Marion 6360, known as "the Captain", was a giant
power shovel
A power shovel, also known as a motor shovel, stripping shovel, front shovel, mining shovel or rope shovel, is a bucket-equipped machine usually powered by steam, diesel fuel, gasoline or electricity and used for digging and loading earth or frag ...
built by the
Marion Power Shovel
Marion Power Shovel Company was an American firm that designed, manufactured and sold steam shovels, power shovels, blast hole drills, excavators, and dragline excavators for use in the construction and mining industries. The company was a ma ...
company. Completed and commissioned on October 15 1965,
it was one of the largest land vehicles ever built,
exceeded only by some
dragline
A dragline excavator is a heavy-duty excavator used in civil engineering and surface mining. It was invented in 1904, and presented an immediate challenge to the steam shovel and its diesel and electric powered descendant, the power shovel. ...
and
bucket-wheel excavator
A bucket-wheel excavator (BWE) is a large heavy equipment machine used in surface mining.
Their primary function is that of a continuous digging machine in large-scale open-pit mining operations, removing thousands of tons of overburden a day. Wh ...
s. The shovel originally started work with
Southwestern Illinois Coal Corporation, but the owners were soon bought out by
Arch Coal
Arch Resources, previously known as Arch Coal, was an American coal mining and processing company. The company mined, processed, and marketed bituminous and sub-bituminous coal with low sulfur content in the United States. Arch Resources was the ...
. Everything remained the same at the mine except for the colors which were changed to red, white, and blue. Like most mining vehicles of extreme size, the Marion 6360 required a surprisingly small amount of men to operate (a total of four), consisting of a operator, oiler, welder, and a ground man who looked after the trailing cable.
[
The shovel worked well for Arch Coal until September 9, 1991, when a fire broke out in the lower works of the shovel,][ caused by a burst hydraulic line that spraying the hot fluids on an electrical relay panel.][ This fire caused a great deal of damage to both the lower works and machine house.][ Afterwards, engineers from both Arch and Marion Power Shovel surveyed the damage and deemed it too great to repair, and the machine was scrapped one year later in the last pit it dug.
The only Marion shovel that compared (in size and scope) to "The Captain" was the Marion 5960-M Power Shovel that worked at Peabody Coal Company's (]Peabody Energy
Peabody Energy is a coal mining company headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. Its primary business consists of the mining, sale, and distribution of coal, which is purchased for use in electricity generation and steelmaking. Peabody also marke ...
) River Queen Surface Mine in Central City, Kentucky
Central City is a list of Kentucky cities, home rule-class city in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, in the United States. The population was 5,819 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It is the largest city in ...
. It was named the "Big Digger" and carried a bucket on a boom. It was Marion Power Shovel's second largest machine ever built and the third largest shovel in the world. This "sister shovel" was scrapped in early 1990 in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky
Muhlenberg County () is a county in the U.S. Commonwealth of Kentucky. As of the 2020 census, the population was 30,928. Its county seat is Greenville and its largest city is Central City.
History
Muhlenberg County was formed in 1798 from ...
.
Specifics
* Boom Length:
* Bucket Capacity: (double doors)
* Dipper Stick Length:
* Overall Weight: 12700 tons (11,521,000 kg)
* Total Height:
* Crawler Height:
* Crawler Unit Length:
* Individual Crawler Width:
* Individual Track weight: 3.5 tons apiece (42 pads per track total)
* Clearance Under Shovel: to the first level of the Lower Works
* Largest Shovel In The World & Largest Ever Built By Marion--
* Started Service: 1965
* Dismantled: 1992
* Power
* Build time (site erection) 18 months & 150,000 man hours
See also
* Bagger 288
Bagger 288 (Excavator 288), previously known as the MAN TAKRAF RB288 built by the German company Krupp for the energy and mining firm Rheinbraun, is a bucket-wheel excavator or mobile strip mining machine.
When its construction was completed i ...
* Bagger 293
Bagger 293, previously known as the MAN TAKRAF RB293, is a giant bucket-wheel excavator made by the Germany, German industrial company TAKRAF, formerly an East German Kombinat.
It owns and shares some records for terrestrial vehicle size in the ...
* Big Muskie
Big Muskie was a dragline excavator built by Bucyrus-Erie and owned by the Central Ohio Coal Company (formerly a division of American Electric Power), weighing and standing nearly 22 stories tall. It mined coal in the U.S. state of Ohio fr ...
* The Silver Spade
The Silver Spade was a giant power shovel used for strip mining in southeastern Ohio. Manufactured by Bucyrus-Erie, South Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the Silver Spade was one of two model 1950-B shovels built, the other being its sister ship, the GEM ...
* Big Brutus
Big Brutus is the nickname of the Bucyrus-Erie model 1850-B electric power shovel, which was the second largest of its type in operation in the 1960s and 1970s. Big Brutus is the centerpiece of a mining museum in West Mineral, Kansas, United ...
* Bucyrus-Erie
Bucyrus-Erie was an American surface and underground mining equipment company. It was founded as Bucyrus Foundry and Manufacturing Company in Bucyrus, Ohio, in 1880. Bucyrus moved its headquarters to South Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1893. In 1927, ...
* Bucket-wheel excavator
A bucket-wheel excavator (BWE) is a large heavy equipment machine used in surface mining.
Their primary function is that of a continuous digging machine in large-scale open-pit mining operations, removing thousands of tons of overburden a day. Wh ...
* Dragline
A dragline excavator is a heavy-duty excavator used in civil engineering and surface mining. It was invented in 1904, and presented an immediate challenge to the steam shovel and its diesel and electric powered descendant, the power shovel. ...
* Excavator
Excavators are heavy equipment (construction), heavy construction equipment primarily consisting of a backhoe, boom, dipper (or stick), Bucket (machine part), bucket, and cab on a rotating platform known as the "house".
The modern excavator's ...
* Power Shovel
A power shovel, also known as a motor shovel, stripping shovel, front shovel, mining shovel or rope shovel, is a bucket-equipped machine usually powered by steam, diesel fuel, gasoline or electricity and used for digging and loading earth or frag ...
References
External links
*
Stripping shovels
Engineering vehicles
6360
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