A good time to be hauling dirt.

Most people do not understand what an off-highway truck is. Most think it is a Peterbilt or Mack that just glides off the road somewhere, collects some stuff, and then moves down the road a bit and off-loads it at someone's house. Off-highway trucks, or haulers or dump trucks or whatever you

These vehicles haul dirt or mining ore or sand or gravel or anything that needs to be hauled from one place to another without ruining the environment and leaving a mess that has to be cleaned up. In mines, haulers are moving coal or copper ore or iron ore or any kind of ore and lots of it, up to 400 tons.

Haulers come in two different designs--articulated haulers and rigid haulers. The biggest trucks are rigid haulers. "Artics," as they are known in the trade, range in size from about 14 tons to 40 tons. Attics are typically found at construction job sites where dirt, rock, sand or other materials have to be moved from one location to another, sometimes short distances of hundreds of yards and in other instances as much as a mile or two. You will see these haulers at highway reconstruction job sites and sites where new shopping centers or tract housing developments are being constructed.

The market for articulated haulers was not very strong for a number of years, specifically during the period from 1998 through 2002. Then demand improved in 2003 and things began to look better for the suppliers. The real change came in 2004 when demand exploded, growing about 50%. No one saw this coming, and the manufacturers had a hard time meeting orders being made by customers. Today, we hear that some hauler customers are being told that deliveries will be six and eight months away. Boom or bust!

Caterpillar is the leader in the artic market, taking over first place in 2004 from Volvo, which had been the market leader in North America for decades. Volvo phased out production of its attics in North Carolina in mid-2003, to source all of its trucks from Sweden or Brazil. However, demand jumped so fast in 2004, Volvo was unprepared and could not meet its dealers' order levels. Caterpillar, which produces its machines in the United Kingdom, was quicker last year to respond to the demand and nearly doubled its 2003 sales, and with that effort captured first place in the market. Other major players in this business include Terex, Deere, Komatsu, Moxy, JCB and Case.