The BIGGEST Construction Project On the East Coast | Ames Construction 

Aaron “I’ve never seen anything like this” witt

I got much respect for this construction company for helping to get people trained and employed

My first job after I left college was running a CAT 769 Haul truck and loading it with a 988 in a large quarry. I was a 19 year old kid and my old boss hired me and said you ever run stuff like that? I said no sir , he said we'll go slow you'll figure it out just dont break anything. Things were different back then so off I went to load and haul ledge , it was cool for about a week and then it got old really fast. The heat and dust were awful no ac back in the 80s . Changed the oil and filters on the weekends and it didnt take long to get ripped forearms lugging 5 gallon buckets of new oil and pumping the manual grease gun to lube everything. Dumped into a huge cone crusher that took a 10 ft diameter boulder and turned it into rip rap to feed the secondary plant. It was a cool job and I had a great boss just an old school Marine no BS who treated everyone great. I laugh when everyone says it must be fun running that giant stuff but the reality is it gets old like any other repetitive job and if your not paying attention you become a fatalgram published by the Burea of mine safety.

Very cool project. The addition of the 2 new nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle outside of Waynesboro, in Burke County, Georgia is likely still the largest construction project in the US. At peak they had 10,000 employees on-site per day. Love your videos! Thx

Komatsu 1250 is such a good machine, the size, capability and reliability is top notch. It's like the corolla of the digging world.

As a former Landscape Architect working on large construction projects, the 'Grading Plan' was the most important document followed by the "Drainage Plan' and 'Utility Plan'. Grading Contractor is responsible to get the Site at right elevations and right slopes so that other construction can follow. Buildings come and go, but a site will usually not change much at all over time. Mistakes made here can be costly to correct or even impossible to correct. Site work will progress through rough grade, utilities, and finished grade at different times in different parts of the project. On site surveying is also very important to control accuracy. If contractor was off a few inches of elevation over a large area, that can result in many thousands of yards of soil to add or remove. Working beyond setbacks or property lines can result in expensive fines or possible litigation. Competent Grading Contractors will closely monitor compaction and moisture. If wet fill is used, it is next to impossible to compact. I'v seen jobs where wet fill had to be dug out and replaced with dry fill. Wet fill can be spread out to reduce moisture content. Fill that is too dry won't compact either. On really large sites, balanced cut and fill reduces costs. Making aggregate onsite is another money saving operation. In this video, Contractor has a variety of equipment. This allows some flexibility when dealing with a mega site. Equipment is used to move, push, haul, and scrape soil in most efficient manner. Dozers are not pushing soil very far, earth movers pushed by dozers are. Front end loaders are not moving soil far, rather track hoes and large dump vehicles are. Managing this is like directing an orchestra. Each piece of equipment doing it's job in the most efficient and safe way possible. And while all this is going on in front of our eyes, much more is unseen. Dust control, erosion control, noise control are important, especially if near residential areas. Smart contractors have their own public relations person. Great video - thank you for taking time to produce and share.

Should have covered the Line 3 Pipeline project in Minnesota. Over 350 miles 36" pipeline installed in 10 months. 2.5 billion dollar project much of it built during winter of 2020/2021 with air temperatures of minus 30 to minus 40 below Fahrenheit. 14,000 people worked on this project.

I used to haul for Ames when they were small, they had like 5 side dumps, used to sub there crushing, they were from MN. Did one of there 1st jobs in Utah. No one out west new them. Then they got Denver airport, then goldmines in NV. They hit every big job they could. They were a very aggressive company, ran hard and fast with excellent employees. I remember those old side dumps would actually slide around turns and almost tip over dumping, they went hard then welder would come in every night and fix them up.

Mechanics, Welders and Lubemen don't get enough credit , without their hard work, long hours and dedication these kind of jobs can't get done , especially on budget and on time .

Love seeing Eric's footage, spent some time working in the dirt world with him in the south east and thoroughly enjoy listening to his knowledge in the industry.

The D10’s pushing the scraper’s 😮Epic

Though. Never mentioned, this is the Toyota Battery Plant in Randolph County NC.

This is actually my Job site! I am the lead inspector for soil testing during the night. It truly is a massive job!

Wow! Thanks for all the footage of such a cool operation! Those of us who had colonies of Tonka's when we were very young back in the early 70's, are frothing at the mouth. Hahaha 😁 👍👍🤣

Worked for Ames on the salt lake airport north project. First time seeing a 870 Deere. Getting loaded with 35 ton on a super side in three scoops was wild.

Thanks so much for going above and beyond. And declaring it clearly and loudly.

Funny that you mentioned the amount of scrapers are here on the East Coast compared to the Western regions. I live in the Buffalo, NY area and I operated a 675 on a very large development. We had 7 of them, and as I thought about it, you may be right. It's a good thing I'd been trained and operated excavators, payloaders, ect. heck the whole nine yards, even an end dump as needed. I've had an enjoyable 30 yr. career with the Operating Engineers Local in our area. Excellent retirement bennies too.

Crazy how far we’ve come in the equipment world. As much as I hate how they rely on electronics, I love how GPS doesn’t even need poles anymore.

Glad to see a local project on the channel. Go Megasite!

Do you know of a larger construction project in the country? Register for the Dirt World Summit NOW! dirtworld.com/dirt-world-summit

The map you made is an awesome visual. Great work guys

Done this kinda work my whole life. What a dream. Wow. Nice job.

TOYOTA Battery Plant - Toyota’s first North American battery plant is coming to Guilford County, North Carolina.

I’m doing pre-con on a solar farm about 45 minutes from here. Happy to finally know what this site is!

This is so cool. I live right up the road from this jobsite . I had never heard of Ames before the Toyota mega site started.

Honestly this is my childhood dream to do a job like this this by far is my favorite content RU-vid videos now I’m a fan mr witt

I love running D10, loading a scraper a minute, makes a day Go!!

We did a similar project back in Late 80’s and 90’s for Toyota in Georgetown Ky

Not a current job. However do a search for the Diamond Valley Reservior project. It was completed in 2000. 60 Cat 777's. 25 Cat 785. 4 Cat 5230 face shovels. 10 Cat 992. 2 Cat 994. About 30 Cat 776 tractors pulling 75 foot Atlas bottom-dump trailers. Around 20 water trucks including 6 Cat 776's with 25,000 gallon Magnum tanks. There were more scrapers at the start of the job that I could count. Maybe 40 dozers from D8 to D10. Tracked Ingersol drill rigs. 16g to 20g graders. Check it out. It DWARFED this job! The contractor was Atkinson/Washington/Zachary (AWZ) and Morrison-Knuedsen.

Dexter Construction (Parent company is the Municipal Group Of Companies) based out of Bedford Nova Scotia is a very very large Construction company. They have their own training school for operators. Dexter is just one of several construction companies owned by Municipal Group. Worth looking into if you haven't heard of them yet :)

I worked for Ames. Dick, Larry, Tom, all hard working great people.

Been moving dirt for 15 yrs now got my start on a Komatsu 350 digging underground utilities (storm drain, sewer) I would recommend this profession to anyone.. takes some time to learn different equipment but once you learn to respect it, it comes easy. Most companies I've work for pay great (based on exp) and it doesn't take a mind wizard, or a college degree (thank god for me 😁) to make a good living.. great video fella's

It’s a lot of fun being on this project. There is always so much going on every day. There’s so much more that goes on that aaron didn’t touch a lot on but it’s not as interesting as all the big ass haul equipment. There’s sections of the job that weren’t even shown

Great to see all that iron working. And all those scraper's putting the hammer down. 💪💪 Good times in the dirt world 👍

That's really cool that they take guys who were out of work and train them to work with that equipment, that is how they do it in the Oil Field Work and Trucking Industry too.

Thank you and keep them coming, these are great!!!!!

Ev's looooooooooooooooooong way to go. We'll look back at today's Ev's as pre-historic.

Saw you guys out there filming(I was sitting in the tire truck at the tire pile) but had no idea what y’all were doing. Really cool to see the drone footage. Even driving around that job you can’t really get a feel for how massive it is.

The value of all that equipment totaled up is staggering. Making my head explode doing the math while watching it 🤯

Really appreciate the time you took to put together this 🎉

Man so crazy to see all of these massive machines lined up to get filled up.

Aaron, i couldn't have agreed with you more on what you said about the dozers pushing having semi u blades, because there isnt many times a scraper can grab every ounce of dirt, and doing ponds and stuff its nice to be able to push them some material from the slopes

Irony, using all these diesel powered machines to build electric car plant. I hope someday people realize we need to keep these machines around

Thanks, first on a Terex TS-14 51 years ago, when I was 15 years old. Laborer on county road gang, ran machines when somebody needed day off. Later on pushed with D-7 dozer, no push block and blade was cracking. Can be done not bad with decent operators. Also used "helpmates". If you need help, this is one of the few things I have not gone back to, this century!

How much diesel is burned at this electric car factory before they make one zero emission vehicle

Appreciate the drone map! Super cool!!

This is right around the corner from us. It's been amazing to watch this job progress. This video doesn't even take into consideration all the additional earthwork going on around the area for housing development.

This is an incredible project

God I love the smell of a big carbon foot print in the morning

That’s crazy man I’m working on this job doing rock blasting the craziest job I ever seen

I love to see those equipment at work you are doing a wonderful job

Worked as a operator for ames in the mid 2000s good company.

Just watched your video on the 797’s and will now be watching alot more. Love your vids… ignore the haters.

This was a cool video. Very informative 👍👊👊

Great to see other fellow EARTHMOVERS!!! WELL DONE BOYS!!!! KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!!!! BLUE STAR CONSTRUCTION CORP ONTARIO, CANADA 🇨🇦

Great video nice project I worked for LeTourneau in Longview Texas in the 60’s and early 70’s and we build a lot of huge earthmoving machines loved it

Wow love what your doing

Yeah, definitely a lot of machines. I'm currently on a site (dirt crew) were we have 65 pieces of equipment going at any one time, and let me tell you, 4 supers are still not enough to run the show. I can only imagine a site like this, almost assembly line ish...

I seen this in person! It’s a HUGE project!

I think it’s crazy that they had to build a building a maintenance building and get equipment for the equipment just to build the plant underground and earth work. That’s the equivalent of the old saying there’s a line to stand in the line to get into a club. The PM for this project is so massive and this is probably just a typical day for them. I couldn’t imagine the headache the GC has to deal with plus the city and count infrastructure. Great video.

Cat needs to have a look at the fuelling connections that commercial aircraft use; 300 gallons a minute might be worth the cost of the fittings.

That’s awesome they have training like that I’d kill to be able to do this where I’m at, I’d love to be a heavy equipment operator and I totally understand working a shovel before I touch heavy equipment

Absolutely crazy to me I had guys talking about this job for so long, over 4,000 iron workers

Actually the largest construction project in the country is probably The Villages, Florida. Probably 300 pieces of “yellow equipment “, working every day, for the last 5 years, and probably for the next 5 years.

My uncle estimated and bid that job for Ames . Heard all about this job for the last year. The relocation trucking bill just to get equipment on site for this job is Impressive alone! Go Ames !

So awesome to see these young Americans out there getting it done! Super proud of all you guys!

Worked for Ames in Arizona on Hwy 87 project as the way master in Rye AZ. KEEP it up John.

Wow that’s organized to the T love the work

This is my local!! Very cool to see this!! I’ll be out there when it’s time for cranes!!

Content is amazing, drone work is a value add, and the little rental car of the week makes me laugh every time. Keep it up!

I have done many years of dirt work and I know how important it is. Most young Americans will not want to do this kind of work.

Love the training very good on sight

I wish I could get into on sight training operating those scrapers.

Love seeing Eric in these videos, still has the same personality from when we were younger 😂

Thank you! Wow!

it's great to invent these amazing machines it has helped the farmers a lot

When I learned to operate a scraper, I rode on the hood for two rounds with the side window open taking instructions from the operator…

Love the work you put into these videos. Big fan

looks like a pretty deep carbon hole for the eventual electric car to work out of.

After your recent insta post, this is pretty ironic 😂 All these diesel machines to produce the plants to then make the electric cars. Ain’t no way around it

Pooler Ga has a vehicle manufacturing site in the process. Going to be huge. Im a technician for Yancey Caterpillar. We’re supposed to be supplying techs on call and a few machines. Pretty damn neat

Hey good job man on the video. I know it’s a lot of work doing, and to get clearance on a job site with so much going on. Good Shit. Good Job..

I miss working on the big iron. I worked as a field mechanic in the PNW for a couple years when I got out of diesel school. Made a lot of money

Great video! We are a podcast local to this mega site giving local residents a voice! Appreciate you shedding light on this massive project!

Hilarious how hypocritical it is to burn millions of gallons of diesel to build an Electric Vehicle plant. Then burn millions of more gallons of diesel to mine the minerals needed for just one day of EV assembly. Building Back Better! 😂

I live in NC and did not know this was going on, now we know where the diesel is going to cause the shortage lol !! Great show new sub!!

That's awesome

Per one of the Ames admin guys the other day they're up to 218 machines on site now. Most of the 777 are parked at the moment, it's all artics and pans right now. The big power lines on the job are down now, they've been moved over next to the railroad tracks now. They were raising the water tower when I left Friday, when I go back to work in the morning I expect to see it hanging. I'm surprised you didn't show any of our drilling and blasting assets.

Meanwhile in the U.K on HS2 sites - You can't even service the large excavators because of the strict H&S rules on site. Aaron is just wondering around the site lol

You came by my 336 hammer. I saw the drone flying around that day. Cool video

Dirt World! Spent 40 years in the dirt world! If you join it, don't let the addictions; multiple types available. Take control of you. 50' 60' fills, huge? How about a 650' fill in Beverly Hills right next to 405 freeway. 641's, 667's, 660's, & Terrex scrapers! Made excellent money, destroyed my marriage. I would do it all over again, I miss it. I was a heavy equipment mechanic/welder!

Why was building pad blurred out?

I think it was Dick Ames that had a big farm near my home town, sometimes I would see him in the local bar with his employees until he passed away.

Please do more shop tours and include the tools and tool boxes thanks for the great quality video

I was a General Construction Laborer out of High School way back in the 1980s and then I went to Truck Driving School I gravitated back to the Construction environment by learning Dump Truck to work with the excavators I hated it I was glad to get back to freight hauling My Dad was a Truck driver and he did the whole Construction environment Laborer he went to the National Schools of Construction over at Greenfield Indiana he got certified on the Scraper and Payloader and the big Push Bull Dozer he was in the Local 150 operating engineers union and once he got on with some of the Excavating contractors it was just a Rat race Whitch I found out in my time I did not like it either just glad to get back to freight hauling my Dad felt same way the construction industry is something that just don’t click with every one you would be wise to explain that to potential to people comeing to this type work

Is this site based in North Carolina by chance for a Japanese auto-manufacture? Interested as to who the drill/blast sub was for this project

On site training, that's awesome!

Ames is awesome. ❤

My dad back in the 90s ran pan trucks to help build the HOV section of I 95 in Northern Va...if you know...the mixing bowl...you know!!!

Just found your channel. As a CAT employee in a single machine (Small Wheel Loader) facility, its cool to see all the variety. Oh and i'm here in NC as well where CAT BCP calls home.