Really BIG Iron

Kinda off topic but I?ve been on a random kick here lately reading up on the large stripping shovels and walking draglines that used to roam the coal fields of the nation. Unfortunately most of the super giants have long been scrapped. Big Muskie, The Captain, The GEM of Egypt, The Silver Spade all long gone. I watched the demo video of Big Muskie, curled my stomach to watch the boom and mast slam to the ground. The Captain was probably more tragic. That big boy got cut down in his prime by a grease fire that burned it beyond repair, still had a lot of life left in it before that happened. Then there?s the Spade, dogging it?s way out of its last cut with high hopes of being turned into a museum when something in the swing gear let loose dooming it to the torch as well. Luckily there are still a fair number of the large walking draglines still in operation. Near as I was able to gather The Anthracite King is still around. Sounds like all of the Stripping Shovels are out of commission however. Just a bunch of relics from the past when this country used to be able to monster machines with American engineering, American steel, and American components. And back when somebody said, I need you to build it bigger and badder and stronger than anything before it, and the answer was, I?ll get my tools. I got to see the dragline at the Bear Run mine in southern Indiana a few years ago. It was a monster even from the rim of the pit. Anybody ever get to see any of these things running back in their hay day?

I spent a lot of hours working on BE 1250's and 1370's in the late 80's 1370 had a 65 yard bucket digging phosphate rock here in Florida

Western KY, Southern IL, and Southern IN were loaded with big shovels and draglines in the 60?s thru the 90?s. Most are gone now. Some were actually buried!

The Greatest Generation?s machines got bigger and bigger. When they retired machines started to get smaller. As you say not as many big shovels anymore. You can?t fit 6 people in a car any more, you can?t fly on a DC10 or 747 anymore. A few machines have gotten bigger and so has Walmart. Bu they were the Biggest and the Best Generation. Don?t think we will ever out do them.

In the fall of ?94 I spent about 5 weeks in the trench putting 18? poly pipe in the Stanton Station yard outside of Coal Creek ND. Coal Creek had ?Old Iron Sides? and west toward Beulah was ?The Prairie Rose?. Unfortunately we were in the Stanton yard most of the daylight hours and never got a good view of the machinery at Coal Creek. I recall coming into town the first time late at night and driving by the site. By the time I had back tracked to find the motel the massive structure I thought was a building had moved.

We were at the phosphate mines in Florida years ago. Could easily park a couple of trucks in the bucket. The kids were pretty amazed. Those were all electric, they used a massey tractor to drag around the extension cord that was probably ten inches in dia. We got to get up in the cab as it was operating. Could sure move a bunch of material.

I liked your little story. My wife and I were in south eastern Ohio 2 weeks ago. I stood in bucket of the big Muskie. In 1 964 I got to see one of them work. They moved the extension cord with a D-7 Cat! Send me an e-mail and we can talk about them a little bit. J.

If anyone is in Oregon and wants to see some large equipment come on over to sumpter, OR and check out the dredge. They are restoring it and it is huge. There is also the old mining railroad that you can take steam locomotive rides on.

https://www.historicsumpter.com/

Peabody buried one of the biggest in Paradise Ky when they finished mining next to the TVA power plant down there

https://www.bigbrutus.org/about.html
This is in southeast kansas,ive hauled barrels of grease to big brutis,delivered 1 day shut down the next.
I was 20 and drove shuttle in kansas. Couldnt get out of state shhh .
Its huge.i even got to ride half an hour watching it dig

the "chief" was a walking dragline about 5 mile from me. it ran a 75 yard bucket, but had a 100 yard bucket on site. it got the torch.

This brings back memories. When I was born up until I was 4 or 5 we lived right in the middle of gravel pits my great uncle owned in Fayette County Tn. It was a thrill when my granddad or someone would take me to watch the small draglines and equipment work. Gravel trucks run all day. What was the best is when my daddy would take me when they weren't working and I'd set on all of the equipment. I dug many a ton in my mind. Good memories.

Drove a truck all my life,retired now. Had a delivery one time to Southern Ohio Coal,Cumberland,Ohio. Called,they would take delivery at night. This was back in the 80's. Delivered some castings to their shop,really nice people,had dinner with them. When I was using the restroom, I saw a big model of the Muskie in an adjoining office. Recognized it from a story I saw in Readers Digest. Asked one of the foreman about the model,he said,yeah It's ours,and it's working a couple of miles away,would you like to see it?
Absoluetly. He took me in a pickup,down to the site,and the Muskie was down for a repair. It had broken a tooth on the bucket,and they had a couple of D-9s trying to maneuver a new tooth in place. Asked if I would like to go inside,love to. Huge electrical cable strung out on the groundthat ran the machine,told me don't go near that.You had to climb up several catwalks,and the he explained he would open the steel hatch door,and told me you had to fall in to the machine,to get in. It was pressurized inside to try and keep as much dust out as they could. Once inside it was amazing,they have a huge machine shop inside,with a huge overhead bridge crane for servicing it. Took me up several levels to the operators cupola. Went in there,he introduced me to the operator,who was the first one ever to run it.Remember him from the story in Readers Digest. Everything was on hold,as they were still working on the bucket,he asked if I would like to sit in the seat? Sure,just don't touch anything. One of the funny things,they had an old refrigerator in the the operators cupola,and it had a car radio,duct taped to the top.
The foreman told me different stories about the Muskie that night. Several people were killed inside the machine working on it over the year,one guy wound up in the cables. Also remember,he said the Muskie was set to make a full dig and dump every 59 seconds. Ran 364 days a year,24 hours a day,only off Christmas.
42 years over the road around North America in my truck,this rates right up at the top of things I got to experience and see.

In 1977, I got a look at a walking drag-line working a coal strip near Coshokton, OH. It was owned by Peabody. I don't know if the machine had a name. I wasn't prepared to see a machine that big; it was hard to get a sense of the scale of the thing. I was told it was the 2nd largest walker in the world.

Check out the Silver Spade. Ellis