You bet it's good to preserve videos of these amazing machines. I have watched this one in action in person many times..it was like an old friend. And then one day she was gone.😞😢It may seem a little silly to cry over a Rope Shovel, but I couldn't help myself..this crown jewel should have been preserved as a museum. There was s mining machine display park right across from where the Spade broke down. She could have easily been saved. Heck, my family could have done it, the price would have been to sell Silver Spade to us. We had the space, time and money to do it. Oh, well. That's life.

Blame Consolidated Coal for it's demise.

Unfortunately, today's America couldn't build great machines like the Silver Spade or Big Muskie or The Captain or any comparable machine if our lives depended on it. We can't even build an AM/FM radio entirely in house. It was tried almost 30 years ago. It wouldn't matter anyway now because the giant media conglomerations have deliberately filled the AM/FM radio space with the worst junk. But we CAN build architectural abominations, turn society upside down for degenerates, build reusable rockets to build the Prison Planet surveillance system in orbit, and fight wars for Israeli interests.

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@@ferdinandoalga2392 Stokes suck! Good luck!

Pp

I am sure he had his reasons.

This is a high front machine with a long dumping radius. Bucket is scaled to working radius. Pick up a 100 pound weight, no problem. Now hold it at arms length for a while.

that bucket can dig 315,000 lb (143 metric tons) of earth in a single bite...

@@redzipper8570 how many cubic yards we talking? 105-130 yards apparently,

@@humanbeing6719 Began operations - November 1965 Speed - 1/4 mph (400 m/h) Bucket capacity - 105 cu yd (80 m3) Operating weight - 14,000,000 lb (7,000 short tons, 6,400 metric tons) Height - 220 ft to top of boom (67 m) Boom length - 200 feet (61 m) Width - 59 ft (18 m) Height of crawlers - 8 ft (2.5 m) Length of crawlers - 34 ft (10 m) Maximum dumping height - 139 ft (42 m) Maximum dumping radius - 195 ft (59 m) Rating on A.C. motors - 13,500 hp (10.1 MW) peak Entire operation of the shovel is controlled by two hand levers and a pair of foot pedals. Digs 315,000 lb (143 metric tons) of earth in a single bite, swings 180° and deposits the load up to 390 ft (119 m) away from the digging points at heights up to 140 ft (42.5 m). Machine's four 2+5⁄8-inch-diameter (67 mm) hoist ropes total 3,000 ft (914 m) in length. Fourteen main digging cycle motors are capable of developing a combined peak of 13,500 hp (10.1 MW) at peak load. Automatically leveled through four 54-inch-diameter (1,400 mm) hydraulic jacks. Swings a 105 cubic yard (80 m3) dipper from a 200 ft (61 m) boom and a 122 ft (37 m) dipper handle.

@@humanbeing6719 think of a two car garage building size volume of dirt

Bonjour petit c une bucyrus erie elle ne consomme pas de fuel car elle est équipée de moteurs électriques et son godet fait 95 m3. En une journée elle te fait un très gros trou. Bonne continuation. Yann

130 cubic yard bucket is huge

This " small bucket" is capable of of digging 60 feet down in one scoop

There were 2 nearly identical 1950-B's. GEM had 130 yd on a short stick, Spade had 105 yd on a long stick. Coal company started using the Spade, and realized the the shorter GEM wouldn't be very flexible. They tried to change their order for the GEM to a high front like the Spade, but it was too late. Spade outlived the GEM by a good margin. The GEM was too limited in digging range.

@@SteamCrane they used the GEM for parts to keep the Spade going

Consider that one of the teeth on the bucket is bigger than a human.

Built to match the job and topography, removes overburden above a small seam of coal at the base of the shovel. Moving overburden from one side, dump on other side and keep moving overburden from operators right to left exposing more of the seam of coal on the right under the overburden. Then dozers and loaders remove seam and keep moving to right follow the seam.

The house and bucket do not scale up proportionally. The machine, itself, must contain all the motors, spools, wire, controlling systems, space between all the stuff, and have STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY to deal with all the enormous stresses. That is why it is so big in comparison to its bucket.

I'll add that power shovels and draglines of this size aren't made anymore because WE JUST CAN'T DO IT. TPTB completely deindustrialized us over the past 40+ years and we no longer have the materials, the factories, the skills, institutional memory, and the industrial habits of a workforce that can build and operate such a machine.

105 cubic yards hauled 400 feet and raised 139 feet in that time is pretty good. Think how long this would take with how many pan scrapers. We visited it often, and I believe I timed the cycle a bit faster than that. Depends on digging conditions and dump location.

This is true, but Bucket Wheel Excavators don't do well in rocky soil. Other than that, nothing can really touch a B.W.E. for moving dirt!!

True. B.W.E. dont do well with rocky over burden. Jams them up. Maybe Krup, CAT, B&E, Marion and others can take the best of The Spade and The Captain and deliver 1 super stripping shovel.

Some billionaire could easily invest the $.

Bucket Wheel Excavators are great for scooping up bulldozers who get in the way!

Not in this rock. They blast, but it's still tough digging. If you look at BWEs in Germany, they're digging soil.