Walking Buildings

Posted bygarysweldingincPosted inUncategorizedTags:, , ,

If I were you, I would look both ways before crossing the street. Just because, you know…you could literally walk out into the path of an oncoming building…

Because this is actually a thing.

{{takes long sip of coffee}}

I’m talking about draglines – giant crane-like buildings. Some of them have the ability to “walk”. And if you are thinking of something out of Star Wars, well, you may not be that far off. Sorta. They are somewhat common in our area of the country and in other areas of the US (and world). If you are not familiar with what a dragline is…grab your coffee, settle in for a spell and let me tell ya. 😊

A dragline is a giant excavator with a shovel or bucket and a boom. It looks similar to an enormous crane with a bucket attached. They do come in various sizes, but even the smallest ones are pretty big (2,000 tons). They are used in a variety of ways, but most can be found in mining and aggregate operations, or for things like building canals.

I dunno, but an 2,000 ton machine is pretty big!

And that was basically the snack size.

Hence me calling them “walking buildings”, because they are. You can climb some steps or a ladder, open a door and walk into something like a giant shop, housing all the inner workings of the giant beast. And that’s not even the part where the operator sits. Sort of like Star Wars, right??

And then there is the other part of the equation…the walking part. Some draglines are able to “walk” on pads that lift and move forward, so the machine moves forward on “feet”.

As you can imagine, It’s slow going because of the size of these machines. The path they take must be carefully planned and cleared…no Godzilla moseying through a packed city and leaving a trail of mayhem. Here is a video of one such dragline that walked from one mine to another in South Africa. It was quite the operation – https://youtu.be/iXDAXXRLupQ

An old dragline bucket

These behemoths just inspire awe!!

Draglines are truly fascinating. And just a fair warning, one can fall into a small rabbit hole on YouTube, watching all the wonderous videos on draglines. The further you get into watching them, the more you see they are a thing of beauty. But fearsome. They come with their own set of risks, as all machines do.

They are powerful. And their specific purpose is moving large amounts of earth, quickly. Their most familiar use to those of us that live in Northeastern part of Wyoming and Southeastern Montana is that of removing large amounts of overburden at coal mines. So we can get to the good stuff. 😉

If you are unfamiliar with draglines, see the links at the end of this post!!

Not a dragline, but an old Bucyrus-Erie crane with a clamshell

I bring up draglines in particular, because various members of my family have had experience with them. Gary has done welding on one some years ago. A giant of a machine called the Ursa Major at one of our mines. By the way, welders and draglines are a match made in heaven! It was quite an experience! One big drawback is that we did not get pictures of that job.

My sister has seen them up close and in person in the days when she was working on mine sites. She said they were very intimidating, but slow moving. And one of my uncles used to make parts for draglines for Bucyrus-Erie back in the 1970s.

Another interesting fact about draglines for all of you electric vehicle fanatics: most draglines are essentially the world’s largest EV’s. Yeah, that’s right – they have to be plugged into a transformer to work. Like 13,800 volts here. That’s legit. Don’t accidently drop it in the drink like you did to your phone, just sayin.

But at our coal mines, guess where they are getting the electricity to power that transformer??

From our beautiful, glorious coal!! 😉  We have the best, cleanest kind right here where I live. And draglines play a huge part in that coal mining process. Along with all the men and women who work to make our mines a success, of course!

Well, that probably wraps up this little blog post for now. Thank you for coming with me on this interesting little hike through some of our back history and local mining culture. So glad you joined me. 😊

GWInc.

P.S. Here are some cool links to check out if you want to know more about draglines:

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