HCEA Canada

10/08/2026

Pictured here in October 2012, at HCEA Canada’s fall ‘Last Blast’ event, is a 1952 GMC dump truck displayed by association member Paul Jones of Wiarton, Ontario.

Paul’s father, Earl, operated Jones Contracting in the Bruce Peninsula area and had purchased a similar unit new in 1946. To commemorate this part of the family business, Paul located and fully restored this truck to pristine and completely roadworthy condition.

Powered by a six-cylinder gas engine with a five speed transmission and rated at three-tons these sized single axle trucks were commonplace on construction jobs of the era. Coincidently, 1952 also marked the fiftieth year of truck manufacturing for General Motors. Paul’s restored truck certainly could rival one fresh off the assembly that year.

10/01/2026

Well, if you had to move a 95 ton piece of equipment in October, 1955 you better have ordered a float tractor and float trailer combination like this several months earlier!

Shown here on a test run outside the Truck Engineering Ltd. plant in Woodstock, Ontario is a 1955 International RF 230 tandem float tractor pulling a newly manufactured King float trailer. Ontario Hydro and other heavy haulers of the era were frequent buyers of these custom built float trailers to handle loads both over weight and over size. King trailers and truck bodies were produced along with a wide range of other products at the Woodstock plant from the 1940’s until closure in the 1990’s.

The sign affixed to the trailer reads:
KING Trailers
The Largest Capacity Trailer Built in Canada. 190,000 pounds Payload.
Produced in Canada by Canadian Craftsmen.
Truck Engineering Limited,
Woodstock, Ontario.

09/24/2026

Pictured here, in the fall of 1911, is a Marion Model 35 steam shovel purchased by the City of Toronto Engineer’s Department to take on major projects as the growing city developed.

Classified generously as a 1-1/4 cubic yard shovel, this model had been introduced in 1908 as one of the first fully revolving shovels on the market. This innovation had appeared in the 1880’s with the Barnhart log loader.

Henry Barnhart eventually combined forces with another Ohio manufacturer, Edward Huber to form the Marion Steam Shovel Ltd.

In the 1920’s rail-mounted and wheel-mounted units mostly gave way to the crawler undercarriage type. Electric power to supplant steam power was another innovation of the era which lead to increased shovel capacities and varied applications.

In the decades following this City of Toronto Model 35 the Marion Power Shovel Co. Ltd., went on to manufacture cable operated cranes, shovels & backhoes eventually making large stripping shovels and walking draglines many of which are still in operation.

09/10/2026

Pictured here, in the fall of 1971 is a P&H mobile crane on wrecking ball duty in Vancouver where an elevated roadway, the Old Georgia Viaduct, was undergoing demolition. It had been built several decades earlier to enhance traffic flow into the city center and was due for replacement. Similarly, Toronto’s Gardner Expressway East section has been levelled not by wrecking ball but by excavators with demo attachments.

This P&H Model 440TC truck crane handling the wrecking ball was rated at 40-ton-capacity and featuring a four-axle carrier was owned by Arrow Transfer Ltd. of Vancouver. Also available configured as a crawler machine, the engine options included G.M. Diesel, Cummins, or Caterpillar power units.

Always innovating, P&H (Pawling & Harnischfeger) began manufacturing in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1884 eventually producing overhead cranes, trenchers, electric welders, and by 1910 a gasoline powered dragline.

More than 130 years later P&H mining was building related equipment including large capacity electric cable shovels many of which are working in Northern Alberta and British Columbia mine operations. In 2017 Komatsu acquired P&H to become Komatsu Mining Corporation.

Komatsu Mining

09/03/2026

Pictured at the 50th Anniversary Huron Pioneer Threshers and Steam Show in Blyth, Ontario, September 2011, is this finely restored 1955 Cockshutt tractor-loader-backhoe displayed by Neil McGavin of Brussels, Ontario.

The Cockshutt name was widely recognized in the manufacture of agricultural equipment and this foray into construction related equipment was rather short lived. The factory in Brantford, Ontario adapted the base 26 kW (35 hp). Cockshutt tractor to handle the Wagner Ltd. all-welded hydraulically operated loader and backhoe attachments.

Other manufacturers including Case and John Deere soon began designing dedicated integral versions for the construction industry.

Gordon McGavin of Walton, Ontario had purchased this unit for the sum of $5,578 in 1955! Indeed, a great early example of the tractor-loader-backhoe preserved.

08/27/2026

Pictured above is the very first Michigan 75A Loader off the assembly line in August 1956 at the Clark Equipment plant in St. Thomas, Ontario. Fittingly, this ‘first-off’ Michigan 75A loader powered by a Waukesha four-cylinder diesel engine rated at around 56 kW (75 hp) was purchased by a St. Thomas area contractor: Keillor Construction Ltd.

Three years earlier, the Michigan Power Shovel Co. had been acquired by Clark Equipment, and by 1954, the company produced the first “A” series loaders at their Benton Harbour, Michigan plant. Clark Equipment became part of VME (Volvo Michigan Euclid) in the mid 1980’s, and the Michigan brand merged into Volvo with production ceasing at the St. Thomas plant.

That St. Thomas also produced large Clark forklifts and material handlers as well as the G.M. Diesel and Cummins powered Michigan Series II and Series III straight frame, rear wheel steer loaders. Articulated loader production began in the mid-1960’s up to and including the 12-cubic-yard 475A loader rated at over 600 hp with a hefty operating weight over 55 tons.

A lot of manufacturing was located in St. Thomas in the 1950’s, such as Galion Equipment (rollers and graders) and Gorman Rupp (pumps). In fact, located within a 120-kilometre (75-mile) radius, heavy equipment manufacturers including Champion, Adams (L-W), Koehring-Waterous, I-H, and Bucyrus Erie were a significant manufacturing presence. Unfortunately, most of these companies were bought out or merged, so production facilities have shifted outside of Canada.

08/20/2026

A 1940s Baldwin still clocks in for freight duty in South Jersey. Not a museum piece. The real, smoky, steel-wheel deal.

08/20/2026

Shown here in August, 1948 is an International Harvester TD 24 dozer owned by Shawinigan Power Ltd. in Quebec. Powered by a six-cylinder I-H D-1091 diesel engine rated at close to 180 hp, this series had been put into full production the previous year surpassing the Allis-Chalmers HD-19 as the largest available postwar tractor and outweighing the Caterpillar D8 of the era by nearly 2 tons.

Not without its own problems including cylinder head cracking and steering clutch issues this dozer featured a new innovation—planetary steering. Production continued until the upgraded 200 hp. TD 25 was introduced in 1959. By this time I-H had also acquired several attachment suppliers of dozer blades and winches including Issacson and Heil.

Few remain in existence but in June of 2009, James Dick Construction Ltd. displayed a fully restored 1953 TD 24 dozer at HCEA Canada’s annual demonstration spring event held at the Simcoe County Museum.

08/14/2026

Annual Steam Era event announcement

08/13/2026