I watch Riley paging through the book Diggers, a string of drool swaying gently from his chin. Here is the Big Muskie, the biggest shovel ever made (a bus sits in the blade), the trencher, the mole that dug the Chunnel. "Mama, read it!" he commands. We start over, examining each picture in detail, and I realize again how much I am enjoying myself. would never have spontaneously decided to research construction vehicles. But here I am now, able to inform unenlightened acquaintances about the difference between backhoes and bulldozers. I perk up when I pass a construction site, even if Riley is not with me. It''s so much fun that I hope I''ll be able to let it go when he does -- when his interest turns to, say, weaponry, as everyone assures me it will. I can see myself, birthday after birthday, giving him the latest innovation in construction machinery toys, while a teenaged Riley, too shy to point out that he is now into tax law, accepts them politely and without enthusiasm.

Standard machine sales have typically been in the 30,000 unit range in good years. Sales have been declining since 1999 when they peaked during the last business cycle. In 2002, final sales ranged near 20,500 units, down over 35 percent in three years. For the compact backhoes, still only a fraction of the bigger machine sales yearly, demand in 2002 declined below the 5000-unit level, down about 25 percent from the peak achieved in 1999.

In some respects, backhoe loaders are going through an evolution of sorts. A decade ago, we had just standard backhoes like the Case Model 580 and Deere 310. Today, backhoes come in all sizes from small compact machines that have digging depths from 8 to 10 ft. up to the bigger standard models that dig as deep as 16 ft. The smallest machines are powered by both gasoline and diesel engines in the 20 hp range and reach about 60 lip. Their larger cousins start at about 70 lip and go up to about 115 lip. Several companies are moving into the smaller machines because of their growing popularity particularly with the rental industry and with landscape contractors.

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