SMALLER SHOVELS

This history charts the long-term rivalry between the American manufacturers Marion and Bucyrus to produce the world’s largest stripping shovel, from pre-WWI steampowered machines mounted on rails to a 15,000-ton tracked monster.

However, on the other side of the family tree of stripping shovels are universal excavators, pre-hydraulic era rope-operated machines that could be reconfigured to perform different tasks. Designed with interchangeable front end working equipment, they could be converted to operate as a face shovel, backhoe, dragline, skimmer, grab, crane or pile driver.

An adaption of the shovel was the stripping shovel, where an extra-long boom and dipper arm replaced the standard front end. Their extended proportions gave them sufficient reach to dig from a high face, swing round and dump the material well clear of the working area. Many small two-crawler rope shovels could be fitted with longer-than-standard booms, allowing them to perform stripping duties in shallow overburden. They were most popular in America during the 1940s and 1950s, working in the shallow overburden coal regions of Ohio, West Virginia and western Pennsylvania.

Several manufacturers who did not normally supply excavators to the surface mining industry offered long boom options on their standard machines. They included Osgood, Lorain, Koehring, Link-Belt and Northwest. Typically, a 2.5-cubic-yard face shovel could carry a two-yard bucket on the longer working equipment.

The second part of this historical overview of stripping shovels will focus on those machines that worked in the UK. Including the Ransomes & Rapier shovels employed to uncover ironstone in the English Midlands in the 1930s and 1940s.

Right: The last of the giant stripping shovels to operate was the BucyrusErie 1950-B ‘Silver Spade’. Having started in 1965, it finally stopped working in 2006.

Left: This is one of the two 395-B shovels purchased by Drummond Coal in 1988 to strip overburden ahead of a dragline. The 34-yard machines were the last stripping shovels sold.

Below: The BucyrusErie 88-B with high-lift boom and 4yd dipper was typical of two-crawler stripping shovels produced by several excavator manufacturers.

mines in the mid-west, especially from the Illinois Basin, which was the domain of the giant stripping shovels.

The development of more efficient hydraulic excavators and larger haul trucks, coupled with government restrictions on coal use, led to the eventual demise of large stripping shovels. The last models built in America were two AC electric-drive, two-crawler Bucyrus-Erie 395-B machines, delivered to Drummond Coal in 1988. Each weighing just over 1000 tons, they carried 34-yard dippers on 95ft booms.