deere rubber track crawlers the past few years.

 

[Al Smith]

I remember as a boy seeing the big crawlers working the marsh grounds around Alger and McGuffey Ohio .It was once a huge swamp and once drained was and still is some of the richest farm land in the USA .

Because of the loamy soils they used huge crawlers ,TD 25 IH's and D9 Cats pulling some of the largest offset discs you can imagine.They didn't move very fast but they took a big swath on each pass .

I also saw the largest plow I've ever seen in my life ,18 20" bottoms that was a type of semi mount with a wheel in the middle and a trail wheel on the end,huge,I mean huge .

That marsh was farmed in mile sections just like Kansas or some of the western states . The crawlers kind of went by the wayside once the large 4 wheel tractors came around .

 

[gf beranek]

The crawlers compacted the soil a lot less than the wheels.

 

[stehansen]

Yup.

 

[Al Smith]

I had a little Cletrac crawler that was an ag tractor that I put a blade on .The little pup only weighed about 4000 pounds but would walk over mud that you would sink to your knees if you tried to wade through it . It would literally walk over a snow drift too .

I never ever got that one stuck but I can't say the same for my D4's .

 

[stehansen]

D-4s have very little clearance underneith.

 

[gf beranek]

I have a pic of an old Holt we found in the woods, and on the radiator shrowed there was an embossed caterpiller on it. The real thing. Had a corrugated tin canopy that was rotted mostly away. I'll dig for that pic and make a scan and post it.