It didn't seem like anything special at the time but, I don't even think your generation can grasp what has been lost when magnificent machines like Big Muskie are lost. We can't build anything like them anymore. We don't have the industry, the factories, the skilled manpower, the industrial habits, or the capital. It doesn't matter whether we need it or not. The important fact is that post-modern America is fat, drunk, stupid, woke, broke and we CAN'T. THAT is what the loss of Big Muskie symbolizes in the big picture. But, we have more important goals now, dontcha know. Like celebrating BLM riots as positive transformation, multi-gender restrooms, litter boxes in public school restrooms for the furries, drag queen story hour in the libraries, stampeding the Sheep into taking toxic mRNA shots, wearing masks as a public demonstration of obedience, passively accepting leftist censorship in social media, and how men could be surgically altered to have babies. Important stuff like that..... you see.....
As "boom hunters" when I was young, my dad and I drove all over eastern Ohio's coal fields looking for big shovels and draglines, and I agree with you Henry. One of my best friends' dad had a small coal mining company and we were around his equipment a lot of the time. He had a Marion 111-M crawler dragline, which would have looked minuscule beside the Big Muskie.
I grew up in McConnelsville. I had the privilege of being able to go inside and go thru the machine when is was down for maintenance. There are picture of the visit somewhere.
In 1969 I was 4 years old. My uncle Jack Kovach was the dept. head of geology at Muskindum College in New Concord Ohio. He took me to see him operating at the site in circa 1970. I got a handout on it with a row of school buses to compare his enormous size. Given I was 4 at the time I fell in love with this machine. I am 56 y/o now and had to see these videos which are just amazing. My uncle Jack told me he was it cross the highway it too 8 hours and much preparation to cross. I wish they would have made a museum of it. Love this video. Hear it to the Marvelous Big Muskie:🍻💙😊💙I miss him.
I watched the Big Muskie being built as a kid. My Grandpa managed a farm for Peabody coal company near where the big Muskie was built. So whenever we came down to Ohio from Michigan to see them we would go to see the progress of the build. There also was a big electric drag line that was similar to the big Muskie. it worked near Coshocton Ohio where my Grandpa managed the 1000 acre farm. It said Broken Arrow mine on the big drag line. I stood inside the Big Muskie bucket with my Dad in 1966 or '67. miss those days.
My father was preparation superintendent during the big muskies career. You done a very nice job on your video. Thanks for not bashing the coal mine. And yes the wilds was donated by American electric power. I have been there but sadly they still want to bash the coal mines. They done a beautiful job on the reclamation beautiful job on the reclamation. People forget we would not have power today unless it was from these coal mines years ago we would still be in the Stone ages. Looks like we're heading back that way. God bless all enjoy I won't be without power.
I work there also from 1974-1984 I sure hated it when it closed, liked working there and wife and the kids loved Pocatello and the west. Still go there every 3-4 years
I just came from a video on the Letourneau 2350 wheeled loader. It was touted as the world's largest. It was a nice and large machine. I couldn't help but think of Big Muskie, which could have picked up the 2350 like picking up a Tonka, and set it 300 feet away, and probably on a 150 foot hilltop, in less than 60 seconds, and all with cables and winches.
2:55 slight correction: they didn’t need to have special agreements with the power company because AEP was completely vertically integrated at the time. This was a mine/mouth facility that fed the Muskingum River Plant in Beverly, where I worked for a few summers. Big Muskie fed the plant and the plant fed Big Muskie.
Big Muskie should been made into a museum I remember as a boy hearing my dad and Grandpa talk about her, my grandpa and dad work in the coal mines, my grandpa ran a dragline, dad drove coal trucks.
Ohhh!!! I am soooo happy for the response to the Big Muskie! I personally have a love hate relationship with the Muskie!, as a child I use to go watch it run! But what people don’t know is the actual name of the place the OHIO POWER BOUGHT OUT WAS HIGH HILL, Ohio. The actual visitor center for the Wilds is my family farm! My great Uncle Allen Gill use to harvest coal with a drug pan and a team of horse’s!, these type of people were forgotten in the history of the land! The power company basically took over the land for close to nothing! The cost of the Muskie was nothing compared to the heritage that was lost to the land!!!!
I worked at Peabodys Homestead mine in Beaverdam Kentucky!! Before Big Muskie our Dragline was the world’s largest! I spent many hours welding on our dragline, most of those hours were spent welding on the bucket to build it back up! Sure do miss those days!
My Grandfather was a worker on Big Muski. Dad would take me down and visit grandpa on weekends around holidays. He was party of the maintenance department. Man the last I seen Big Muski up close it was west of 83 think it was called Spring Mountain. That's been couple days ago. Hay thank you for bringing back the past. Need to get down to Ohio Power for a visit camp the weekend
Big Muskie was actually in the process of getting saved with the people seeking to preserve it negotiating with AEP but while it was happening the scrap company was gutting it for stuff no longer needed but it’s fate was sealed when the scrap company used dynamite to blow up the cables holding up the boom causing it to come crashing to the ground Meaning It would have been saved If aep told the company to leave the structure alone and just take the internals besides the winches and hydraulics and all the stuff holding it together and the electrical boxes for lights But since they didn’t The scrap company robbed us of the gentle giant After that it’s siblings and children would and will be picked off 1 by 1 and will most likely end with the scrapping of Ursa Major unless we can come together and save it
AEP saw dollars over saving it . My deceased partner was a software developer for them the coal was high sulfur so they closed the mine they had CDI drop the boom to begin the dismantling before it started I got to explore that machine the size was immense !
In the US public schools of the 70's, we used to get a ''mini newspaper'' called Weekly Reader. As a grammar school kid, I was always thrilled. Now I'm in my late 50's, but I remember the cover story, one week, was ''Big Musky''. Don't know what made me think of the name. I worry about my memory, at times. Thanks for this upload. It is great to know I still ''have a grip''!
I was raised about a two hour drive from where the Big Muskie operated here in Ohio. I remember my father taking me down there to see it in operation in the early 70's. We actually have home movies of it working. I seen the bucket at the memorial a few times and that is really something else.
make sure those hone tapes get to good hands and get into digital format- i am sure fans of this machine would like to see any videos or photos of this machine
Early 70's my agriculture class visited it 2 times. Once AEP had there own bus they'd drive the tour up to the side of it. When operating they had a view point a safe distance away. We were studying reclamation and AEP had 5 of the largest dozers in the worlds doing reclamation Allis Chalmers HD 41's. They also had an automated train to take the coal to the power plant. Thankful my entire life I was able to see one of the wonders of the world.
Muskingum Electric Railroad. Never got to see the train in action but did get to see Big Muskie working from the viewing location. The dozers were tiny working next to it.
I was with the sales force that worked on this project. I originally worked for Hanrischfeger (P & H)A very thrilling part of my history. A few years later I was on Liebher America (mostly known in America for tower cranes which are everywhere) A life of big equipment sales not to be forgotten. I'm still in business in the commercial business in Salt Lake City and incidentally sold one of the first 'Diesel electric shovel to Kennecott MIning before anyone new what they were.
Well done description and mini documentary, with slides. In all the videos and pictures I have seen of The Big Muskie, it always looked like it was well maintained and kept painted, until it was permanently stopped and scrapped. Many others, shown on youtube, were rust buckets, even while in operation.
I just ran across this and you got most of it right. The one thing you didn't was Ohio does not have "brown coal" or lignite. It has bituminous coal which is completely different.
Some years ago the spreader bar for the chains for the bucket was on display at the Erie County Fair, in Hamburg New York. I could not believe how big it was. A local stone supplier got hold of it somehow and had it on display. That machine was truly huge.
Was driving from Cambridge to McConnellsville OH in 2019 and came across the roadside park containing Big Muskies bucket. In grade school the weekly magazine “Weekly Reader” did a story on the machine, perhaps 1969 or 1970. Lol, only took about 50 years to meet up again. Cool
I got to see the Big Muskie in operation when I was a kid.I have visited the current location of the bucket.It took 24 hrs to move the Big Muskie 1/4 mile.
I have been there when it was there, I worked for a crane rental company and a company rented cranes from us former Essex Crane Rental, and was dismantling a dragline painting and sending to New Mexico and reassembled it we also had cranes on the receiving end to assemble the machine. Anyway when I was there I actually had the pleasure off being able to go over and get up close to Big Musky what an awesome marvel of engineering. I was in awe of the size of him Sad to is him gone.
Here in Southern ILL, there were several big strip mining operations. Several big drag line units were here. The last ones locally were at Sparta ILL. The locals wanted to save one for a museum/ historic site by town. The mine operators wanted a ridiculous price to walk it out of the pit to the edge, real close to the high way and entrance to town. Also, they wanted concessions from the feds to help cover reclamation costs. When those demands couldn't be met, they scrapped both units for spite. These shovels weren't as big as Muskie, but a close second. We were so used to seeing these monsters that one takes it for granted, wish I had taken pictures when they were still around, but I missed that opportunity.
When I was a kid, we would go camping up there , at that time, my dad , uncle , two cousins and me would go watch that BIG Musky at work , unbelievable how big it was and as a kid of 10 years old , it looked like it was big as Mount Everest. 58 now ,lots of good memories of that place and of the Big Musky . Thanks for this video, it sure brought back a lot of fun time memories and YES ,it should have been a museum .
Was in the stripping pit with the Big Muskie while it was working a few times, my father worked and retired from Central Ohio Coal. I worked in the Oil Field industry, worked for a company that had the oil lease rights there, built a lot of well heads, tank pads,welded a lot of pipe line and reclaimed alot of well sites there.
LOTS OF WELL HEADS. I WAS STACKIN EM ONE BY ONE WITH MY MACHINE IN THE WAREHOUSES WHERE I WORKED IN THE 70S. I HAD A METHOD --- .... IT WAS TO STACKEM JUST RIGHT, I LIKED SAYING BACK THEN, "I STACK EM AND THEN I YAK EM." AND THEN ALSO "STACK EM RIGHT, WHAT A SIGHT....." YOU KNOW JOHN WILKINS SAID TO I STACK EM BEST. HE NEVER SEEN NOBODY STACKEM LIKE I STACKEM.... LIKE YOURS TRULY HERE. BUT THEN DAMN AUTOSTACKERS CAME AND JOBS GONE, I SWITCHED TO MOVING WELL HEADS TO THEM WAREHOUSES ON THEM BIG TRUCKS. W44 ROAD 1981 - 1982 BEST YEARS OF MY LIFE,,,,,,,,,,, THATS WHEN I MET LUSSY MY BETTER HALF SHE WORKED ONE OF THEM DINERS WHERE THEY SERVED THOSE SLOPPERS I CALLS EM GRITS. YOU EVER ATEN GRITS,,,,,, ONE OF EM DINERS SERVE OUTTA THEM. AND THEN ANOTHER THING WAS THOSE SHAKERS WHAT WERE THEY CALLED SHAKIES?........ ONE OF THEM THE ONES WITH STRAWBERRY I AINT ATEN THEM IN YEARS... BUT ONEA THEM SHE GONE AND CHARMED ME WIT... 2007 LAST TIME. IT WAS SUGARY SNACK LIKE YOU AINT NEVER HAD WE ARE EATING MEDICINE NOW WE ARE OLD. GOT THE DOCTOR CALLIN ME SAYIN HE SAYS I GOT THE SULPHUR JITTERS FROM ALL THEM SULPHUR MINES AND HEADS IN MY AREA.................. THEM OIL HEADS GOT IN MY LUNG GOOD THEY GOT ME GOOD THANK YOU TODD GOOD MEMORIES. NEVER HEARD OF THIS DIGGER THOUGH EVEN THO IM FROM OHIO........................... LEARN SOMETHIN NEW EVERY DAY YOU KNOW WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT MASTERY. IT AINT A DAY IF YOU AINT LEARNED NOTHIN. OHIOS A BIG PLACE, CANT DENY IT..... MET LOTSA FOLKS ROUND HERE WHAT WITH BEING BITWEEN THE WELL STACKIN AND THE OIL HEADS MOVIN ROUND THEM HILLS THERE. MET JOHN WILKINS MY BEST FRIEND THERE ONE TIME OUT IN THE BOONIES. OHIO BACK THEN I REMEMBER THEY CALLED IT THE WELL STACKED STATE, CAUSE OF THEM WELL HEADS,,,,,,,, THATS WHAT I REMEMBER BUT MY HEAD AINT SO GOOD AS IT USED TO ON ACCOUNT OF ALL THEM MEDICINES,,,,WE EAT, ME AND LUSSY. ONLY QUES AND FOREIGNERS CALL US BUCKEYES. THATS MY OPINION,,,, BUT THEN AGAIN AN OPINIONS LIKE AN ASSHOLE,,,, WE ALL GOT ONE. MINES MIGHTY ORNERY
I saw both of those machines on multiple occasions. If a person had never seen them it is hard to imagine that a machine that big ever existed. Muskie was so big that it dwarfed a football field.
Saved as part of history. In the mid 70s I saw a huge drag line at work in western PA but as big as it wasn't nearly as big as this. I believe it was called Angeline.
Always wished they could have saved this machine and the Marion 6360 (the captain) having them both parked up together for everyone to look at would have been a massive attraction that people would have paid to see.
@@justina249 yes it did catch fire but only paint damage from the outside,it would have been nice to dismantle it and set it back up next to big muskie somewhere but the cost of doing that would have been massive.
The captain went up in flames and was scrapped a year later after they had to make the difficult choice to scrap it They couldn’t do anything because the repairs would make them go bankrupt almost After that they used a Marion 5900 and it took twice as long to strip the seams
Crazy to think it was sold for $700,000 dollars scrap value. Yards by me were paying $550 per ton and could have gotten over $6,000,000 for it this spring.
I grew up in town called Mckenzie/Linden, Guyana South, where it was a bauxite mining town.[1970-] My Dad was an engineer, (my dad studied a bit i think in OH re how to worked that Walking Dragaline) and he used to operate the Walking Dragline for a number of years. He will take me and sister to work with him sometimes to show us how that powerful machine works, we will stand in the cabin with him and watch him operate that heavy machinery, (we were about 13-14 years old). He will dig up that earth by spinning that hugh bucket into the ground. Me and my sister will climb up the ladder to the cabin and sit in it and enjoyed the beautiful lights on that machinery. It was amazing!! So sorry, there are no pictures to show, but the memories live on. RIP Dad. ❤
No, the Bucket is not. The Bucket is in Morgan County on Ohio-78 West of Reinersville, OH. 39°41'57.4"N 81°43'51.4"W Cumberland is in Guernsey County. I do agree on the fact that it should have been preserved. I got to see it working in 1969.
@@guyallman777 At 8.6 miles to McConnellsville it is a far piece from it. Half the distance from Caldwell though. But less than 5 miles from Reinersville, Ohio
I wonder if we'll make monsters like this again once small modular reactors get into production. Then again, I don't know if anyone will want to build things this big again. It would have been cool to have it as a museum, but the maintenance of the beast, even just sitting there never needing to move again, would be really high. At least one if its slightly smaller cousins survives.
Because the company that owned the coal mine also owned the power plant that provided the electricity to power Big Muskie. So it was less expensive for them to just run power cables out to the machine, rather than having big on board generators that require fuel and maintenance.
The power company owned that coal mine, so really the cost to power it was free. They did however cook the books to get higher fuel adjustments rates. They did get caught though, the scheme was they sold coal to themselves at an inflated rate then charged Ohio Power customers for it.
I had the rare pleasure of seeing one of these monsters as a kid in the Sixties. It was huge and the bucket looked like it could hold a school bus. This was near Masontown West Virginia. I visited my grandparents there briefly most summers. My grandfather was a coal miner and mine owner. There was a great deal of work done to restore land after coal was mined out. Many of the farms were on mined out land. I also saw where this work had been stripped away and redone, as formerly junk coal was harvested, requiring a second restoration of the remined area. Regulation s about such things grew increasingly strict
my dad worked at central ohio and ran dozer around the muskie and done alot of reclamation. the mine was several miles from our house and at night you could see this thing running from our back yard with all its lights lit up and even alot of times through the day pretty impressive size.
My now deceased partner was a software developer for AEP they owned it I got to explore this machine before it was sold for scrap . Photos do not begin to show the size of it it had a 50 ton overhead crane inside it to replace components . I do not why he talks so much about the price of power a power company owned it ! It worked there own mine they even had their own electric railway to transport the coal . The EPA is what killed this machine the coal was high sulfur and was hard to scrub to meet the emissions regulations. They closed the mine .Scrap was selling for a all time high is why it was not preserved AEP looked at dollar signs over history so it went away .
I was with Bucyrus-Erie onthe sales end during the early '60s. I'm almost 90 now and have a company still selling big equipment. That was the largest in my lifetime
Yeah , aren't Abrahams Tanks like 10 million without counting maintenance and such ? , this thing required alot of energy but it wasn't that expensive to make
Hi Ken, I hope this note finds you well! I'm a student currently working on a project about the Big Muskie. If possible, I would love to hear more about you or your dad's experience with the dragline. Please feel free to message me if you're interested. I'm also happy to provide my email address if that works better!
Yep she should’ve been museumised for sure. She would’ve kept on making money well in ecsess of the 8 hundred grand she bought scrap value. It may have taken two or three years but that was forty odd years ago now. She would’ve made a few million by now and bought tourist from around the globe just to see the big old girl. Just imagine three or four restaurants on different levels, tours of her explaining her internals , tourist bus loads loads of people ongoing. She wouldve benefitted the whole town. And i think the top dogs know it but would never admit to their stupid mistake. Money in the hand asap is the name of the game for those tossers. So sad it would’ve been for all of her operators to see her shut down for the very last time. Sort of like when a human takes their very last breath then dies. This though was murder.
I love seeing these old beasts. It captures something of the awesome scale our species is able to achieve with coordination - this could never be done by a single person alone. Every link in that bucket chain weighs more than a man can carry. What also strikes me is how cheap this was to build. Compare this monster with a modern F35. Sure those have a lot of technology, but the price tag for each is $130m in 2022 money vs (just) $196m for Big Muskie.
In addition to the wildes there are several free camping areas there, a couple of years ago the state bought the area from AEP and are working on the camping areas, which I'm guessing won't be free very much longer. As to Big Muskie being kept, in my opinion the thing would have just turned into a rusting wreck out in the middle of nowhere. A friend and I drove over to see the beast and we watched it grunt and grown and decided it wasn't worth the trip.
I grew up in Dallas. My mom's parents had several acres of forested land in East Texas near the town of Hughes Springs. So, several times a year we would go out there for the weekend. The route we took was I-30 from Dallas to Mt. Pleasant. Just a little ways west of Mt. Pleasant was a similar design walking dragline mining coal. It was usually the highlight of the trip. I remember one year, they shut down I-30 for nearly a day so they could walk it from one side of the highway to the other.
Visited the bucket and it’s surreal to think that we used machines that large and how much the landscape has changed due to it for the better and worse. Machines like this have a place but sadly the size is highly prohibitive to distant movement.
I would like to have just one of the chain links. I understand they were the largest chains ever manufactured. There are some immense anchor chains out there. It is hard to imagine a link bigger than that.
When you consider they only got 700K for scrap they could have made more as a museum, even at $10's a head you could make that 700K up in 10 years +/-.
The idea of a museum sounds great until you calculate the annual cost to maintain the site, and a limited group of people who would want to climb stairs to see the mechanics of the beast. If there was a profit to be made, it would still be there.
Big Muskie could have been a great bank robbery get away vehicle. Police bullets would have merely bounced right off it's thick metal skin. The down side of course would have been Big Muskie's very slow get away speed of less than 1 mile per hour. Can you please tell us how this great machine got it's name?
Yes, the bucketwheel excavator might be more efficient with finer overburden material, but they don't handle rocky overburden well, if at all. Hence, draglines are still in use, in certain areas.
I've worked in these giant machines.....you don't get how big they are till you round a corner and there is one in front of you! They are massive and large cranes working beside them look like Tonka toys! The operators cabin is so large it contains its own coffee room! lol
It was even more awesome than this video portrays. Should have been saved. Wouldnt have hurt a thing just sitting there. Donations would have kept it painted. My father was the master mechanic on the "largest machine in the world" the Krupp bucket wheel in northern Illinois. I was on the crew. Damn Im old. Lol.
In that picture behind the chair I think it’s a picture of a Renault 8 or 10 (1962-1973 France/ 1965-1976 Spain R-8), or a Dacia 1100 (Romania 1968-1971), or a Bulgarrenault (Bulgaria 1966-1970)
I am against strip mining & anything that is damaging to the Earth and more importantly we should be using much cleaner energy sources by this time but that's another story. Anyhow I would have liked to have seen Big Muskie turned into a museum.
Hi Justin, I hope this note finds you well! I'm a student currently working on a project about the Big Muskie. If possible, I would love to hear more about you or your grandfather's experience with the dragline. Please feel free to message me if you're interested. I'm also happy to provide my email address if that works better! Thanks so much, Sarah
That machine won me $100.00 when I was going through basic training. Being bored we used to bet on everything like which light bulb a fly would land on. We were talking about what our dads did back home. One guy from Pennsylvania said his dad ran a drag line and it weighed 600 ton. I said there is one in Ohio that could pick it up. He said bullshit. I said bet $20.00 it exists, he said bet $50.00 it doesn't and I said bet $100.00 it does and he took the bet. My dad worked for the Ohio power coal company and he had sent me information on the big drag line. The Big Muskie could lift over 700 tons
Im seventy years old and as a young man i welded on both the Big Muskie and the Captain , it was just a job i had no idea it would be history .
Congratulations on being part of this story. Hugs from Brazil.
I'm 73 and worked at the Pocatello, ID plant welding these monsters! Very impressive machine!
It didn't seem like anything special at the time but, I don't even think your generation can grasp what has been lost when magnificent machines like Big Muskie are lost. We can't build anything like them anymore. We don't have the industry, the factories, the skilled manpower, the industrial habits, or the capital. It doesn't matter whether we need it or not. The important fact is that post-modern America is fat, drunk, stupid, woke, broke and we CAN'T. THAT is what the loss of Big Muskie symbolizes in the big picture.
But, we have more important goals now, dontcha know. Like celebrating BLM riots as positive transformation, multi-gender restrooms, litter boxes in public school restrooms for the furries, drag queen story hour in the libraries, stampeding the Sheep into taking toxic mRNA shots, wearing masks as a public demonstration of obedience, passively accepting leftist censorship in social media, and how men could be surgically altered to have babies. Important stuff like that..... you see.....
Crazy to see your craftsmanship all these year later still standing tall!
you’re a fucking bad ass !! i’m so mad they scrapped it and the only thing i’ve ever get to see of that beautiful beast was its bucket
Such an historic machine should definitely been saved and turned into a museum. It was one of a kind, and the world will never see another like it.
They do have a park where the bucket is on display if you haven’t or want to see it! It’s massive!
@@kdawg5611 I was just there 10/10/22…the bucket is absolutely huge.
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Brutus is huge, not muske big but still huge. In Kansas
The question is always, who will pay for it? Easy to say someone should but I sure don't want to.
It should have been saved and put in a museum. It's a part of history and history should never ever be destroyed
Sadly it was left to fall apart it just wasn’t going to be possible to keep it as a museum after the decay…
My thoughts exactly, but tell that to the stupid liberals who want to try to erase history just because it hurts their ignorant feelings
It should have been turned into a Museum dedicated to American ingenuity and craftsmanship. Along with the Silver Spade Mining Shovel.
They made a mint, to recycle & pocket the money.
As "boom hunters" when I was young, my dad and I drove all over eastern Ohio's coal fields looking for big shovels and draglines, and I agree with you Henry. One of my best friends' dad had a small coal mining company and we were around his equipment a lot of the time. He had a Marion 111-M crawler dragline, which would have looked minuscule beside the Big Muskie.
Ya probably it should of and also probably the last time usa made anything that actually was not a complete waste of money lol
At least big Brutus was made an attraction
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22 years is a long lifespan for anything working 24/7. Amazing.
I grew up in McConnelsville. I had the privilege of being able to go inside and go thru the machine when is was down for maintenance. There are picture of the visit somewhere.
That must have been quite the experience!
In 1969 I was 4 years old. My uncle Jack Kovach was the dept. head of geology at Muskindum College in New Concord Ohio. He took me to see him operating at the site in circa 1970. I got a handout on it with a row of school buses to compare his enormous size. Given I was 4 at the time I fell in love with this machine. I am 56 y/o now and had to see these videos which are just amazing. My uncle Jack told me he was it cross the highway it too 8 hours and much preparation to cross. I wish they would have made a museum of it. Love this video. Hear it to the Marvelous Big Muskie:🍻💙😊💙I miss him.
I watched the Big Muskie being built as a kid. My Grandpa managed a farm for Peabody coal company near where the big Muskie was built. So whenever we came down to Ohio from Michigan to see them we would go to see the progress of the build. There also was a big electric drag line that was similar to the big Muskie. it worked near Coshocton Ohio where my Grandpa managed the 1000 acre farm. It said Broken Arrow mine on the big drag line. I stood inside the Big Muskie bucket with my Dad in 1966 or '67. miss those days.
My father was preparation superintendent during the big muskies career. You done a very nice job on your video. Thanks for not bashing the coal mine. And yes the wilds was donated by American electric power. I have been there but sadly they still want to bash the coal mines. They done a beautiful job on the reclamation beautiful job on the reclamation. People forget we would not have power today unless it was from these coal mines years ago we would still be in the Stone ages. Looks like we're heading back that way. God bless all enjoy I won't be without power.
I worked at the Bucyrus-Erie plant in Pocatello, ID and welded on these things (1975-1983). What an amazing machine. Great video - thanks.
Did you know another welder by the name of Dwight Orton?
So did I. I think 1975-76
I helped build 2 of the draglines in Hallsville Texas in the early 80s for the Sabine mine. So we both have memories of those wonderful giants
I work there also from 1974-1984 I sure hated it when it closed, liked working there and wife and the kids loved Pocatello and the west.
Still go there every 3-4 years
@@russvoight1167 I'm not sure - do you know what building he worked in? My husband and I worked there.
Yes, it should have been turned into a museum!
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My uncle, Horace P. Morgan, was an AEP executive and mining engineer who had a role in the development of Big Muskie.
Nice!
Did he leave you much money?
Cool story
Your uncle has a cool name.
How neat!
Absolutely should’ve been a museum
we tried
I just came from a video on the Letourneau 2350 wheeled loader. It was touted as the world's largest. It was a nice and large machine. I couldn't help but think of Big Muskie, which could have picked up the 2350 like picking up a Tonka, and set it 300 feet away, and probably on a 150 foot hilltop, in less than 60 seconds, and all with cables and winches.
2:55 slight correction: they didn’t need to have special agreements with the power company because AEP was completely vertically integrated at the time. This was a mine/mouth facility that fed the Muskingum River Plant in Beverly, where I worked for a few summers. Big Muskie fed the plant and the plant fed Big Muskie.
Isn't what you described a special agreement?? At least a special arrangement.
Big Muskie should been made into a museum I remember as a boy hearing my dad and Grandpa talk about her, my grandpa and dad work in the coal mines, my grandpa ran a dragline, dad drove coal trucks.
Ohhh!!! I am soooo happy for the response to the Big Muskie! I personally have a love hate relationship with the Muskie!, as a child I use to go watch it run! But what people don’t know is the actual name of the place the OHIO POWER BOUGHT OUT WAS HIGH HILL, Ohio. The actual visitor center for the Wilds is my family farm! My great Uncle Allen Gill use to harvest coal with a drug pan and a team of horse’s!, these type of people were forgotten in the history of the land! The power company basically took over the land for close to nothing! The cost of the Muskie was nothing compared to the heritage that was lost to the land!!!!
I worked at Peabodys Homestead mine in Beaverdam Kentucky!! Before Big Muskie our Dragline was the world’s largest! I spent many hours welding on our dragline, most of those hours were spent welding on the bucket to build it back up! Sure do miss those days!
My Grandfather was a worker on Big Muski. Dad would take me down and visit grandpa on weekends around holidays. He was party of the maintenance department. Man the last I seen Big Muski up close it was west of 83 think it was called Spring Mountain. That's been couple days ago. Hay thank you for bringing back the past. Need to get down to Ohio Power for a visit camp the weekend
Big Muskie was actually in the process of getting saved with the people seeking to preserve it negotiating with AEP but while it was happening the scrap company was gutting it for stuff no longer needed but it’s fate was sealed when the scrap company used dynamite to blow up the cables holding up the boom causing it to come crashing to the ground
Meaning
It would have been saved If aep told the company to leave the structure alone and just take the internals besides the winches and hydraulics and all the stuff holding it together and the electrical boxes for lights
But since they didn’t
The scrap company robbed us of the gentle giant
After that it’s siblings and children would and will be picked off 1 by 1 and will most likely end with the scrapping of Ursa Major unless we can come together and save it
AEP saw dollars over saving it . My deceased partner was a software developer for them the coal was high sulfur so they closed the mine they had CDI drop the boom to begin the dismantling before it started I got to explore that machine the size was immense !
Destroying that machine was not smart. They destroyed part of the story. My feelings. Hugs from Brazil
In the US public schools of the 70's, we used to get a ''mini newspaper'' called Weekly Reader. As a grammar school kid, I was always thrilled. Now I'm in my late 50's, but I remember the cover story, one week, was ''Big Musky''. Don't know what made me think of the name. I worry about my memory, at times. Thanks for this upload. It is great to know I still ''have a grip''!
I was raised about a two hour drive from where the Big Muskie operated here in Ohio. I remember my father taking me down there to see it in operation in the early 70's. We actually have home movies of it working. I seen the bucket at the memorial a few times and that is really something else.
make sure those hone tapes get to good hands and get into digital format- i am sure fans of this machine would like to see any videos or photos of this machine
Early 70's my agriculture class visited it 2 times. Once AEP had there own bus they'd drive the tour up to the side of it. When operating they had a view point a safe distance away. We were studying reclamation and AEP had 5 of the largest dozers in the worlds doing reclamation Allis Chalmers HD 41's. They also had an automated train to take the coal to the power plant. Thankful my entire life I was able to see one of the wonders of the world.
That sounds awesome!
Muskingum Electric Railroad. Never got to see the train in action but did get to see Big Muskie working from the viewing location. The dozers were tiny working next to it.
I was with the sales force that worked on this project. I originally worked for Hanrischfeger (P & H)A very thrilling part of my history. A few years later I was on Liebher America (mostly known in America for tower cranes which are everywhere) A life of big equipment sales not to be forgotten. I'm still in business in the commercial business in Salt Lake City and incidentally sold one of the first 'Diesel electric shovel to Kennecott MIning before anyone new what they were.
Just went there on Thanksgiving day (2021) and saw the bucket. It was truly awe inspiring!
Back in 1950's somewhere in northern Finland we had a very big Marion earthmover. But this on the film is hell of a big one😃 Thanks for the document👍👌
Well done description and mini documentary, with slides. In all the videos and pictures I have seen of The Big Muskie, it always looked like it was well maintained and kept painted, until it was permanently stopped and scrapped. Many others, shown on youtube, were rust buckets, even while in operation.
Glad you enjoyed it! I tried to put it under a good light, considering it was one of a kind.
I would've definitely wanted to see this in person. Guess I'll have to settle with Big Brutus
I just ran across this and you got most of it right. The one thing you didn't was Ohio does not have "brown coal" or lignite. It has bituminous coal which is completely different.
Some years ago the spreader bar for the chains for the bucket was on display at the Erie County Fair, in Hamburg New York. I could not believe how big it was. A local stone supplier got hold of it somehow and had it on display. That machine was truly huge.
Was driving from Cambridge to McConnellsville OH in 2019 and came across the roadside park containing Big Muskies bucket. In grade school the weekly magazine “Weekly Reader” did a story on the machine, perhaps 1969 or 1970. Lol, only took about 50 years to meet up again. Cool
I got to see the Big Muskie in operation when I was a kid.I have visited the current location of the bucket.It took 24 hrs to move the Big Muskie 1/4 mile.
I have been there when it was there, I worked for a crane rental company and a company rented cranes from us former Essex Crane Rental, and was dismantling a dragline painting and sending to New Mexico and reassembled it we also had cranes on the receiving end to assemble the machine. Anyway when I was there I actually had the pleasure off being able to go over and get up close to Big Musky what an awesome marvel of engineering. I was in awe of the size of him Sad to is him gone.
A museum would've been a great idea! I love to see this huge building on feet!
Here in Southern ILL, there were several big strip mining operations. Several big drag line units were here. The last ones locally were at Sparta ILL. The locals wanted to save one for a museum/ historic site by town. The mine operators wanted a ridiculous price to walk it out of the pit to the edge, real close to the high way and entrance to town. Also, they wanted concessions from the feds to help cover reclamation costs. When those demands couldn't be met, they scrapped both units for spite. These shovels weren't as big as Muskie, but a close second. We were so used to seeing these monsters that one takes it for granted, wish I had taken pictures when they were still around, but I missed that opportunity.
You have done a great job telling a fascinating story. Thank you.
When I was a kid, we would go camping up there , at that time, my dad , uncle , two cousins and me would go watch that BIG Musky at work , unbelievable how big it was and as a kid of 10 years old , it looked like it was big as Mount Everest.
58 now ,lots of good memories of that place and of the Big Musky . Thanks for this video, it sure brought back a lot of fun time memories and YES ,it should have been a museum .
Was in the stripping pit with the Big Muskie while it was working a few times, my father worked and retired from Central Ohio Coal. I worked in the Oil Field industry, worked for a company that had the oil lease rights there, built a lot of well heads, tank pads,welded a lot of pipe line and reclaimed alot of well sites there.
Did you or your dad know Glen Horner? Operation engineer of Muskie? When you saw it walking he was there. Only time it was productive.
@@FranBSoCal, I am sure my father knew Glen, I will have to ask my farher.
LOTS OF WELL HEADS. I WAS STACKIN EM ONE BY ONE WITH MY MACHINE IN THE WAREHOUSES WHERE I WORKED IN THE 70S. I HAD A METHOD --- .... IT WAS TO STACKEM JUST RIGHT, I LIKED SAYING BACK THEN, "I STACK EM AND THEN I YAK EM." AND THEN ALSO "STACK EM RIGHT, WHAT A SIGHT....." YOU KNOW JOHN WILKINS SAID TO I STACK EM BEST. HE NEVER SEEN NOBODY STACKEM LIKE I STACKEM.... LIKE YOURS TRULY HERE. BUT THEN DAMN AUTOSTACKERS CAME AND JOBS GONE, I SWITCHED TO MOVING WELL HEADS TO THEM WAREHOUSES ON THEM BIG TRUCKS. W44 ROAD 1981 - 1982 BEST YEARS OF MY LIFE,,,,,,,,,,, THATS WHEN I MET LUSSY MY BETTER HALF SHE WORKED ONE OF THEM DINERS WHERE THEY SERVED THOSE SLOPPERS I CALLS EM GRITS. YOU EVER ATEN GRITS,,,,,, ONE OF EM DINERS SERVE OUTTA THEM. AND THEN ANOTHER THING WAS THOSE SHAKERS WHAT WERE THEY CALLED SHAKIES?........ ONE OF THEM THE ONES WITH STRAWBERRY I AINT ATEN THEM IN YEARS... BUT ONEA THEM SHE GONE AND CHARMED ME WIT... 2007 LAST TIME. IT WAS SUGARY SNACK LIKE YOU AINT NEVER HAD WE ARE EATING MEDICINE NOW WE ARE OLD. GOT THE DOCTOR CALLIN ME SAYIN HE SAYS I GOT THE SULPHUR JITTERS FROM ALL THEM SULPHUR MINES AND HEADS IN MY AREA.................. THEM OIL HEADS GOT IN MY LUNG GOOD THEY GOT ME GOOD THANK YOU TODD GOOD MEMORIES. NEVER HEARD OF THIS DIGGER THOUGH EVEN THO IM FROM OHIO........................... LEARN SOMETHIN NEW EVERY DAY YOU KNOW WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT MASTERY. IT AINT A DAY IF YOU AINT LEARNED NOTHIN. OHIOS A BIG PLACE, CANT DENY IT..... MET LOTSA FOLKS ROUND HERE WHAT WITH BEING BITWEEN THE WELL STACKIN AND THE OIL HEADS MOVIN ROUND THEM HILLS THERE. MET JOHN WILKINS MY BEST FRIEND THERE ONE TIME OUT IN THE BOONIES. OHIO BACK THEN I REMEMBER THEY CALLED IT THE WELL STACKED STATE, CAUSE OF THEM WELL HEADS,,,,,,,, THATS WHAT I REMEMBER BUT MY HEAD AINT SO GOOD AS IT USED TO ON ACCOUNT OF ALL THEM MEDICINES,,,,WE EAT, ME AND LUSSY. ONLY QUES AND FOREIGNERS CALL US BUCKEYES. THATS MY OPINION,,,, BUT THEN AGAIN AN OPINIONS LIKE AN ASSHOLE,,,, WE ALL GOT ONE. MINES MIGHTY ORNERY
Big Muskie should have been saved along with the Silver Spade. No one will ever see great machines like this again.
I saw both of those machines on multiple occasions. If a person had never seen them it is hard to imagine that a machine that big ever existed. Muskie was so big that it dwarfed a football field.
What an experience! Man, would have loved to see it.
There is one
Big Brutus in west mineral Kansas
Saved as part of history. In the mid 70s I saw a huge drag line at work in western PA but as big as it wasn't nearly as big as this. I believe it was called Angeline.
Always wished they could have saved this machine and the Marion 6360 (the captain) having them both parked up together for everyone to look at would have been a massive attraction that people would have paid to see.
From what I heard the captain caught fire it was heavily damaged and they weren't able to save it
@@justina249 yes it did catch fire but only paint damage from the outside,it would have been nice to dismantle it and set it back up next to big muskie somewhere but the cost of doing that would have been massive.
Yep. Basically impossible to justify from a costs perspective
The captain went up in flames and was scrapped a year later after they had to make the difficult choice to scrap it
They couldn’t do anything because the repairs would make them go bankrupt almost
After that they used a Marion 5900 and it took twice as long to strip the seams
@@markwood9987 it received structural damage making it weak and potential to collapse
Awesome story of this giant that I never heard of. Keep it up...great channel!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Crazy to think it was sold for $700,000 dollars scrap value. Yards by me were paying $550 per ton and could have gotten over $6,000,000 for it this spring.
Its a shame we went from Building shit like this, to not being able to make a jar of spices because they cant get sit from china. its truly sad.
Amazing piece of machinery, at least they kept the bucket for museum piece !
I grew up in town called Mckenzie/Linden, Guyana South, where it was a bauxite mining town.[1970-] My Dad was an engineer, (my dad studied a bit i think in OH re how to worked that Walking Dragaline) and he used to operate the Walking Dragline for a number of years. He will take me and sister to work with him sometimes to show us how that powerful machine works, we will stand in the cabin with him and watch him operate that heavy machinery, (we were about 13-14 years old). He will dig up that earth by spinning that hugh bucket into the ground. Me and my sister will climb up the ladder to the cabin and sit in it and enjoyed the beautiful lights on that machinery. It was amazing!! So sorry, there are no pictures to show, but the memories live on. RIP Dad. ❤
The bucket and the Wilds are actually in Cumberland Oh. And I think that the Big Muskie should have been turned into a museum.
But who would bear the cost?
No, the Bucket is not. The Bucket is in Morgan County on Ohio-78 West of Reinersville, OH. 39°41'57.4"N 81°43'51.4"W Cumberland is in Guernsey County. I do agree on the fact that it should have been preserved. I got to see it working in 1969.
The Buckets at Miners Memorial Park outside of McConnellsville
@@guyallman777 At 8.6 miles to McConnellsville it is a far piece from it. Half the distance from Caldwell though. But less than 5 miles from Reinersville, Ohio
Very thorough, enjoyable video. Lots of great info!
I wonder if we'll make monsters like this again once small modular reactors get into production. Then again, I don't know if anyone will want to build things this big again. It would have been cool to have it as a museum, but the maintenance of the beast, even just sitting there never needing to move again, would be really high. At least one if its slightly smaller cousins survives.
Two questions: Why the long power cord? Why not an onboard diesel generator or two?
Because the company that owned the coal mine also owned the power plant that provided the electricity to power Big Muskie.
So it was less expensive for them to just run power cables out to the machine, rather than having big on board generators that require fuel and maintenance.
I think a museum would have been cool. I for one would have loved to see such a mammoth machine. It could have paid for its up keep. Amazing
That beast was mad expensive to put together and run in 22 years of operation it must have paid for itself a couple of times over!
I took my son to Big Brutus yesterday. They shouldve kept Muskie as a museum like they did Brutus.
My heart stopped watching them blow it up 😡
Yep, it was a big moment
The power company owned that coal mine, so really the cost to power it was free. They did however cook the books to get higher fuel adjustments rates. They did get caught though, the scheme was they sold coal to themselves at an inflated rate then charged Ohio Power customers for it.
I had the rare pleasure of seeing one of these monsters as a kid in the Sixties. It was huge and the bucket looked like it could hold a school bus. This was near Masontown West Virginia. I visited my grandparents there briefly most summers. My grandfather was a coal miner and mine owner. There was a great deal of work done to restore land after coal was mined out. Many of the farms were on mined out land. I also saw where this work had been stripped away and redone, as formerly junk coal was harvested, requiring a second restoration of the remined area. Regulation s about such things grew increasingly strict
It should of been turned into a museum
I got to experience this massive machine working should have been a museum
my dad worked at central ohio and ran dozer around the muskie and done alot of reclamation. the mine was several miles from our house and at night you could see this thing running from our back yard with all its lights lit up and even alot of times through the day pretty impressive size.
I have seen it operating love it I still camp in that area😊
I used to watch the big machine here in Ohio when I was a kid. Never got tired of it
I was 15 years old and saw Big Muskie in the Recordbook as the largest walking dragline ever made!!!!!
Amazing engineering and amazing machine.
Now that ground is covered in invasive plant species from other countries?... What plants were they?
I live only 20miles from the bucket and my grandpa. A wildlife officer saw the bucket delivered
It's hard to comprehend the total enormity of "Bib Muskie"!
You want to see a big electric shovel machine. Head to West Mineral Kansas. Big Brutus is still there and intact.
Awesome story and machine - cheers
Thanks!
It would have been great if the BIG MUSKIE was turn into a museum instead of destroying a legacy and iconic machine
My now deceased partner was a software developer for AEP they owned it I got to explore this machine before it was sold for scrap . Photos do not begin to show the size of it it had a 50 ton overhead crane inside it to replace components . I do not why he talks so much about the price of power a power company owned it ! It worked there own mine they even had their own electric railway to transport the coal . The EPA is what killed this machine the coal was high sulfur and was hard to scrub to meet the emissions regulations. They closed the mine .Scrap was selling for a all time high is why it was not preserved AEP looked at dollar signs over history so it went away .
I was with Bucyrus-Erie onthe sales end during the early '60s. I'm almost 90 now and have a company still selling big equipment. That was the largest in my lifetime
Even at $174 million in 2021, that's not particularly expensive when you compare it to the cost per unit of modern war machines.
Yeah , aren't Abrahams Tanks like 10 million without counting maintenance and such ? , this thing required alot of energy but it wasn't that expensive to make
My buddy has a cabin right next to where the Big Muskie went through and I've gone to see the bucket. It's pretty neat
My Dad helped build it in Marion Ohio
Hi Ken, I hope this note finds you well! I'm a student currently working on a project about the Big Muskie. If possible, I would love to hear more about you or your dad's experience with the dragline. Please feel free to message me if you're interested. I'm also happy to provide my email address if that works better!
Thanks so much,
Sarah
Yep she should’ve been museumised for sure. She would’ve kept on making money well in ecsess of the 8 hundred grand she bought scrap value. It may have taken two or three years but that was forty odd years ago now. She would’ve made a few million by now and bought tourist from around the globe just to see the big old girl. Just imagine three or four restaurants on different levels, tours of her explaining her internals , tourist bus loads loads of people ongoing. She wouldve benefitted the whole town. And i think the top dogs know it but would never admit to their stupid mistake. Money in the hand asap is the name of the game for those tossers. So sad it would’ve been for all of her operators to see her shut down for the very last time. Sort of like when a human takes their very last breath then dies. This though was murder.
What's the type of walking system that it uses? I can't find a name for it.
I love seeing these old beasts. It captures something of the awesome scale our species is able to achieve with coordination - this could never be done by a single person alone. Every link in that bucket chain weighs more than a man can carry.
What also strikes me is how cheap this was to build. Compare this monster with a modern F35. Sure those have a lot of technology, but the price tag for each is $130m in 2022 money vs (just) $196m for Big Muskie.
🙂🤝ua-cam.com/video/EXkyP6H9JUQ/v-deo.html
In addition to the wildes there are several free camping areas there, a couple of years ago the state bought the area from AEP and are working on the camping areas, which I'm guessing won't be free very much longer. As to Big Muskie being kept, in my opinion the thing would have just turned into a rusting wreck out in the middle of nowhere. A friend and I drove over to see the beast and we watched it grunt and grown and decided it wasn't worth the trip.
I grew up in Dallas. My mom's parents had several acres of forested land in East Texas near the town of Hughes Springs. So, several times a year we would go out there for the weekend. The route we took was I-30 from Dallas to Mt. Pleasant. Just a little ways west of Mt. Pleasant was a similar design walking dragline mining coal. It was usually the highlight of the trip. I remember one year, they shut down I-30 for nearly a day so they could walk it from one side of the highway to the other.
The bucket is available to visit and very impressive to walk around in
Definitely should have been a museum and maybe a bar for the miners would have been a profitable idea
To put that 600,000,000 cubic yards in perspective, it'd make a cube nearly 1/2 mile per side.
Visited the bucket and it’s surreal to think that we used machines that large and how much the landscape has changed due to it for the better and worse. Machines like this have a place but sadly the size is highly prohibitive to distant movement.
I would like to have just one of the chain links. I understand they were the largest chains ever manufactured. There are some immense anchor chains out there. It is hard to imagine a link bigger than that.
When you consider they only got 700K for scrap they could have made more as a museum, even at $10's a head you could make that 700K up in 10 years +/-.
The idea of a museum sounds great until you calculate the annual cost to maintain the site, and a limited group of people who would want to climb stairs to see the mechanics of the beast. If there was a profit to be made, it would still be there.
Still can't believe a mine in the PRB didn't want big muskie
As much as I love the thing, it seems like it was an almost impossible rig to operate, cost-wise.
Saw the bucket in person. Size is unreal
I worked as a rigger in Boone County, West Virginia in the early 1980’s assembling a similar but smaller shovel.
Big Muskie could have been a great bank robbery get away vehicle. Police bullets would have merely bounced right off it's thick metal skin. The down side of course would have been Big Muskie's very slow get away speed of less than 1 mile per hour.
Can you please tell us how this great machine got it's name?
Yes, the bucketwheel excavator might be more efficient with finer overburden material, but they don't handle rocky overburden well, if at all. Hence, draglines are still in use, in certain areas.
I've worked in these giant machines.....you don't get how big they are till you round a corner and there is one in front of you! They are massive and large cranes working beside them look like Tonka toys! The operators cabin is so large it contains its own coffee room! lol
It was even more awesome than this video portrays. Should have been saved. Wouldnt have hurt a thing just sitting there. Donations would have kept it painted.
My father was the master mechanic on the "largest machine in the world" the Krupp bucket wheel in northern Illinois. I was on the crew.
Damn Im old. Lol.
When I was little..dad took us through southern Ohio on the way to D.C. ..We saw some big machines.
In that picture behind the chair I think it’s a picture of a Renault 8 or 10 (1962-1973 France/ 1965-1976 Spain R-8), or a Dacia 1100 (Romania 1968-1971), or a Bulgarrenault (Bulgaria 1966-1970)
I am against strip mining & anything that is damaging to the Earth and more importantly we should be using much cleaner energy sources by this time but that's another story. Anyhow I would have liked to have seen Big Muskie turned into a museum.
I always wondered what the % avaibility was for a machine this big.
25 million dollars seems like an absolute bargain ❤
My grandfather ran and operated this beast of a machine also ran a Burt load of dozers for aep
Hi Justin, I hope this note finds you well! I'm a student currently working on a project about the Big Muskie. If possible, I would love to hear more about you or your grandfather's experience with the dragline. Please feel free to message me if you're interested. I'm also happy to provide my email address if that works better!
Thanks so much,
Sarah
What a beautiful monster
There's an abandoned dragline not far from my house. The thing is huge, like as big as a house huge.
That machine won me $100.00 when I was going through basic training. Being bored we used to bet on everything like which light bulb a fly would land on. We were talking about what our dads did back home. One guy from Pennsylvania said his dad ran a drag line and it weighed 600 ton. I said there is one in Ohio that could pick it up. He said bullshit. I said bet $20.00 it exists, he said bet $50.00 it doesn't and I said bet $100.00 it does and he took the bet.
My dad worked for the Ohio power coal company and he had sent me information on the big drag line. The Big Muskie could lift over 700 tons