Early Operating Costs Included Coal and Mule Feed

摘要

Savvy contractors have always had to be mindful of their owning and operating costs. This author remembers Peter Kiewit, whose company has been one of the world's largest construction firms for decades, being quoted as saying that the key to success in the industry was to "know your costs." Let's look at the cost of heavy earthmoving in the 1910s. The half-swing railroad shovel, for example, was the standard American excavator for dry-land digging of everything except solid rock-wherever the soil was firm enough to support the machine and the size of the job warranted its use. But the contractor could expect the machine to be actually loading haulers only about 60 percent of the time; the rest of the time was used breaking up material, moving, repairs, and waiting for haulers.