Traxcavator was a namebrand of the ''Trackson Company'' of
Milwaukee
Milwaukee is the List of cities in Wisconsin, most populous city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. Located on the western shore of Lake Michigan, it is the List of United States cities by population, 31st-most populous city in the United States ...
,
Wisconsin
Wisconsin ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michig ...
. The word "Traxcavator" came from combining "tractor" and "excavator".
Overview
Trackson commenced business in Milwaukee in 1922 and initially built tracked attachments primarily for
Fordson tractor
Fordson was a brand name of tractors and trucks. It was used on a range of mass-produced general-purpose tractors manufactured by Henry Ford & Son Inc from 1917 to 1920, by Ford Motor Company (U.S.) and Ford Motor Company Ltd (U.K.) from 1920 t ...
s, then later built tracked attachments for other tractor manufacturers. The early Trackson tracked attachments were popular on tractors used for road grader power units, as well as for tractors used on poor ground conditions.
Expansion
The Trackson company was owned by Armand Lamfrom Froehlich (1895-1951), and the chief engineer was Walter Stiemke. Sometime in the early 1930s, Walter Stiemke recognized the potential of combining the Trackson track system with the ''Lessman Manufacturing Company'' lifting mechanism, for digging or excavating.
Stiemke convinced the owner of Trackson, Armand Lamfrom Froehlich (1895-1951), to buy the ''Lessman Manufacturing Co'' to pursue a marriage of the two systems - for the machine sales opportunity, as well as the earthmoving work - that Stiemke felt was possible by combining the two systems.
Trackson designed a cable lift shovel in 1936, for a tractor built by
Caterpillar Inc.
Caterpillar Inc., also known as Cat, is an American construction, mining and other engineering equipment manufacturer. The company is the world's largest manufacturer of construction equipment.
In 2018, Caterpillar was ranked number 73 on the ' ...
In 1937, Caterpillar announced the "Trackson Shovel option" for the Caterpillar Thirty (6G series - later known as the R4). By 1938, Trackson had produced a revised cable shovel model, known as the T4, fitted to the
Caterpillar D4
The Caterpillar D4 track-type tractor is a small bulldozer manufactured by Caterpillar Inc.
Caterpillar first introduced the RD4 in 1936, as the diesel follow on to the successful CAT 30 gas model. The RD4 originally weighed in at , and used Cat ...
tractor.
Within a few years, there were 4 Trackson cable loaders or shovels available, all based on Caterpillar crawlers. The T2 Trackson cable shovel was fitted to the
Caterpillar D2 - the T4 to the Cat D4 - the T6 to the Cat D6 - and the T7, fitted to the Cat D7. The crawler tractors were modified for Trackson shovel use by being fitted with longer trackframes, to assist with stability when the bucket was being carried at a height.
Sometime in the mid-1940s, the name "Traxcavator" was coined by the Trackson company for their cable shovel machines.
Trackson, in the 1940s, also built pipelayers on Caterpillar tractors and other attachments such as truck mounted cranes and shovels.
In 1948, collaboration between Caterpillar engineers and Trackson engineer saw the development of the HT4 Trackson hydraulic shovel. This was an all-new hydraulic shovel-loader design, integrated with the current model D4 tractor. The HT4 sold alongside the cable Traxacavators, until 1952, when the cable Traxcavator line ceased production.
Takeover
In December 1951 the Caterpillar Company purchased the Trackson Company, and the cable Traxcavators and the HT4, became Caterpillar Traxcavators.
In late 1952, the all-new No.6 Caterpillar Shovel was announced by Caterpillar, and cable Traxcavator production ceased. The Caterpillar HT4 and No.6 Shovel were the only hydraulic Traxcavators available from Caterpillar until the all-new 933, 955 and 977 made their appearance in early 1955. The name "Traxcavator" was a registered Caterpillar brand name for many years, but has developed into common usage to describe any tracked shovel/loader.
See also
*
Bulldozer
A bulldozer or dozer (also called a crawler) is a large tractor equipped with a metal #Blade, blade at the front for pushing material (soil, sand, snow, rubble, or rock) during construction work. It travels most commonly on continuous tracks, ...
*
Crawler tractor
Continuous track or tracked treads are a system of vehicle propulsion used in tracked vehicles, running on a continuous band of treads or track plates driven by two or more wheels. The large surface area of the tracks distributes the we ...
*
Excavator
Excavators are heavy equipment (construction), heavy construction equipment primarily consisting of a backhoe, boom, dipper (or stick), Bucket (machine part), bucket, and cab on a rotating platform known as the "house".
The modern excavator's ...
References
* ''Caterpillar Chronicle'', by Eric. C. Orelmann, pub by MBI, page 65,
{{Authority control
Tracked vehicles
Former Caterpillar Inc. subsidiaries