Speaking of Construction equipment......

[ArmySGT.]

Why not an encounter group built around construction equipment? There are truckers, bikers, and boatmen......

So why not one with dozers, excavators, dumptrucks?

They can be basically good. Repairing roads, building bridges, and clearing land for crops in exchange for food, fuel, and other consumables. On the other hand they can be bad guys that build fortifications for warlords, plow crops under, divert water from farmers, keep dozens of slaves as labor or entertainment.

Some names could be dozers, diggers, builders, breakers, struckshuns, or anything the language could morph into in 150 years.

[stormlion1]

Comes to the problem of keeping construction equipment running that long and fuel issues. I could see keeping a single modern day dump truck running by stripping parts from others but without a good sized support structure those nice tough dozers, dump trucks, and excavators are not going to last 150 years. Now I could see a group keeping them running if there used sparingly and had the ability to jury rig as needed parts. I could even see converting older equipment back to steam driven gear by ripping out diesel engines and fitting a steam engine to keep them operating. But there going to be primitive and electronics will be the first to go. Which would make for an interesting encounter as any group that does operate those old machines might look on a Morrow teams equipment as a source of spare parts.

[ArmySGT.]

most equipment doesn't have electronic controls for the motor or tranny.. all hydraulic........

The engine is a diesel without all the electronic controls, even a mechanical fuel pump.

So stripping parts of similar diesels and hoses of others is possible.