18m 6sLength

Presented by Allis-Chalmers (a US manufacturer of machinery), “Crawler Tractors in Action” takes its viewers on a detailed visual tour of earth-moving machines. The mid-1950s film kicks off with a look at horse-drawn scrapers and turn-of-the-century tractors, which helped kicked off a new era in road and building construction, as well as logging and mining operations. Flash forward to modern day and the viewer sees the current version of a crawler tractor at mark 02:00, which range from six tons to 21 tons. (A crawler tractor a continuous band of treads or track plates is driven by two or more wheels.) Starting at mark 02:30, the viewer sees the roll crawler tractors played in the construction of Illinois Tollway System in the 1950s and the construction of the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado, as we see Secretary of the Air Force Donald Quarles at mark 05:22. The film also shows crawler tractors in action clearing debris from a Kansas City slum, working on conservation project the Ute Indian Reservation in Colorado, and at mark 07:18 constructing the St. Lawrence Seaway. As the film progresses, we see them at work clearing timber from forests, working in rail yards, and laying pipeline in the Pacific Northwest. Showing crawler tractors are suited for any environment, the viewer is shown a snowy field in Colorado at mark 12:20 as the machine clears snow from an irrigation ditch, and later moves trash along in a landfill. “These ingenious crawler tractors, basic to the earth-moving and construction ambitions of man have contributed to the realization of our dreams,” says the narrator in conclusion. Allis-Chalmers was a U.S. manufacturer of machinery for various industries. Its business lines included agricultural equipment, construction equipment, power generation and power transmission equipment, and machinery for use in industrial settings such as factories, flour mills, sawmills, textile mills, steel mills, refineries, mines, and ore mills. The first Allis-Chalmers Company was formed in 1901 as an amalgamation of the Edward P. Allis Company (steam engines and mill equipment), Fraser & Chalmers (mining and ore milling equipment), the Gates Iron Works (rock and cement milling equipment), and the industrial business line of the Dickson Manufacturing Company (engines and compressors). It was reorganized in 1912 as the Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Company. During the next 70 years its industrial machinery filled countless mills, mines, and factories around the world, and its brand gained fame among consumers mostly from its farm equipment business's orange tractors and silver combine harvesters. In the 1980s and 1990s a series of divestitures transformed the firm and eventually dissolved it. Its successors today are Allis-Chalmers Energy and AGCO. We encourage viewers to add comments and, especially, to provide additional information about our videos by adding a comment! See something interesting? Tell people what it is and what they can see by writing something for example like: "01:00:12:00 -- President Roosevelt is seen meeting with Winston Churchill at the Quebec Conference." This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD and 2k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com