These are pictures of the very first GIANT shovel I ever was close up to. This is the famous "Mountaineer".. the first of the "super strippers" its a Marion 5760 and had a 65 cu yd bucket on it.
Sometime around 1981 my father and I walked back into the pit where it had been parked on mats and he took these photos with an old 35mm camera. It was scrapped a couple years after this. But after seeing this one, I never looked back so to speak in my quest to see the largest machines in the world of all types.













Here is something a little interesting.... The earlier stripping shovels did not have drive motors in the crawler trucks themselves... they were driven by a gear system on the shovel lower works and thru a huge set of shafts and U-joints....A close up of the drive shaft and system...

I've been around a lot of big gear the past years and still want to see one of these. There is still 1 left in Kentucky or somewhere Tim?

Ace, Yep, Its a BE 1850B "Big Brutus" at Mineral Springs Kansas. They have quite a nice display to see. Its what would have been called a medium sized stripping shovel if you can call a 90 yd machine medium.But its an awsome example and you can go into the machinery house etc. They used to let people go up to the point sheaves, but not anymore I think. Its all that is left. The last one to be scrapped as a 5900 Marion at Peabody Lynnville Ind.
The Silver Spade and GEM of Egypt "both 1950B's" were only a few hours away from me so I had seen those two and some older shovels working a few times.. I think Eric and I were the last to film the Spade before it shutdown. Consol had hired Eric to film it, and we lucked out as it was. The machine was down when we went on board.. and the next day it was up and running, just before they tore the cutting edge off the bucket. It was welded back up a week or so later and ran maybe a few days before the rollers started coming out of the swing circle again, and that was it. Parked on its way out of the pit for the final time and scrapped out.

Maaaaan I thought this topic was about something else, talk about a huge let down when I open it up and only see a picture of a huge machine

Great pictures! Thanks for posting

The mother of all U-joints...

Great post - I will eventually visit Mineral Springs at some point. The logistics of getting there though...