Quote:
Originally Posted by pennsiveguy
We called that maneuver the "Poke and Pivot."
One of the funniest things I've ever seen, and which will probably remain so forever, is the time a guy hit a railroad track with the forks.
He was in one of our big Hyster 195s, which were monsters and had a pretty decent top speed - probably around 20 mph. He usually operated smaller lifts, so he was probably hot-dogging and having a great time.
The yard foreman and I were bullshitting near one of our rail stubs and heard a roar coming around a corner and turned to make sure we weren't about to get run over. The forklift soon appeared and was running flat-out. The forks were empty and we could see right away the operator had them tilted forward slightly and way too low for hauling ass across that uneven yard; the tips were skimming the tar.
When he hit the rail crossing, both forks hit the rail square and that 30,000-pound machine instantly stopped dead and reared up and pitched him into the windshield. For a split-second he looked like a 2-year-old clowning around mushing his face against a car window.
The foreman and I saw the whole thing from 20 feet away and nearly pissed ourselves - once we knew he was okay, that is.
The operator got a gorgeous bilateral shiner, and I spent a half-hour grinding the barbs off the fork tips so you could actually set stuff down again with it.
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I'll tell one on myself. When I first started operating a forklift, years ago; I was on a 5k lift unloading a container of new production line equipment. The load I was transporting was way too heavy for the lift. I was able to get the load lifted (barely) and started slowly making my way to the area the equipment was to be installed. In this facility, we had LGV (laser guided vehicles) as material handlers. Basically unmanned robots that were pre-programmed to pick up material from one department and transport to another. I had an LGV cross my path as I was transporting this heavy ass load so I tapped the brakes. This caused the steer tires to be raised off the ground by about a foot thus creating a situation where I could not steer.....instant butt pucker. I thought for sure that the seat of the forklift would need to be replaced; first from the the tear my clinched ass cheeks were about to create and second from the stains that were about to come after. Somehow I calmly thought to lower the load, redefine the stability point and lowered my steer tires back on the ground. I have to say the feeling of doing an indo or nose-wheelie on a 7,5000 pound of equipment, while loaded and trying to avoid another machine coming directly at me, was more than enough to wake me up that morning.
