Medium Excavators Prove Versatile Workhorses

“These machines [crawler excavators weighing 60,000 to 80,000 pounds] are used across a wide range of applications, across a number of industries, and can be found working most everywhere, from heavy infrastructure projects, to underground utilities, road construction, pipeline, commercial site prep, demolition—you name it,” says Brian Stellbrink, Caterpillar excavator market professional. “These machines strike a critical balance of being big enough to complete large scale work, yet are easy to transport from job to job.” Exclusive Excavator Research According to John Bauer, brand marketing manager, Case Construction Equipment, “these are strong earthmovers—not quite your mass-excavation-sized machine, but large enough to move lots of earth on large projects.” Among the largest buying segments in this size category, says Bauer, is the rental industry, given that contractors using these machines often are decentralized and find it easier to rent close to their work, rather than own machines and to pay to transport them three or four states away. Matt Hendry, product consultant, hydraulic excavators, at John Deere Construction & Forestry, takes note of the power that machines in this size category exhibit, relative to their modest footprint on the job site. “The 350-class [35 metric-ton] machine is a wonderfully sized excavator, because you can do a lot of really big work with it, yet it’s relatively easy to transport and you can use it on sites where it’s actually too much machine for the project—but it fits. It’s a very versatile machine.”