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A steam shovel is a large steam-powered excavating machine designed for lifting and moving material such as rock and soil. It has been suggested that this article be split into articles entitled steam and water vapor, accessible from a disambiguation page. ...
For the American hard rock band, see Soil (band). ...
 A derelict steam shovel in Alaska; it clearly shows boiler, water tank, winch, main engine, boom, dipper stick, crowd engine, wheels and bucket. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (1310x902, 118 KB) steam shovel I took it. ...
Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (1310x902, 118 KB) steam shovel I took it. ...
Origins and development
The steam shovel was invented by William Otis, who received a patent for his design in 1839. In music, an invention is a short composition with two or three part counterpoint. ...
William Otis was an inventor who invented the steam shovel. ...
A patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a state to a patentee (the inventor or assignee) for a fixed period of time in exchange for the regulated, public disclosure of certain details of a device, method, process or composition of matter (substance) (known as an invention) which...
The first machines were known as 'partial-swing', since the dipper arm could not rotate through 360 degrees. They were built on a railway chassis, on which the boiler and movement engines were mounted. The shovel arm and driving engines were mounted at one end of the chassis, which accounts for the limited swing. Bogies with flanged wheels were fitted, and power was taken to the wheels by a chain drive to the axles. Temporary rail tracks were laid by workers where the shovel was expected to work, and repositioned as required.
Steam shovels became more popular in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Originally configured with chain hoists, the advent of steel cable in the 1870s allowed for easier rigging to the winches. Builders hoist, with small petrol engine A hoist is a device used for lifting or lowering a load by means of a drum or lift-wheel around which rope or chain wraps. ...
Steel wire rope (right hand lay) Wire rope consists of several strands laid (or twisted) together like a helix. ...
Later machines were supplied with caterpillar tracks, obviating the need for rails to be laid. Caterpillar tracks are large (modular) tracks used on tanks, construction equipment and certain other off-road vehicles. ...
The full-swing, revolving shovel was developed in England in 1884, and this became the preferred format for these machines. Motto (French) God and my right Anthem God Save the King (Queen) England() – on the European continent() – in the United Kingdom() Capital (and largest city) London (de facto) Official languages English (de facto) Government Constitutional monarchy - Queen Queen Elizabeth II - Prime Minister Tony Blair MP Unification - by Athelstan 967 Area...
1884 (MDCCCLXXXIV) is a leap year starting on Tuesday (click on link to calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Thursday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar). ...
Expanding railway networks (in the US and the UK) fostered a demand for shovels; it can be said that the extensive mileage of railways, and corresponding volume of material to be moved, forced the technological leap. As a result, steam shovels became commonplace.
During the 1930s steam shovels lost out to the simpler, cheaper diesel-powered excavating shovels that are the forerunners of those still in use today. Open-pit mines were electrified at this time. Only after the Second World War, with the advent of robust high-pressure hydraulic hoses, did the more versatile hydraulic backhoe shovels take preeminence over the cable-hoisting winch shovels. This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...
Mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 18 km into the air. ...
Many steam shovels remained quietly at work on the railways of developing nations until diesel engines supplanted them. Most have since been scrapped.
History (US) American manufacturers included the Marion Steam Shovel Company which was founded in 1884, Erie, P and H, and Bucyrus Shovel Companies. Marion is a given name: Marion Barry Marion Zimmer Bradley Marion Jones Marion Suge Knight Marion John Wayne Morrison Marion Pat Robertson Marion Schwantes Marion may be used as a given name for both males and females, but the female form is usually Marian. ...
The Panama Canal Technological necessity is obvious with the most famous application of steam shovels – that of digging the Panama Canal across the Isthmus of Panama in the opening decades of the twentieth century. One hundred and two shovels were put to work in that decade-long dig. Seventy-seven of this number were Bucyrus railway shovels, whose booms could only rotate less than 180 degrees, the remainder were Marion Shovels. These strong behemoths moved mountains in their labours. The shovel crews would race to see who could move the most dirt. Two Panamax running the Miraflores Locks The Panama Canal (Spanish: ) is a major ship canal that traverses the Isthmus of Panama in Central America, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. ...
Behemoth and Leviathan, an engraving by William Blake For other uses, see Behemoth (disambiguation). ...
Mining Mining also benefitted from steam shovels: the iron mines of Minnesota, the copper mines of Chile and Montana, placer mines of the Klondike - all had earth-moving equipment. But it was with the burgeoning open-pit mines - first in Bingham Canyon, Utah - that shovels came into their own. The shovels systematically removed hillsides. As a result, steam shovels were used around the world from Australia to Russia to coal mines in China. Shovels were also used for construction, road and quarry work.
Later history (US) Steam shovels came into their own in the 1920s with the publicly-funded road building programmes around North America. Thousands of miles of State Highways were built in this time period, together with new factories, such as Henry Ford's River Rouge Plant, and many docks, ports, buildings, and grain elevators. Dams such as the Hoover or Boulder dam could not have been built without steam shovels. Aerial view of the Rouge complex in 1942 Interior of the Rouge Tool & Die works, 1944 The River Rouge Plant (commonly known as the Rouge Complex or just The Rouge) is a Ford Motor Company automobile factory complex located in Dearborn, Michigan at the confluence of the Rouge and Detroit...
Preservation
 Still in use:Ruston-Bucyrus steam shovel in Lixouri/Greece Sadly most steam shovels have been scrapped, although a few can still be found in industrial museums and private collections where they are popular restoration projects for steam enthusiasts. Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 800 × 600 pixels Full resolution (2592 × 1944 pixel, file size: 2. ...
Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 800 × 600 pixels Full resolution (2592 × 1944 pixel, file size: 2. ...
The Le Roy Marion The world's largest (intact) steam shovel still in existence is a 1906-built Marion machine, located in the small American town of Le Roy, New York. [1] Le Roy is a town located in Genesee County, New York, USA. As of the 2000 census, the town had a total population of 7,790. ...
NY redirects here. ...
This machine was bought by the General Crushed Stone Company, who operated the largest rock crusher in the world at a quarry in Le Roy. The shovel, which weighed over 100 tons, was originally mounted on flanged rail-wheels, but was converted to caterpillar tracks in 1923 using a conversion kit manufactured by Marion. [2]
A crew of three men were required to operate it: a fireman, who kept the boiler fed with coal and water; a crane man, who sat on the left-hand side of the boom and tripped the 1 5/8 yard bucket by tugging on a wire rope attached to the bucket; and an engineer (or driver), who raised and lowered the bucket and drove the machine along the track.[3]
This shovel remained in use until 1949, when it was driven out of the quarry and parked by the main road – where it remains to this day, although no longer functional. The Town Council have purchased the land on which it sits, and are planning to apply (in March 2007) for National Landmark status for the shovel.
Operation A steam shovel comprises: Image File history File links Rotary_steam_shovel_at_work. ...
Parking meter checker stands by his police vehicle which is imprinted with the German word for police (Polizei). ...
- a bucket
- boom and 'dipper stick'
- boiler
- water tank and coal bunker
- steam engines and winches
- operators controls
- a rotating platform on a truck, on which everything is mounted
- wheels (or sometimes caterpillar tracks or railroad wheels)
- a house (on the platform) to contain and protect 'the works'
The shovel has several individual operations: it can raise or luff the boom, rotate the house, or extend the dipper stick out with the boom or crowd engine, and raise or lower the dipper stick. Caterpillar tracks are large (modular) tracks used on tanks, construction equipment and certain other off-road vehicles. ...
When digging at a rockface, the operator simultaneously raises and extends the dipper stick to fill the bucket with material. When the bucket is full, the shovel is rotated to load a railway car or motor truck. The locking pin on the bucket flap is released and the load drops away. The operator lowers the dipper stick, the bucket mouth self-closes, the pin relocks automatically and the process repeats.
Steam shovels usually had a three-man crew: engineer, fireman and ground man. There was much jockeying to do to move shovels: rails and timber blocks to move; cables and block purchases to attach; chains and slings to rig; and so on. On soft ground, shovels used timber mats to help steady and level the ground. The early models were not self-propelled, rather they would use the boom to manouevre themselves.
Steam shovel manufacturers
 Model of a steam shovel built from Meccano and powered by a restored 1929 Meccano steam engine. (Model details here) North American manufacturers: Image File history File links Meccano_model_Steam_shovel_excavator. ...
Image File history File links Meccano_model_Steam_shovel_excavator. ...
Meccano is a model construction kit comprising re-usable metal strips, plates, angle girders, wheels axles and gears, with nuts and bolts to connect the pieces. ...
// The term steam engine may also refer to an entire railroad steam locomotive. ...
European manufacturers: Bucyrus International is a manufacturer of heavy equipment headquartered in South Milwaukee, Wisconsin. ...
Marion Power Shovel is a Ohio-based manufacturer of tracked vehicles, mainly used in construction and resouce extraction. ...
The Manitowoc Company (NYSE: MTW) is a manufacturer of high-capacity lattice-boom crawler cranes, tower cranes, and mobile telescopic cranes for heavy construction, commercial construction, energy-related, infrastructure, duty-cycle, and crane-rental applications. ...
Categories: Stub | Locomotive manufacturers ...
To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...
The Fiorentini are a noble Italian family from the Valsugana. ...
This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...
Orenstein & Koppel (normally abbreviated to O&K), is a major German engineering company, and was founded on April 1, 1876 in Berlin by Benno Orenstein and Arthur Koppel. ...
Ruston is the former name of an engine builder in Lincoln, England, UK. It is responsible for Rusty in the Thomas the tank engine series. ...
Power shovels and draglines - Also see: Marion Power Shovel
Large, multi-ton mining shovels still use the cable-lift shovel arrangement. Marion Power Shovel is a Ohio-based manufacturer of tracked vehicles, mainly used in construction and resouce extraction. ...
In the 1950s and 1960s Marion Shovel built massive stripping shovels for coal operations in the Eastern US. Shovels of note were the Marion 360, the Marion 5900, and the Marion 6360 - with a 180 cubic yard bucket - while Bucyrus constructed one of the most famous monsters: the Big Muskie. The Big Muskie was dismantled in 1999. The largest power shovel still in existence is Big Brutus. Such shovels use an enormous scraping bucket called a dragline. Later models of dragline excavator became so gargantuan that, in order to move them about, engineers placed mechanical feet underneath - and thus they were christened 'walking' draglines. Although these big machines are still called steam shovels, they are more correctly known as power shovels since they use electricity to wind their winches. Big Muskie was a coal mining Bucyrus-Erie dragline owned by the Central Ohio Coal Company (a division of American Electric Power), and was the worlds largest mobile earth-moving machine, weighing nearly 13,000 metric tons and standing nearly 22 stories tall. ...
A home page for Big Brutus, Inc. ...
Dragline excavation systems are heavy equipment used in civil engineering and surface mining. ...
Power shovel/dragline manufacturers Bucyrus International is a manufacturer of heavy equipment headquartered in South Milwaukee, Wisconsin. ...
Marion Power Shovel is a Ohio-based manufacturer of tracked vehicles, mainly used in construction and resouce extraction. ...
Komatsu Limited (formally æ ªå¼ä¼šç¤¾å°æ¾è£½ä½œæ‰€, commonly コマツ) (TYO: 6301) is a Japanese company on the Nikkei 225 index that manufactures construction and mining equipment, silicon wafers, lasers, and thermoelectric modules. ...
In Fiction In the Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends TV series, a steam shovel called Ned appears as a minor character. Thomas & Friends (formerly Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends, also known as Thomas the Tank Engine) is a British childrens television series which was first broadcast in 1984. ...
The television series Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends is well known for its anthropomorphic railway engines. ...
Steam shovels have also found literary fame with the classic book Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel. Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel (ISBN 0-590-75803-9) is the title of a 1939 book by Virginia Lee Burton, the author and illustrator of the Caldecott Medal winning The Little House. ...
Trivia - During the Spanish Flu epidemic in 1918, so many people were dying that steam shovels were needed to dig the plague pits.
See also It has been suggested that Backhoe fade be merged into this article or section. ...
A tracked excavator by Daewoo. ...
Loader can refer to: Loader (equipment) Loader (computing) Boot loader A member of a heavy weapon crew responsible for handling and loading ammunition, such as on a howitzer or tank crew. ...
Point of contact between a power transmission belt and its pulley A conveyor belt or belt conveyor consists of two end pulleys, with a continuous loop of material that rotates about them. ...
A railroad crane owned by the German firm Magdeburger Hafen GmbH. A railroad crane is a piece of rail transport maintenance of way equipment. ...
// For other uses, see Dredge (disambiguation). ...
The Bagger 288 bucket-wheel excavator The Bagger 288 (Excavator 288), built by the German company Krupp for the energy and mining firm Rheinbraun, is a bucket-wheel excavator. ...
Bucket wheel excavator in Ferropolis, Germany Bucket-wheel excavators are heavy equipment used in surface mining and civil engineering. ...
References - ^ Stein, Shelley (2006-12-11). Notes to the Town. LeRoy Pennysaver and News. Retrieved on 2007-02-07.
- ^ Belluscio, Lynne (2006-12-11). Made Marion. LeRoy Pennysaver and News. Retrieved on 2007-02-07.
- ^ Belluscio, Lynne (2004-08-23). Le Roy’s Limestone Quarries. LeRoy Pennysaver and News. Retrieved on 2007-02-07.
2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the Anno Domini (common) era. ...
February 7 is the 38th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ...
2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the Anno Domini (common) era. ...
February 7 is the 38th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ...
2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the Anno Domini (common) era. ...
February 7 is the 38th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ...
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