From the sandbox to the open fields, a group of antique construction equipment enthusiasts brought their vast knowledge to the Simcoe County Museum on the weekend.
Visitors to the Midhurst facility had the opportunity to watch restored and preserved historical construction machines in action and on display. There were demonstrators operating their historical machines of yesteryear, digging holes and filling them up again in the gravel pit on the museum grounds.
Tim Hoover, of New Lowell, a heavy equipment and heavy truck mechanic by trade, is heavily involved in the always-popular event.
“Our family has been collecting antique machinery for almost 60 years,” he said.
“I’m a volunteer here with the Historical Construction Equipment Association of Canada," Hoover added, "and we manage and maintain a fleet of around 100 pieces of vintage construction equipment here on site, ranging from the 1890s up to the early 1970s.
“And if you loved Tonkas as a kid, it’s just a natural progression."
Hoover said this is the largest collection of its type in eastern Canada, "and the only place that you can see a continuously running event like this in North America."
There's a hardcore group of about 10 of the heavy equipment enthusiast volunteers that work at the museum almost every week managing and maintaining the fleet, he said. Most pieces in this fleet are donated, through contractors and collectors who have found that this location is an ideal spot to retire their machines.
And Hoover never tires of the work.
“This is like Christmas every day for me,” he beamed.
Tom Anderson, of Barrie, was born and raised on farms and has been on these machines all his life.
“I like maintaining the equipment,” he said. “It’s a lot more pleasurable to work on these that it is on the new pieces of equipment. They used the old K.I.S.S. principle — keep it simple.”
Nowadays, machinery owners are not even allowed to maintain their own machines due to strict warranty restrictions, added Anderson, whose love of the machines started young.
“The first machine I used was a little grey Fergie,” referring to the classic Ferguson farm tractors made in the early 1950s. “I was about four years old and working that machine. As soon as you were able to walk, you were handed a shovel and away you go.”
Times have certainly changed, many would say.
