Another excavator pic...

[D.Nickerson]

I posted a picture of a Cat bucket I welded on awhile ago. Well this isn't the machine, but I found this picture from about '97 or '98. At that time the picture was taken, this was the second biggest Cat hydraulic excavator in the world.

This was taken up in Blossburg PA. This was a brand new machine they hauled in from the Cat plant. They were extending the RT. 15 bypass. Darn near the whole project was on the side of a mountain. When I walked under this machine, I could see the main hydraulic lines coming from the pump. They were about 6" in diameter. And as you can see, I didn't have to bend over far to walk under it, and I'm 6' tall. I remember seeing the tag on the bucket, it alone weighed 25,000 lbs. I don't remember the cubic yards though. Each tooth had a hook welded on it for putting it on. I'm guessing each tooth weighed about 600-800 lbs. At that time I had a GMC 3/4 ton turbo diesel, half of the truck would have fit into the bucket.

And for tose of you that know machines like this, if you notice the boom cylinders are inverted. They say they can get more power out of them that way.

Behind the excavator is a 777D quarry truck. There were 3 more besides that one. All BRAND new. Little bit of money there!!!!! I'd like to have what they all cost!!!!! I sure wish I could've operated that machine!!

As you can tell, I looked alot different back then. My beard was down past my shoulders, and so was my hair. My cowboy hat is covering my hair, so you really can't see it.

Maybe someone on this forum from around that area could add more to this post about it.

[beaconlight]

Awesome!
Some where around I have a picture we took of the Dragline removing overburden at an Alaskan gold mine in 1961. It showed a 1960 Chevrolet Station wagon in a spare bucket. All 4 doors were open. They removed the overburden and dumped it on to a conveyor to carry it a couple of miles away. This cleared it for a dredge to mine the gold a year of so later. The drag line was electric powered. The power plant for Fairbanks was instlled to power the gold mines. Power to the town was an afterthought. As a waste not want not the steam after it ran through the turbines was fed into the streets as a town wide central heating system. I guess those pictures are in the corn crate in the cellar with all my letters home to Bev and the kids. I'll have to see if I can dig them out. Oh the things we did when we were young and trying to get on our feet financially.

[D.Nickerson]

Hi Bill, haven't talked to you in awhile. How's that 1050 treatin ya?

Yes, see if you can find it. That's a big bucket if one of those big old battle axes was in it with the doors open.

Electric powered drag lines were very common in mines, why, I don't know. I can't see how they were efficient back then.

[beaconlight]

Don't forget we are talking early 1900's. It was either steam or Electric. Gas or diesel were not that big and powerful at the time. A central power plant in nearby town to service 10 mines, sell electricity and steam heat with coal locally available along the rail tracks. Hard combo to beat. America was thinking big then, building Panama Canal. The mining dredges were electric powered too. Steam is a great power source but it is a bitch to operate. This was the time of hand fired boilers. The steam demand would vary from task to task. Each dredge, each dragline had to be hand fired. I fired on my grandfathers floating derrick as a kid. There was a 5 foot fire box with a forced draft. Too much cola in 1 spot and you ran a cold fire and if they were working winches and pumps hard it would be hard to keep up enough fire. It seemed everything would shut down at once and you were blowing off steam. That made the grandfather unhappy to say the least for that steam cost money to make. Central power cut down drastically on the amount of help needed. Firemen, oilers, engineers, coal haulers and etc. It also standardized equipment for a 50 HP electric motor is just that no matter the application. The popular tourist dredge in Fairbanks they claim was the last one working. If so I saw it still working. The extension cord was about 5 inch in diameter.
The coal was mined to power the trains at the time too.
With the 300 and 400 ton trucks the Canadian oil sands people find trucks cheaper than the conveyors and have stopped using them.
Oh the conveyors were electric powered too. You would go so far slightly up hill and then dump into a hopper that fed another conveyor etc until you got where you wanted to dump. As the Dragline moved so to had the conveyor system for you could only dump so far out. Electric made that easier than a flex steam line.

[D.Nickerson]

Yes, true early 1900's electric would be better than steam. That sure would have been neat to see. It must have been cool to watch the last one working.

[cowboy]

Hey Doug

This is a old picture of the 235 cat excavator I used four or five years ago.

[D.Nickerson]

That's a pretty good size machine cowboy. It looks like you got the swamp sticks on it(long reach booms). Nice pic.