Posted 4 years ago
fortapache
(3421 items)
Another Long Beach find. I knew this one was something good even though all I knew was that is a Matchbox. It is the Ruston-Bucyrus Excavator. Generally called a steam shovel although it isn't steam powered like the road roller in the first photo aka figure. Also see fig. 2.
Fig. 2. It the cab rotates 360 on a fully tracked chassis.
I forgot to mention this is a Major Pack. These were scaled to fit the standard Matchbox models but were a bit larger. But not quite as large as most King Size models. Major Pack merged with the King Size line around 1966. The Major Pack line were always few in number, perhaps 10 models at a time. They lasted about 10 years. This one was from 1959-1964. Back to the figs.
Fig. 3. The exciting back view with the Taylor Woodrow decal. OMG I just found out they are now Taylor Wimpey. That is most unfortunate.
Last Mr. Finger shows how this is manually operated as mentioned in the title. It took finger operation and imagination to work this vehicle. One would pretend to dig a ditch for the pipe cover it back up and then the road roller would smooth it out.
Special thanks to the Road Roller, 8 Wheel Crane and Pipe Truck for this post.
