Someone has compiled not one but two full lists of different types of heavy equipment for Wikipedia (1). A few of the items listed will be familiar to most of us; things like tractors, bulldozers and cranes. A few more will be imaginable by having quite descriptive names: steam shovel, snow blower, tunnel boring machine… But others read like implements of doom from a mediaeval manual of warfare or items used in a peasant’s revolt, while a few even seem to suggest zen-like paradoxes (can a wall also be slurry?). In my opinion this is poetry of the highest order, opaque yet richly evocative. To get the full effect I suggest reading the list out loud, preferably in the bath for the best acoustics, and intoning in the manner of Winston Churchill or Edith Sitwell:
Air-track
Bulldozer
Snowcat
Track skidder
Track-type tractors
Tractor
Military engineering vehicles
Grader
Skid steer loader
Compact excavator
Dragline excavator
Dredging
Excavator (wheel)
Excavator (bagger, digger)
Slurry wall excavator
Front shovel
Reclaimer
Steam shovel
Suction excavator
Trencher (machine)
Yarder
Backhoe loader
Backhoe
Feller buncher
Harvester
Skidder
Track harvester
Wheel forwarder
Wheel skidder
Pipelayer
Fresno scraper
Scraper
Wheel tractor-scraper
Construction & mining tractor
Construction & mining trucks
Articulated hauler
Articulated truck
Water wagon
Wheel dozers – soil compactors
Soil stabilizer
Loader
Skip loader (skippy)
Wheel loader (front loader, integrated tool carrier)
Track loader
Aerial work platform / Lift table
Boomtruck
Cherry picker
Crane
Forklift
Knuckleboom loader (trailer mount)
Reach stacker
Telescopic handlers
Asphalt paver
Asphalt plant
Cold planer
Concrete batch plant
Cure rig
Paver
Pneumatic tire compactor
Roller (road roller or roller compactor)
Slipform paver
Vibratory compactor, Compactor
Stomper: concrete drop hammer
Roadheader
Tunnel boring machine
Underground mining equipment
Ballast tamper
Attachments
Drilling machine
Pile driver
Rotary tiller (rototiller, rotovator)
Venturi-mixer
Dump truck
Highway 10 yard rear dump
Highway bottom dump (stiff), pup (belly train), triple
Highway end dump and side dump
Highway transfer, Transfer train
Highway transit-mixer
Lowboy (trailer)
Street sweeper
Auger
Bale spear
Broom
Bulldozer blade
Clamshell bucket
Cold plane
Demolition shears
Equipment bucket
Excavator bucket
Forks
Grapple
Hydraulic hammer, hoe ram
Hydraulic tilting bucket (4-in-1)
Landscape tiller
Material handling arm
Mechanical pulverizer, crusher
Multi processor
Pavement removal bucket
Power take-off (PTO)
Quick coupler
Rake
Ripper
Rotating grab
Sheep’s foot compactor
Skeleton bucket
Snow blower
Stump grinder
Stump shear
Thumb
Tilt rotator
Trencher
Vibratory plate compactor
Wheel saw
(List edited to minimise repetition and enhance narrative flow)
Umbrellage 