Mighty Machines

- Season 1

(1994)

It's a busy day at the Toronto Pearson international airport as big commercial planes get checked over in the hanger before they are loaded with baggage, receive catering supplies, get filled with jet fuel and are pushed back from the gate.

Front-end loaders scoop up rock after the blasting and fill up the huge Euclid trucks. A giant crusher grinds up the rock and conveyors carry it to the storage yard to be loaded onto gravel trucks.

Street sweepers, street washers, storm sewer vacuums, tree trimmers and stump grinders work to keep the city of Toronto clean and green.

The police boat patrols the harbor and greets all the ferry boats, the little sailboats, the fireboat and the visiting cargo ships. Even the tall ships come to visit.

Huge shovels dig foundations, bulldozers smooth the ground, cranes lift curtain walls and air conditioning units at the site of two city hospitals.

Giant 18-wheelers carry race cars to the big race. Special equipment prepares the cars for the race. In the pit stops, tires are changed, gas gets topped up, and the cars head back out to scream around the track.

Grapples and shear tractors knock down a brick factory after dynamite blows up the giant smokestack. Bulldozers and front-end loaders pack metal onto trucks to haul it to the steelworks.

Engines shunt cars around in the yard to make up a train that will travel across the country. Cars are connected together, brake lines hooked up, automobiles unloaded from special bi-level cars and freight cars emptied at a truck depot.

All the parts of a fire truck are explored and explained as the firemen practice a drill, hooking up to the hydrant and testing their aerial spraying platform.

A shiny red 18-wheeler transport truck starts its day with a visit to the truck stop to gas up before it heads out on the highway. At the produce warehouse, workers pack a load of carrots onto the big trailer.

City garbage trucks pick up the trash from the curb and deliver it to the transfer station where it's rammed into special trucks to go to the landfill. Enormous tractors roll and compact the garbage before it gets covered with dirt.

Gravel trucks deliver crushed stone and sand to make the concrete that is mixed in the cement trucks. Concrete pours out of the trucks to make sidewalks and foundations for streetcar tracks.