Steam Shovels. Ever see em sitting around anymore?

Recently I was looking on the internet and saw some information and videos on steam shovels. Coming from Iowa, all I ever really seen is the steam engines, which there are still a few around here and there. Does anybody ever see any steam shovels that are sitting around? Any good information on them? I wouldn't mind having something like that for a winter project actually. I think it would be fun to bring back another huge piece of history. Thank you all very much and have a great day.

I would say do a search for steam power clubs, and that might get you on the right track. I would say however, a steam shovel is gonna be very rare. Most will likely have been scrapped due to size and weight. Many others were likely converted to diesel. If you do find one, get someone certified to work on the boiler, those things don't just blow a rod, they explode!

I have heard that before too about them exploding. Somebody down south of me is trying to sell an old Huber Reverse Flow steam engine... Ten grand for it but nobody seems to know anything about it besides its all there... coming from a salesmen who sell trucks every day and all day. You have to have them inspected and everything don't you?

Used to see quite a few of them sitting on the coal banks around here when I was a kid. Lots of strip mines. They had been long retired back then. I imagine if you were to stumble upon one, you would be putting bucu bucks into it. More than likely, the boiler would need replaced and that runs around 30-40 grand, not to mention everything else that would need repaired/replaced. These were quite large pieces of equipment and most all of them lived outsied their entire lives.

On a side note, there was an active strip mine close to my grandparents place when I was a kid. We used to stop along the side of the road and watch the large drag lines work. Was an especially good treat when they were moving them. Was facinating to watch them "walk" to their new destination.

ive seen only 1 actual steam shovel, but i find old draglines fairly regularly, and in some very strange places too, i would imagine due to their massive weight and boiler, most of the old steam powered ones fell to the torch during the WWll scrap drives,

That would be quite a sight. Anybody know of any drag lines that are sitting around waiting for a new home in the midwest?

There was three Steam powered steam shovels working in the Sandbox at the Rollag show Labor day Weekend. A Marion, A Bucyrus Erie and another brand that I did not take a note of.

You can find old cranes setting around just about anywhere if you are really looking. Just about any of the "old ones" could be used as a dragline given the right combination of parts. The differences between a machine set up for dragline operation verses say a lifting crane is usually in the choice of lagging for the cable drums, then a dragline has a fairlead where a lifting crane has no real use for one, a "true" lifting crane usually has a power controlled lowering function on the hoist drum and often also on the boom lift cable. Beyond the major differences there are also minor differences between a true lifting machine and a dedicated dragline that are brand specific. Unfortunately there's no way I could even begin to name all of them here, even if I knew all of them.

Now if you take a machine and set it up as front shovel or a pull shovel your getting into some radical differences over how a dragline or lifting crane would be equipped. Thing is with the older machines if they're set up with either attachment you can usually just remove parts, change the lagging and use it as a dragline. It's a little more complicated than that sure but that's the basics of it.

Beyond all of that you get into the realm of does the machine use mechanical controls (ie uses purely manual movement of rods and levers, possibly with mechanical helpers) to control the functions, is it air actuated which uses an air cylinders to move the linkages for the functions, or you can also have hydraulic actuated machines that use hydraulic cylinders to actuate the functions.

If you plan to look, machines like the 25 or 25D Northwest are relatively small and are mechanically operated, then there's the 28D which is similar in size but air actuated. Move over the the Bucyrus line and you might want to look at say a very small 10B, or move on up the line to something a little larger like a 15B, 22B or 25B. The 10,15,and 22 are all mechanical although I've heard there was a Ruston Bucyrus 22B that was air controlled. Get much larger than this and you've got a decent size machine but the 25B is still small enough to move without alot of difficulty if needed. Head over to the older Linkbelt side of things and you enter the relm of the hydraulic controlled machines and the likes of the LS70 and LS90. I'm sure they made some smaller then the 70 but I've never had any personal experience with any of them below the LS108 which is a fair sized machine, akin to maybe a 25B Bucyrus. Around here those were the three "big brands" although you can also throw Lima, American, Koering, Buckeye Clipper, and others in the mix depending on how far back in time you want to go.

The largest dragline machine I know of in my area is a 190D Northwest although it's now settingstill broken down from being transported up here from FLA. All we're waiting on is for the customer to come up with the money to put it back together and let us perform some repairs as we go. I can't wait to see it in operation along with his 80D Northwest front shovel, which I'm headed to work on this week.

You just gotta love the old cable machines, or heck the new BIG ones too. Wether it's a dragline, front shovel, or pull shovel, just watching one of them work is like seeing poetry in motion.

There are a couple in the mountains west of Denver that were used for mining.

DRL: Haven't heard "bucu" since we left the southwest...always assumed it was from the french "beaucoup". My stepfather, an old cowboy, walked across France and Germany (sometimes both ways!) in WWII.
CKLUV: one place to inquire about working steam shovels, probably mostly in museums, as others've said, is stripmine.org; it and hcea.net would be good for draglines, too.
Kennecott had some big shovels in the Santa Rita pit, supposedly steam at one time, but were electric when I was there in the 50's, and don't know if the steam part was true or not.

Around NE Iowa, there are (were) some Shield-Bantams manufactured in Waverly, IA. There is one sitting along Hwy 20 west of Dike, IA (west of Waterloo). There was one about 6 miles south of Lake City, IA near the Raccoon river (about straight west of Lanesboro) but I haven't been by there lately. These are small draglines and I think may have been mounted on WWII duece and halves.

There is a air operated steam shovel at a mining museum just north of Colorado Springs, CO.
Western Mining Museum

This 1906 Marion sits at the edge of old quarry near LeRoy NY - a few miles from my home. It's alleged to be the largest surviving steam shovel in the US.

Our club has a steam shovel that we are in the process of restoring. Its a Bucyrus Erie 103C. It is on crawlers. We have the boiler down getting fixed now, at the tune of $45,000!!!! We got the shovel out of a Vulcan Materials pit in Ill. Brought it back to the park in 10 loads. What a pile of steel. Its at the Rock River Thresheree in Wisconsin.

My sister lives in Nederland,Co. and they have one displayed in there town.It was originally used in the digging of the Panama Canal or something.It was on the tv show mega movers I think.They showed moving it into town.

Since you asked about draglines, here's one close to my neck of the woods. Might get it on a 30' trailer if you get really creative.

Big Brutus

Bob M, Here's your pic.

That's not a dragline. That's a shovel. A dragline has a standard boom and has a bucket with a line attached to pull it toward the cab. They release it allowing the bucket to swing out past the end of the boom and then dropped. It is then pulled back towards the cab picking up material. The main hoist lifts it and it is boomed left or right to where the want to dump it. The bucket is tripped to dump the material.

Western MN Steam Threshers Reunion (WMSTR) show, Labor Day weekend, in Rollag, MN has an operating steam shovel. Google their site.

Used to watch em work in the fifties when I was 7. None since.