Bucyrus Erie "ODDBALL" to his friends

This is Bucyrus Erie BE1150 or "Oddball" , it's a left over relic from the St Aidens Open Cast Mine close to where I live. There used to be 2 dragline cranes at the site, the second being twice as large as "Oddball" according to the guy from the preservation group that was showing us round; although not working now; Oddball is still the largest Dragline crane in Europe. There was a larger one up in Teeside some where but that has now been dismantled and shipped to the USA. It was going to be too expensive to move Oddballs bigger sister to another site when the coal reserves ran low at St Aidens so she was simply cut up and sold for scrap.

1. The view up the jib looking towards the body.

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Mmm! No drag lovers here then?

Not that sort of drag!

Good shots & commentary on it.

Interesting story...looks like a fun place to shoot.

Is this still in use?

No it's not in use and hasn't been for a long time, the St Aidens site was flooded when the nearby River Aire burst it's banks. The river was eventually re-routed (which took a special act of Parliament) and the open cast was pumped out, the rest of the coal was excavated and the site closed. The site was then landscaped and made into a nature reserve. This was done by filling part of the site and yes you've guessed it; by flooding the rest ? Here's a shot of a calender that is up in the drivers cab, 1988 is when the site flooded so whether that was the last time "ODDBALL" did any work or whether it worked again once the site was drained I don't know. Here's a link to more pics and info, some pics from it's working days and shots of the site.

http://www.derelictpla​ces.co.uk/main/showthr​ead.php?t=7010

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This is a picture I snapped of the Bucyrus Erie "Silver Spade", shortly before the decision was made to scrap it. They were trying to move it to a location to preserve it as an outdoor museum piece and it broke beyond repair along the way. In fact, this may be one of the last pictures taken of it while it was still intact.

Silver Spade Info

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A shame the Silver Spade was scrapped; it would have been great to see it preserved, I wonder how much of the $6.5 million it cost to build in the 60's they got back when it was sold for scrap.

The largest dragline in Europe was the Ace of Spades (Youtube videos below) but with no large open casts left over here it has been disassembled and is now at a mine in the U.S. working for "North American Coal"

http://www.youtube.com …ZIHCeY6eY&featu​re=related
http://www.youtube.com …VXaDXdcHE&featu​re=related
http://www.youtube.com​/watch?v=vf-IeDjy0zM&NR=1

I'd have to look it up, but from what I remember the scrap value for the Silver Spade was something like $700,000. The problem, as I understand it, was that as it was being moved to the preservation spot it lost several of the bearings that allow the cab to swivel around. This prevented it from being moved any further, and the repair cost would have been something like 3 million. It couldn't remain where it was long term, and the preservation society couldn't raise enough money to both fix it and purchase it from Consol, so the decision was made for it to be scrapped.

I wish I could have gotten closer to it, but I couldn't find any contact info to get on private property. It was rather difficult to find, and the only vantage point I could find to get pictures was the one you see in the picture above. It was kind of a spur of the moment thing to seek it out, since it is about two hours from where I live, but it was interesting to just be able to track it down.

Thanks for the photos. We used to have the ditches on our farm cleaned out with a small Bucyrus Erie every few years.

Good, GOOD stuff! Great shots and stories.

Thanks for taking the time to comment.

My dad used to work there, and was a purchasing agent for all those machine. Thanks for the memories; he passed a few years back.

The BE headquarters is located like 2 miles from my house! Cool to see intact products that they produce.