The first part of this video has lens flare from shooting toward the sun, with summer haze. It settles down later.
When we first started going to the Stumptown Steam Show, in the early 1980s, the Silver Spade was working directly behind the show site. Subsequently, it was parked for several several years, due to high coal inventory. When it was reactivated, it worked north of OH 519, over to OH 9. It then returned and crossed OH 519 next to the Stumptown site, and moved 1 mile west. After working a higher seam on the south side of 519, it ramped down to a lower seam. I don't remember the seam numbers, perhaps some viewer does.
The rumor was that while ramping down, they broke into old mine tunnels, and the machine almost tipped over when the ground gave way. They had to fill in to stabilize the area before proceeding. This video shows part of the stabilization process. It appears that they had dug further ahead, and then backed the machine out to build a solid base. Must have been scary, as several machines ended their lives that way. At one point in this video, we see them using the bucket to tamp dirt into the hole.
Ramping down is a scary process in any case. The downhill leveling rams are extended, and the uphill ones retracted, with little margin for error with this very tall narrow machine. There are crossed bubble levels on the operator's console, and probably several other locations.
Although this video is labeled as Part 1, there may be an earlier tape from that day in the box.
We visited the Spade several times per year, from the time it was reactivated until it was retired. In this case, we left the Dover Steam Show mid-day Sunday, and made the 1 hour drive to the mine. This video was shot from Cadiz-Flushing Road. The timestamp on the first take is 2:43 pm, thus the camera is facing the sun, resulting in some lens flare added to the summer haze.
The original video format is 720 x 480. The video will look crisp at that viewing size.
This video was shot with a Sony Handycam in Digital 8. This format used 2 hour Hi-8 analog videotapes, running at 2x speed, to produce high quality 1 hour digital video. It was a revolutionary format at the time, and was used extensively by news media for field news gathering, such as in Iraq. A bit of image quality is lost in the MS moviemaker editor, losing some of the striking immediacy of the format. Note that it is interlaced, and sized for broadcast televisions of the time.
This is the fourth video from a large box full of 75(!) of these 1 hour tapes, that WurliTzer153Duplex is gradually converting via FireWire. These were shot by both of us, with several cameras, and it's interesting to figure out who did what.
A large percentage of the 75 videotapes are labeled as Silver Spade...!
There is some cool stuff in there.
Sony Handycam Digital 8
August 19, 2001
#589
20010819j Spade Ramp Part 1