These are notes that I am writing to help me learn our industrial history. They are my best understanding, but that does not mean they are a correct understanding.
CSX Atlanta & West Point Route (A&WP Subdivision), West Point, GA.134 car long CSX Q619-28 (Hamlet, NC - New Orleans, LA Manifest) crosses the Chattahoochee River Bridge with CSX Yn2 AC4400CW 289 & CSX Yn2 ES44AC 759.
The ComEd building is now called the Gaitan Building, and it was built in 1925 and has the following real-estate description:
150,000 sf Industrial bldg, all concrete and brick construction, 3 stories, full basement, drive in doors, loading dock, 2 side yards, alley, central location to Chicago skyway and Dan Ryan expressways, 5 blocks to University of Chicago Campus, needs total rehab, short window of availability, no inspections or reports, buy as is! a deal at twice the price!!! (LoopNet)
That web page also mentioned that it has a clear ceiling height of 35 feet. So it sounds like it is really has one very high story. That is, the building is hallow inside. That makes sense for substation use. And many erecting shops are like that with a travelling crane overhead.
This substation is not near public roads. But on may way home I passed one that was near roads and none of that equipment was covered either. I remember that I stopped to take pictures, but I can't find them. However, it is big enough that a satellite image is probably a better view anyhow.
Is it crocodiles that allow birds to clean their teeth? This reminds me of that.
Joe Dockrill shared Sean WilliamJackpine oil sands project. Those big shovels are a ton of fun to run. Michael Duggan(Best Steve Erwin voice) Isn't it amazing the tender care the mommas give their babies!
Awesome Earthmovers Video of mining equipment being moved into and demonstrated ast a convention center.
The moves of mining equipment below would be from a played out mine to a nearby new mine. The equipment is originally built from parts shipped in quite a few railcars or 18-wheelers. When I took a tour in Caterpillars visitor center in Peoria, IL, the guide mentioned the number of railcars needed to ship the parts for a big haul truck, but of course I can no longer remember what that number was.
20150904,07 4466
But first, at the small (old) end of the scale was a dragline and a crane with a clamshell attachment putting on a demonstration at the SCRAP annual Labor Day antique tractor show. A video of a Type 8 Erie steam shovel in action. The dump truck is an antique also.
Anders Eriksson posted two photos of an Akerman 751. His comment provides a time frame for when hydraulic power replaced cable power: "A one yard, 25 tonne machine of late sixties vintage. The very last traditional ropeshovel made by Åkerman."
This is the first time I have seen rails put on a flatcar so that the excavator can roll back and forth. This allows it to clear a section of track before the train has to be moved again.
Osgood Steam Shovel at work on the Chicago main drainage channel. Just some of the machinery used and methods of work adopted in excavating the 28-mile drainage canal from Chicago to Lockport. What they learned here, they used digging the Panama Canal.
The "drainage channel" the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. It reversed the flow of the Chicago River so that Chicago people did not have to drink their own sewage. (Instead, Illinois River towns could drink it.) This not only was the state-of-art in the late 1900s, it pushed the state-of-art.
The dredging of the Chicago River, in the process of reversing it's flow, 1899. (from "The Lost Panoramas)
Allison Hirsch ForeThis is a glass plate negative by the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago that was used with permission in the book. The description for this photo is: Three men pose on a dipper dredge bucket on October 16, 1899, during construction of a bypass channel on the South Branch between Van Buren St. and Adams St. The bypass channel was built to widen and deepen the river so that it could convey the required flow for the soon-to-open Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. George KalogerasI do believe some of the concrete frame work is still in the river south of Van Buren.
Here is a pic of JENNY she is a old Bucyrus that operated at Iron Knob South Australia.
The old girl was introduced in the mid 30s an ran for 38 years before being placed on top of the Iron Monarch lookout as a souvenir o the mining past. The old girl pulled just shy of a million tonnes per year.
A few years ago she was bought back down s a cutback could be done and then returned to its rightful place at the top of the hill.
Note that the dump bed was removed for this move by two trucks. Imagine how carefully the drivers have to coordinate their driving. Later, I found a picture of dump beds being moved. (Update: a video of dual truck driving.)
The above move must have been for a very shot distance. I assume that they normally do more disassembly so that they can be hauled by several singleton trucks.
A video of moving a front loader. Note that it is a big move even though the cab, bucket, and tires have been removed. Another video of a front loader being moved. At 0:07 you can clearly see that the wheels under the trailer turn more the further away they are from the back of the trailer.
Tony Bratcher posted
I thought this was a neat picture to share, we always had 777 at any of the mines I worked at, here's one next to Cat's biggest truck the 797. Troy Bratcher I believe that 797 would haul that 777 lol. Ricky Cates After driving one of the big trucks Troy, the 777 feels like a gocart.
Troy Bratcher commented on his posting
These are models but built to scale, 797, 785 and 773. Harvey AnkromTroy Bratcher 789 was 195 Ton if i remember correctly.
Jason Jordan shared
[The bigger they are, the harder they fall.]
The big dump trucks have tires about twice as tall as a person. And I noticed the big front loaders had some pretty big tires. I always wondered who made those tires --- Firestone, Goodyear, Bridgstone, etc. I learned from a train video's comments that Cat evidently makes them in their own plant in Peoria, IL.
Ashok Kumar posted
[In Netherland they took a big haul through a town. Actually, it is a big haul design, but it is not very big. Note that there are not very many steps needed to get to the cab, and the cab is big compared to the rest of the truck.]
Engineering World: "The Biggest Truck in the World..." The Komatsu 960E is an off-highway, ultra-class, rigid-frame, two-axle, diesel/AC electric powertrain haul truck designed and manufactured by Komatsu America Corp. in Peoria, Illinois, United States. The 960E is Komatsu’s largest, highest capacity haul truck, offering a payload capacity of up to 327 tons. The truck is powered by a four cycle diesel engine with 18 V-type cylinders. The power output of the engine is 3,500HP.
This now claims the be the largest in the world:
(new window) (source) This video makes you glad that you can move the slider to skip a lot of the beeping and other boring parts. It appears that a tire is about twice as tall as a man.
Did the stick of the shovel accidentally fall down on the end of the dump bed?
These moves of mining equipment would be from a played out mine to a nearby new mine. The equipment is originally built from parts shipped in quite a few railcars or 18-wheelers. When I took a tour in Caterpillars visitor center in Peoria, IL, the guide mentioned the number of railcars needed to ship the parts for a big haul truck, but of course I can no longer remember what that number was.
There appears to be a part of the boom laid crosswise in front ob the background track. Note that there looks like there is a boom laid crosswise in front of the background track. This view of a P&H shows that they have a boom that olds the bucket. But if you look above the left side of the cab, you can see that that boom is still attached to this unit. Maybe they are carrying a boom for another unit that is also being moved.
Dan Mackey has a Flickr Album that shows a shovel being disassembled into parts that will fit on railroad flatcars. Note that some of the flat cars have 3-axle, instead of the usual 2-axle, trucks to carry a heavier than normal load. And the turret's depressed well has a bolster at each end so that the load is spread over two trucks so the car has a total of 8 axles.
I was surprised by the number of hydraulic hoses going between the cab and the boom. The the following photo provided part of the answer. These big units use two hydraulic rams for each degree-of-movement.
The depressed well increases the vertical clearance to carry exceptionally high loads. I didn't note any parts that look like the bucket. I wonder how that was moved.
Even just the boom of one of this cranes is a big load.
With lots of horsepower comes lots of responsibility. What really blew my mind is that once the truck was torn apart, the trailer rolled further to the left into the bog. What did they hook the chain to --- the radiator instead of the truck frame?
A video of a big excavator and several heavy haul trucks moving dirt. At the end it shows "Liebherr Mining Power." I was worried that Cat has bought enough companies (e.g. Bucyrus-Erie, Marion) that they have a monopoly. They probably do have a monopoly in America, but at least there is global competition.
The biggest hydraulic excavator in the world, the Bucyrus RH400 is a front-shovel excavator weighing approximately 889 tons. Its shovel can hold 45 cubic meter of earth in a single scoop. The RH400 is the inspiration behind Decepticon Demolishor in the 2009 movie “Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen.”
Since the bucket is removed, I don't know if this is an excavator or a shovel.
John W. Coke posted
515-TON SHOVEL relocation from the Syncrude Aurora to the Kearl Lake Oil Sands Project in Canada.
A Feb. 5, 2016 video whose title claims the Hatachi EX8000 is the largest in the world. The comments indicate that, once again, it is hard to claim the world's largest of anything.
(new window) This Cat 6015B shovel is "only" 10.3 yd3, but I include the video because it shows the attachment on a service truck that helps shove the pins into place during assembly. And it shows that just the bucket is a good sized load for a truck. It also shows that it takes some skill to empty a bucket load into a truck because this operator hasn't developed it yet.
