Mighty Machines

Big Boy, a cement mixer truck, shows viewers how concrete is made and what it is used for. The cement yard receives a load of sand from Red, a Mack hopper semi-truck, and a load of gravel from Blue, a Western Star hopper semi-truck who dump their loads into grates, the gravel is taken by a conveyor belt and the different sizes of gravel are sorted into piles. Sally, a Caterpillar front-end loader, keeps the gravel piles in the yard tidy. Big Boy is loaded with concrete and takes his load to replace a road while Tiny, also a cement mixer, takes his load of concrete to a skyscraper under construction.

A garbage truck named Trasher explains his job, collecting garbage in neighbourhoods with Mario, his driver. Later, Whitey, another garbage truck, explains the operations of the transfer station, showing how garbage is pushed down a chute and compacted into large semi-trailers used for garbage transfer. The trailer of garbage is then picked up by Big Red, a garbage transfer truck. The story continues at the dump where Big Red, a semi-garbage truck introduces the machines that work at the dump; Pee-Wee, a bulldozer, Spike, a compactor, and Scoop, a scraper explain how a landfill works. Scoop and Pee-Wee spread the garbage out after the garbage trucks unload it. Pee-Wee spreads out the garbage while Spike compacts it, Scoop brings dirt to the dump to cover up the garbage, and Pee-Wee finishes it by spreading the dirt out.

Big Hoss, a Peterbilt 379 semi-truck shows viewers how he gets hooked up to a refrigerated trailer, then he takes viewers out on the road as he travels to a Husky truck stop to get his fuel tanks filled up, deliver empty pallets, and pick up a load of carrots. Forky, a forklift unloads the empty pallets from Big Hoss's trailer. Little Joe, a forklift loads carrots into Big Hoss's trailer.

King, a Mack / King Snorkel truck from the North York Fire Department shows viewers how his aerial platform works, while Pumper, a Spartan pumper truck shows how the hoses work. Sparky, a fire hydrant supervises them and delivers water for their training exercise.

Two Canadian Pacific SW1200RS switchers and a Canadian National GP38-2 road switcher named Shunty, Diesel, and Freddie explain how work goes on in the train yard, including switching, putting the cars on the right train and transporting materials long distances. Spike and his tie gang maintain the rails to keep them safe for the trains to run on.

Dino, a Caterpillar 245 hydraulic shear excavator shows viewers around a demolition site and how he demolishes an old factory building with his shears. Crane, a stationary truck crane lifts out pipes and a motor from the building. Dozer, a Caterpillar 973 tracked loader smooths the roads in the demolition site. Dynamite is used to collapse two water towers and a tall concrete chimney. Big Mack arrives to pick up the scrap metal from the demolition site. Grapple, a Komatsu hydraulic claw excavator loads scrap metal into Mack.

Yellow, a Vector Zetec Formula Ford race car (driven by Martin Guimont), and GoldStar, a Van Diemen RF91 Formula Ford race car (driven by Martin Roy) show viewers how race cars are transported to races, how race cars are prepared before a race, qualifying, racing against other racers, and making pit stops.

Big Cat, a Koehring excavator shows viewers how he and his friends help build a hospital from digging the foundation to building the walls. Other members of the construction company include Skinny, a mobile crane who helps build concrete walls by dumping concrete into molds using a concrete hopper, Treads, a bulldozer, Charlie, a concrete mixer truck who brings concrete to the construction site, Mallory, a forklift who moves construction materials around the construction site and works with Lurch, another mobile crane who unloads construction materials off trucks and also brings the construction materials to where they're needed, George, a semi-dump truck who brings sand to the construction, Boomer, another mobile crane who helps set up wall molds for Skinny to dump concrete into, and Putt Putt, a mini dumper who helps build concrete floors.

Murphy, a Toronto Police boat, takes viewers out into Toronto Harbour to show many of his harbour friends, including Blackie and Thor, two large freighters; William Lyon Mackenzie, a fireboat; and Flo and Merryweather, a couple of ferry boats Oriole, a Toronto city tours boat; a working replica of a square rigger ship and the two ferries that go to Toronto Island, all of which explain their use of operating in the harbour. Cranes named Hook and Claw play a role in unloading ships. Murphy speaks with an Irish accent.

Little Mac, a small municipal first-generation Chevrolet S-10 pickup truck, from the City of Toronto, shows viewers how the city streets are cleaned. The featured machines that do this include Dusty, an FMC Vanguard 3000 street sweeper who sweeps the roads, Vacuum Vic, a Navistar International S2500 vacuum truck who cleans out sewers, Gusher, a Ford CT8000 street sprinkler semi-truck who sprays water on the roads. Other machines doing work around the city include Stumper, a mobile chainsaw who obliterates stumps, and a Ford F-Series boom truck named Stretch with a shredder named Chipper, who trims trees. At the yard, Jaws, a Case W20C front-end loader picks up the street garbage to load into The Dump Truck Brothers to take to the dump. The main location is the public works city garage.

Euclid, a Euclid R170 quarry dump truck shows how he and his brother Ernie, also a Euclid R170 quarry dump truck are loaded with rocks by LeTourneau, a LeTourneau L-1100 front end loader and bring the rocks from the quarry to a rock crusher, turning them into gravel. A gravel conveyor brings the gravel to a gravel pit where an unnamed Volvo BM L180 front-end loader loads the gravel into trucks that deliver the gravel to where it's needed. Also included is a magical boulder named Roxy, who makes the pile of gravel.

At Toronto Pearson International Airport, DC, a Canadian Airlines DC-10 jet, explains (and shows) his journey from the hangar to the terminal, before picking up passengers and taking off. He also shows the viewers how he gets inspected in the hangar. Many other aircraft are featured in the episode including a Canadian Airlines Boeing 737 (misnamed as an A320) who carries a talking suitcase named Sammy, a British Airways, Air Canada, and Lufthansa Boeing 747, an American Airlines Boeing 757 and a few others. An airport tug named Tug also explains his job.

Various public transport vehicles are featured in this episode, including Buddy, an OC Transpo bus, Humber and Neville, two streetcars, an O-Train, a GO Train and a Toronto subway train, who in turn explain their jobs of picking up the passengers and dropping them off exactly where they want to be.

Looking at the coast guard boat and rescue chopper

Some of the machines that work on the farm.

Today is the birthday of "Green Truck" and he takes time to show how he was built.

Big Blue sorts out all of the stuff left in the recycling boxes.

A front-end loader introduces us to his friends at the sawmill.

Flying through the sky with "Stearman", the coolest bi-plane ever.

"Groomers" keep the ski hills in good shape.

Ranger takes us on a tour of a salt mine.

In the Snowstorm. Big plows and snow blowers help the city dig out from a big snowstorm

The Spirit of Vancouver Island, a BCFerries ferry, shows the audience what happens at the dock, the controls of the ship, and other things on the ship.

How do you think earth-moving machines learn to do their jobs? They go to school! It's not easy for Backhoe to dig a tidy trench, and Bulldozer has a difficult time buillding an earth ramp. The Graders, Front-End Loaders and Excavators all need special instructions to do their jobs. And watch out for the Mini-Dozers - they have a good time learning their jobs. Even machines have fun at school.

When the job calls for lifting big and heavy objects onto an area where a regular crane can?t reach, like the middle of the roof of a giant warehouse or factory, an AIR CRANE does the job. A Sikorsky helicopter named Gipsy Lady has twin jet engines and very long rotors to manage the heavy weight of the transformers and air conditioning units she flies up and onto the centre of the factory roof.

Ever wonder how fruits and vegetables are harvested? Watch how Harvester gathers the plants in a field of tomatoes. Clipper works with Grape Harvester to ripen and gather grapes in the vineyard. Then the plants are delivered to a factory where they are turned into your favourite foods!

Tow trucks are a special type of machine because they help other machines get out of trouble. Giant tow trucks specialize in helping big transport trucks, oil trucks and earth-moving machines. It also takes a lot of skill and know-how to load an excavator and move it to a construction site. Watch a flat-bed truck pick up an excavator for delivery to a job.

Ever wonder how a newspaper is made? Charlie the printing press is three stories high and as long as a city block! He prints the newspaper, folds it and sends it to customers by truck. He relies on the help of a team of robots! The machines at the newspaper plant know what teamwork is all about!

'Slab Hauler' is a big red machine with six huge tires and he guides us around a steel mill, after showing us how he can use his strong pincers to pick up slabs of hot steel and transport them to the slab yards and into the rolling mills. Since he moves around the mill so much, he knows all the machines that work there. He introduces us to 'Dozer' who grooms the hills of crushed coal and 'Scraper', the bottom loading vehicle that transports the coal to the coke

Pipelines carrying oil, gas and other petroleum products are buried underground all over the world. Big excavators dig deep trenches hundreds of kilometres long so that strong Bulldozers can lay the pipe gently into the ground. They work together as a team to get the job done, quickly and safely.

What happens to a car you don't want anymore? It goes to the wrecking yard, then to the scrap yard and finally to the steel mill where it's recycled into different products. Every new car has steel from old cars in it. That's what recycling is all about.

Railways in the mountains have to be specially built, and the railway was built more than a hundred years ago. The tracks wind up steep inclines, cling to the sides of cliffs and look down into deep canyons. What a sight!

When Jet Girl lands at the airport near the factory, she remembers how she was assembled there. All the parts have to come together and be carefully inspected and tested at each position before the plane moves forward along the line. Does it look like a plane yet?