information on universal cranes and excavators and draglines

craig

craig

Well-known member
On the outskirts of Leeds at St Aidens was one of the biggest mining mess ups the country has ever known, yet not many know about it, probably as no-one died (I don't think).
They were using open cast for coal and went too close to the river Aire which burst into the mine completely filling it and ending all operations there. It's now a nature reserve.
The dragline is still sat there at the side, it's a Bucyrus Erie called Oddball and was once featured on 'Abandoned Engineering'.
If you use all those key words ^ in Google you'll be able to read all about it or watch on YT. How you'd find the programme to watch on TV I don't know, but it's out there.
It's quite an interesting story.
It was on TV a month or so back.
 
Vinpetrol

Vinpetrol

Well-known member
I poked my nose in at threkeld a couple of years back as my daughter lives nearby . No one was about but I took these pics .
My father in law , now past was very bad with dementia at the time . He had been an operator of draglines in his day . I showed him the pics I took and he could tell me chapter and verse about the machines . It was like the dementia briefly faded away . Really great memory . The 110RB was some size . The 22RB looks like a Tonka toy beside it .
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Bob

Bob

Well-known member
had a couple of days on a 22 in the early 80,s ... you'd not want it full time ... bit of a mind number/head shaker after a few hrs
You forgot the noise the smells and dust from the drums but I still liked driving them but as at the time I was a youngster its was hop on the motor scrapers and Big loads and quick
 
V8Druid

V8Druid

do it as well as you can,but learn to do it better
You forgot the noise the smells and dust from the drums but I still liked driving them but as at the time I was a youngster its was hop on the motor scrapers and Big loads and quick
oh aye and the thump thump from the big Dorman behind you ... and the heat !! ... haven't been in one since IIRC, but I did enjoy the manual levered machines :giggle:
 
barracane

barracane

Well-known member
thank you for your clarifying replies, I thought they were the top Germans in mechanics and engineering, I have seen with deep respect and admiration that you Brits also have experience and a technical tradition in naval engineering you were pioneers of the forerunners of the veterans, I didn't know that thanks again and sorry for the inconvenience.

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I am ignorant on the other hand if we read history the industrial revolution and technological progress we owe it to you English and to your ingenuity, you have a tradition both in the naval and mining sectors and in progress in the manufacturing industrial sector. Thanks again
 
Lancs Lad

Lancs Lad

Well-known member
V8Druid

V8Druid

do it as well as you can,but learn to do it better
dinky little Orenstein and Koppel in the second pic :cool:
and that F450 in the penultimate pic looks a nice tool ... strut jib cranes as mobiles were slow-ish to set up initially but had great duties for quite a small carrier, without all the boom weight of a telescopic machine ... would love to have my old Coles Victor sat about here ... very compact, with a good 10t capacity and even with 85ft of stick on, could be repositioned easily without having to de-rig
 
V8Druid

V8Druid

do it as well as you can,but learn to do it better
barracane

barracane

Well-known member
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:unsure::coffee::whistle::unsure:
It is not the excavator that makes the excavator, but the excavator that makes a great excavator???
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V8Druid

V8Druid

do it as well as you can,but learn to do it better
View attachment 47648:unsure::coffee::whistle::unsure:
It is not the excavator that makes the excavator, but the excavator that makes a great excavator???View attachment 47649View attachment 47650
first pic is a Coles Victor like my old one ... with gantry mast .. he's rigging a boom on the floor - the hard way ... shouldn't be lifting like that with the short pendants attached half way up the boom ... that position was for rigging only, not lifting and he's going to have to drop the upper half off the boom, offset from the main rig and try to juggle it all into line .... doesn't look like he has the jib section hoist on the back end of the tail weight to lift the sections off their racks on board, so presume his sections have arrived on a.n.other vehicle ...... he's a lucky lad having hydraulic riggers too .. must be a very late diesel/hydraulic, instead of the original diesel/electrics
 
barracane

barracane

Well-known member
where I come from there are no big cranes, for exceptional jobs they are hired by large companies equipped outside the area, ours is a small provincial town
 
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