A Page 757 dragline was moved from Mississippi to North Dakota.
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| safe_image for BNI Coal commissions $31 million dragline; coal miner replacing 45-year-old machine Jeremy Kelley: It was the “liberty bell” when ran in kemper county Mississippi. [My guess as to the location.] Nate Nowak: Jeremy Kelley it did not run there for long, correct? Jeremy Kelley: Nate Nowak that’s correct. The power plant dropped the coal side and the mine bellied up. I’m a dragline operator at red hills mine in ackerman, ms. I went down and exercised the liberty bell until it was sold . She is a nice dragline. Jerry Lacy: Nate Nowak at least the 8200 at red hills isn’t the atrocious environmental green like it was when it was in Illinois. It finished its work in Illinois about 3 miles south of my house. [BNI Coal location] "The electrically operated dragline stands 286 feet high and required 214 trucks to deliver it in pieces from Mississippi to the mine outside of Center." Bob Haare: I'm pretty sure that they mean that it is 186' tall, not 286'. 186' with a 310' boom gives about a 37° boom angle. |
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| Jamie Kelly commented on the safe_image post |
The 757 that is being moved is the world's newest Page 757. It was named "Liberty Bell" in Mississippi and it is now named "Legacy." It is replacing "Big Jake." Big Jake was the world's oldest operating Page 757, which had been in service for about 45 years. The new machine could mine coal for another 50 years. [BismarkTribune]
This dragline had already been moved to Mississippi from Stobswood, UK!
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| Tim Swaren posted The "Ace of Spades" P&H 757 dragline at Stobswood. This dragline was dismantled and shipped to the US, not sure where. Ben Balbach: The 757 was moved to Liberty Fuels mine (MS), right next to the Kemper Power plant project. It was converted to AC at that time and commissioned in late 2013. It never dug much due to the power plant never being fully completed and therefor no demand for coal. The 757 is now being moved to a mine in North Dakota, hopefully seeing full production there. Bruce Pennington: I saw the P&H at Liberty Fuels north of Meridian, MS. It was sitting on the pad awaiting it’s fate. Glad it is still going to dig. Hate that it had to leave Mississippi. |
Nick Stork posted three photos with the comment:
How about a little good news. It looks like this beauty will live to see another day. I will not post details. I'll let others chime in. These photos are both mine. The top is a postcard I had given to me about 15-20 years ago. The other is a photo I took in the last couple of years. That machine is absolutely awesome. The upgrades that were given to her when being assembled in Mississippi make her the nicest dragline on the planet in my opinion.
EDIT: It looks like my postcard was mislabeled. The top picture is the IMC Florida 757. Sorry for the confusion! The bottom picture is the English machine that is the Liberty Belle.
[There was confusion because the 757 from England and the 757 in Florida both had the name Ace of Spades. The third photo wsa provided to Nick with the comment from Colin Imrie of "Ace of spades working the last cut at Stobswood it would walk up the haul road a few weeks later on its final journey."]
Gary Hershey: Was the propel system converted?
Nick Stork: Gary Hershey it looks like the English machine may have already had the P&H propel from the pictures.
Paul Todd: Gary Hershey It does.
Michael Davis: Liberty Belle is the first 757 made after the P&H buyout which is why it has a Marion walking cam
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| Colin Imrie commented on Nick's post My self standing next to one of the 65 yard buckets. [So a 757 can handle a bucket size larger than 22 or 23 yards that I've seen in other posts. It probably depends on the material being dug.] |
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| Comments on Nick's post |
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About five years ago, another Page 757 was moved from Wyoming to Texas.
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| CoalAge It is "powered by two 3,500-hp synchronous motors, the unit features a 57-ft diameter roller circle and a 320-ft boom with a 290-ft operating radius at a 38˚ angle; the bucket has a 62-cubic-yard capacity and the unit as a whole checks in at a little less than 7.5 million lb. Walking the machine to its new Texas home was not a viable option. So, Cabot and NA Coal teamed with San Antonio-based CCC Group to begin a 554-day dismantling and rebuild project. It took 180 truckloads, the heaviest weighing in at 157,000 lb, to transport the dragline, and a total of more than 200,000 man-hours to dismantle and totally rebuild it." |
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| CoalAge "A two-crane lift setting the modified superstructure on the machine." The electrical rebuild chose to stick with DC motors and generators rather than switch to variable AC motors. They also installed an onboard transformer so that they could upgrade the electric service from 8kv to 25kv. |
And then soon after it got scrapped!!!
Spencer Thompson posted six photos on Dec 10, 2023, with the comment: "Not a lot of people got to see this machine before she got scrapped. It too was a North American machine. PAGE 757 from Bridger Coal in Wyoming."
He also posted a 0:58 video that shows the energetic felling of the boom at 0:43.
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Nice to see that the dragline didn't get scrapped after the Kemper project went sideways. I remember it as the Ace of Spades when it worked at Stobswood. My grandad was a blacksmith at one of the deep mines nearby and moved on to repairing the buckets of the machines at the surface mines in the area, so I lived and breathed earthmoving equipment as a kid. He was retired by the time I was old enough to work, so I never got to work with him, but he did somehow manage to get me a go at driving a 980C loader when I was only like 13 or something. You'd never get away with something like that these days.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was older I used to be able to see the 757 from my window nearly 30 miles away, and at night you could watch the floodlights on the boom swinging from side to side in the dark. I'll never forget the first time I ever went for a closer look at it, because we stood on a bridge that crossed the haul road out of the pit on a windy day and my hat flew off and disappeared into the hole. I had to just stand there the whole time watching the dumpers running it over one after another.