Monster Mining Machines - How Draglines Work

What the heck is a dragline, and how do they work? We’ve got the answers!
We’re back with North American Coal to tour one of their massive draglines. These machines are the largest earthmovers in America, capable of moving well over 100,000 cubic yards of material per day.
Using steel cables, they drag monster buckets through the earth, filling them in seconds. Then, they unload by tipping the bucket as they swing, flinging the dirt into huge piles.
Without these machines, millions of Americans would be without power!

[@terry_willis]

What impresses me the most are the engineers who designed this monster and also created machines to make the parts for this.

[@PBST_RAIDZ]

I have made the cages housing the brake rotors you see in 7:29 and it's cnc milled then welded together and bolted to the hub. Also the rotors are 2m in diameter and weigh just under 100kg.

[@jimbeam2705]

Awesome video. As a retired heavy equipment operator i don't think i would last long doing that unless the pay was real good. After running a excavator for years loading on and off road trucks this would make my brain rot fast .The boredom is hard to overcome. And the machine actually runs on coal , because without coal .... theres no electricity.

[@ryanc8188]

I know a couple people that have run the big haul trucks in the Kennecott copper mine and they say it's awesome for about the first week then it's just mind numbing repetition.

[@sward_woffles9649]

I find it therapeutic, I’m only 19 and I can shut my brain off and haul earth, granted I’m allowed to listen to music or podcast so that makes it easier.

[@tbnthompson]

@@ryanc8188I live right under Kennecott, run equipment doing dirt work and developments, it gets old quick no matter how big they are. And I grew up running equipment

[@shitcans]

at 21 ur going to want to labor again. @@sward_woffles9649

[@american7169]

Indeed, I quit cnc operations for same reason. Most boring job ever just watching it work all day twiddling my thumbs and looking at clock every 15 min hoping an hour had passed.

[@warrenjones744]

Man they keep the old girl looking good. Inside and out. Draglines are way cool. Makes those little 3/4 yard machines I used to operate look very insignificant. Thanks Aaron for doing what you do. For an old gear head it's fun to watch. Cheers

[@AaronWitt]

They have a world class maintenance program!

[@aarondavies8486]

Would love to see a big tracked digger with a slew motor on the arm i used to operate one back in the early 2000s ​@@AaronWitt

[@highmarked]

I can speak for the quality of work done at Coteau by good workers.

[@MrCites1]

I was fortunate enough to work 7 shifts of Big Muskie only 4 months before she was decommissioned. A true behemoth!

[@BlueSta1n]

I call my old ford super duty big Muskie! Hats off

[@AndyFromBeaverton]

1:54 That machine is 106 days short of operating 10,000 days. The most custom piece besides the bucket is the drive gear. I wonder how many individual sections it was cast in and if any of the sections of drive gear have been replaced.

[@tristenklein225]

Great question 👍! I wonder how long it took the mechanics to build the machine onsite after the pieces are brought in by train?

[@mzee5533]

@@tristenklein225 not sure about the dragline. I’ve built rope shovels it takes about 3 months to finish a Bucyrus 495HR2 rope shovel. So I’ll assume the dragline might be 6 months or more depending with the location where you build it.

[@gunstuff5273]

Two years ago they replaced the tub on this exact dragline I believe. If not this one it was one of the other two at this same mine. kzbin.info/www/bejne/d3TVhXqtetarfrMsi=4TofasCwqrvmAsyQ

[@DrTubeman]

@@gunstuff5273 Awesome video, cheers for sharing, Guns.

[@michelsolon2937]

Everybody gangsta until the drag line starts WALKING...

[@tilled6695]

re reference, the machine hours indicates that one particular machine has been running for 28 years of its 40 year life span. WOW

[@Whistiling_in_the_Wind]

Nothing quite like the intertwining of man & machine feels so natural. The perfect bond

[@pakjohn48]

Maybe up in the driver's seat you'd feel that but certainly not back in the machine house where it was very noisy, dirty and potentially dangerous.

[@rowinrowinson8455]

the efficiency of these machines is so cool

[@ericcarabetta1161]

It’s like moving a whole factory around.

[@SiboBushings]

Awesome video, impressive point of view. 👌

[@jeffdunlap9620]

Awesome video brought back alot of good memories i got to run a drag line half that size at a limestone quarry in central Illinois that my dad worked at when i was a freshman in highschool it was an awesome experience

[@tropicrows]

This is such a cool video. I worked for a heavy engineering company in Australia in the 70's called Perry Engineering. I operated a Skoda horizontal floor borer that machined the gear boxes and swing shafts for draglines.

[@11kungfu11]

I was lucky enough to not only get to see one of these in person but the guy knew the driver so he stopped the machine and let us onboard. The sensation of being in the cab while its swinging around and throwing its bucket is wild. So much weight

[@cactiguide]

The bucket and the amount of dirt it holds is tiny compared to the size of the machine. Just shows how difficult it is to move the earth

[@djteako]

Well you sort of got one thing wrong. I guess they didn't tell you, that if you were standing on the very end of the boom, when its swinging you'd be travelling between 60 - 80 miles per hour !!! Thats pretty damn fast for an earth moving machine!

[@joshkuhn3974]

Not true actually. I have tested and calculated it. It is about 37 mph.

[@djteako]

@@joshkuhn3974 oh yes that would be right. I'm Canadian and it's 60-80 km/hr. They tested the ones up at Syncrude back when they had them. It's still pretty darn fast!

[@Matt-mp7qu]

Hey man. My name is Matt. I was the Project Manager for rebuilding the boom on this 10 years ago. Have some cool photos and videos of it.

[@deenjohnson6574]

Next time your up at Coteau, ask to see the coal handling facility and ask to maybe tag along with the dragline maintenance guys.

[@DirtandDiesel85]

this is actually epic i would love to have your job aaron 👍great vids love the content keep it up

[@JOKAYAR]

Hello i'm from the biggest production indonesian coal mining " berau coal ". I always watch your videos and fantastic experience about coal mining in the europe one day i would like to works there are

[@sky173]

Really gotta give these guys credit. No wind power machine could make it possible to live 24/7 the way we do. Great video. Thanks for sharing.

[@titaniummechanism3214]

Why wouldn't wind power work? Or for that matter any other form of energy? Electricity is all the same, no matter how it's generated.

[@JAMESWUERTELE]

I run a power plant and monitor our 3 wind farms. Yeah the wind doesn’t blow all the time. Especially on the coldest of nights. No wind no power. I’m grateful for the coal and natural gas power generation! My hats off to those who work in that cold up north.

[@bholdr----0]

@@titaniummechanism3214 Yeah... I think the OP may be tilting at windmills. (Almost literally: they kinda teed that up, eh?) Energy is energy, and, sure, there is the intermittancy issue with wind, but there are solutions like pumped hydro, etc for that. Installed wind power is already less expensive than any source other than, in some marginal situations, natural gas or coal- and the gap is closing fast! (It would already be closed except for the absurdly massive fossil fuel incentives, favroable interest rates, tax breaks, and immunity for the environmental damage they cause, etc, etc.)

[@tomarmadiyer2698]

Uncledad hates the wind, he says if anything is gonna blow him it'll be Well I can't finish that story in polite company, but it's a funny 'n

[@bholdr----0]

@@tomarmadiyer2698 I could magine! (And wish I didn't). Cheers!

[@keturunankusuma4213]

Thanks aaron

[@Bandar_Alai_Heavy_Equepment]

Awesome video... thanks for sharing 🇲🇨🚜🚛❤️🌼👍👍

[@ProudPapaw88]

Good show, Aaron. We had one on the last job that I was on. Nothing as big as that one. Thanks for sharing and have a great weekend!!

[@hugodesrosiers-plaisance3156]

Like driving a freakin appartment bloc. Day-um. 😂

[@ernierundall1336]

Great video

[@manishranamagar7073]

Great video aaron❤️

[@bethanyhaskiell9116]

Best video yet I wish you could just do videos of draglines and large excavators

[@willfultrain6779]

It's a shame not many of these machines of this size exist anymore.

[@JohnDoe-jq5wy]

GREAT STUFF AND POWERFUL CREATING 😊😊😊😊😊

[@DrTubeman]

My father ran a drainage earth moving business and operated draglines, not like the size of this beauty of course. A dragline was one of the most difficult earth moving machines I've ever had to learn how to operate, my father could make a dragline sing, they were an awesome machine in there day and still have there uses even today. Cheers for the great reel.

[@guyneeser2029]

Thanks again buildwitt. What a incredable machine.

[@sythex92]

All that machine for a tiny bucket.

[@sferrin2]

Shame they don't make 'em as big as Big Muskie anymore.

[@johnrhodes2367]

I worked in a open cast in yorkshire UK. We had a Rapier W2000 called Big Bob

[@charlesmullins3238]

Man what a classic

[@ericerto8250]

It's like a warehouse with extra functions. When you're a piece of equipment has a kitchen in it you know it's big

[@ericnewton5720]

I’ve been inside that same bucket. Machine was down for a rare moment of maintenance so we got to tour the entire machine in and out.

[@alexanderray9106]

A mate of mine who is a welder told me that when the drag lines moved position in Mt Isa Australia, the entire town's electrical supply would 'brown out' as it did so.....

[@Glandock]

Working on a floating (3m^3) grab dredge everyting seemed big to me on my machine... and then I see this ;)

[@Kosmopoli]

This machinery is sci-fi like makes me think of an army of these mining the surface of a foreign planet for its resources. How cool and terrifying!

[@keitharnett2647]

Started Peabody Coal 1978 had 8800 Marion 100Yd Homestead Mine Western KY . 1050BE shovel really cool for 18 year old .

[@madscientist602]

I love drag lines

[@user-lc2gb9dw1k]

I've worked around 9800 diggers, 930 haul trucks and all the rest but these things are Goliath's!

[@davidswank8285]

Amazing machine

[@nirosetyo3750]

Woww.... Amazing

[@stevegeorge6479]

You must be a lucky guy to be in one 👍👍👍

[@EyeForKnowledge.]

I bought one of those last week to dig my pond. Enjoying the comfort of the cab.

[@coreyrush9698]

Love ur videos bro keep it up 💯

[@AaronWitt]

Thanks for watching

[@pakjohn48]

Well thank you for this video. For many years my Company (Monitek) performed vibration analysis on these machines in coal mines throughout Australia, the purpose being to detect the early warning signs of wear (defects) in the many large bearings and gears driving them, thus allowing corrective maintenance to be performed before a catastrophic and very expensive failure occured. One of our employees later emigrated to the USA and set up a sister company in Wyoming to service the coal mines in the region. Never thought I would see this sort of detail on KZbin.

[@Gunstar1986]

I wonder what the voltage on the power cable across the ground is. 13KV? We all know that is not 480V.

[@stevenabrahamson4876]

23KV running through that cable.

[@arvbergstedt3303]

Called 23 kv Cable. Actually 22,900 volts. Portable substation hooked to 69,000 high line. Goes into dragline to 4160 volt transformers which feed 4-3000 hp motors which drive a bunch of dc generators which feed the dc motors.

[@borghorsa1902]

Thank you! I always had a strange fascination with all the big machines with rooms inside of them!

[@mariusschepp5831]

One stupid question but what exactly does the machine in this case do? It just looks to me that it moves material (coal?) from a to b, with b not being a dump truck or plant or so..

[@AaronWitt]

It strips overburden to reach the coal

[@jamesgarrison6430]

I had the same question because it looked like both from where it was digging and dumping to be the same hight

[@joecummings1260]

Up here they walked "The Anthracite King" some crazy distances, Some of it to do the cut for RT 81

[@charlesmullins3238]

That’s one of my favorites…im in eastern Ky

[@charlesmullins3238]

Worked around 2 diff ones here in eastern Ky…ones in the coal mining in Appalachia vid and the other I think went to Florida yrs ago

[@brendanloy9468]

my dad made the main spool drive gears (amongst other parts) for drag lines like these back in the 80's and they're still out there running today!

[@ileenmcminn2062]

Did he work in Pocatello?

[@brendanloy9468]

nup he worked at vickers machine works in melbourne australia@@ileenmcminn2062

[@ALLOFTHEBOOST]

Honestly with how big they are, i teally did expect the bucket to be bigger. Not many? Gotta be more than 50 in australia i think. Thats heaps.

[@BFT88]

Matt from Diesel Creek should buy this.

[@MikeT-TheRetiredColonel]

Aaron, that is absolutely cool! Got to see more of the "guts" of a dragline like this with you than elsewhere, thanks!

[@tristenklein225]

Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t Bucyrus-Erie the very first to design engineer and manufacture drag lines in the world starting in the late 1800’s? How often do they have to change out the cables due to fatigue and stress and do they have to be certified and inspected by OSHA like cables on large cranes?

[@helloitsjason]

Its hard to say. Page Engineering (John Page) were the first to make draglines. Both Bucyrus-Erie (now a part of CAT) and Harnischfeger (aka Pawling & Harnischfeger, later P&H Mining -> Joy Global -> Komatsu Mining) got into the dragline business in the early 1900s both operating out of Milwaukee. Neither were the first to make them, and those two companies went head to head for many years in the business, and pretty much bought out all the other smaller firms (for instance Page Engineering was bought by P&H in the 1980s). Nowadays most draglines are just maintained, and new ones haven't been built for quite some time since its easier and cheaper to maintain existing ones and replace them with rope shovels if they are no longer suited for an application. I work for one of those companies and can't say exactly how often cables are replaced especially since its heavily dependent on the work that the dragline is doing and where, however I can say pretty much everything that goes onto a mine site is inspected by MSHA at least once per year. MSHA is the mine specific version of OSHA. MSHA controls mining and quarrying exclusively, while OSHA controls pretty much anything else, including things like maintenance and repair shops that might be on mine sites.

[@tristenklein5940]

@@helloitsjasonThanks for the insight and history 👍

[@nickdent8783]

Really enjoyed that video Aaron.bit differant to the volvo ecr25 I run in the uk

[@jimyoungquist1687]

Back in the late '60's we were fishing near the open pit coal mines around Wilmington IL. There was an immense dragline there, and we were invited to tour the machine. My father drove our Plymouth station wagon into the scoop of the dragline and there was enough room for another station wagon next to our car.

[@esneidermorenocalderon8468]

son unas máquinas fantásticas, y más en sus mantenimientos, en el balde, cambios de cables y pines, en el boom y ni se diga en las partes internas, revolfren y Center pin, en los zapatos, toda una locura realizar trabajos de soldadura en esa areas.

[@JackDogSteve-jr9js]

Thanks! That's Cool..

[@andyhug90]

The sound it makes when "walking" is awesome, like out of a transformer movie

[@AM-dn4lk]

An engineering marvel.

[@kawasakiwhiptwo5821]

Amazingly quiet for how big it is.

[@user-wl7um5rp4h]

This can be called a building. 凄い！😱

[@erikb8979]

Wow. Incredible

[@williamfowler9518]

Thanks for the video. Interesting! Three other questions: 1) Do the booms move? 2) how much does this machine weigh? 3) How much does this machine cost?

[@Spartan-uk4qk]

Its pacific rim in real life! Very cool. I always loved books about super heavy equipment

[@asavage1576]

I cant fathom how big that machine is 😊

[@BLX187]

40 years of work out of it! probably still being paid for too

[@arivo9062]

Whoever design, engineer and build these machines. Salut to you all!

[@maxhofmann6993]

I would love to see how they are manufactured and assembled on site.

[@HumbleHonkingEnthusiast]

Your best video to date 🎉

[@AaronWitt]

Thanks mate

[@SabbaticusRex]

This is just so incredible .. Thank you for showing this to us.

[@imoutodaisuki]

The funny thing is, the bucket looks tiny and cute compared the whole machine lol.

[@norcanexs.g.llc.4625]

One hundred yards per scoop is about five (18- wheeler) semi-truck loads.

[@arvbergstedt3303]

Started with 105 yd rebuildable buckets back in early 80s. Changed to 115 yard throw away lighter buckets. Don’t know what they’re using now.

[@joshkuhn3974]

These buckets now are close to 130 yards.

[@dustinkelley7932]

Awesome video, such a cool machine.

[@knafjallravenrefur9648]

Something i always wondered (also with our huge buckewheel ones here in germany) is how they are build in the first place, because good gods these things are MASSIVE

[@theairstig9164]

Have a look at how a fair ground Ferris wheel is moved around on a truck in pieces. It’s basically the same but the pieces are the size where one piece fits on a truck. That is to say the largest piece is 42 tonnes for over the road transport

[@floydwilliams3321]

Lov it

[@Shadeza1373]

Thanks for the info

[@HFarms1955]

Wish I could give 10k thumbs up for this one!!! AWESOME VIDEO, THANK YOU!

[@cerberus276]

Straight out of high school, I was lucky enough to get a job with P&H doing teardowns and relocating draglines . One of my most memorable greenhorn experiences was having to clear the tub of a BE 8750 compartments of water because the outer access covers weren't properly sealed earlier in the rebuilding process. Every single little room, all the way back to the center pin flooded ,alone with the worst flashlights ever (before waterproof LED)😑. Still have nightmares. I got it done in a few days and my reward for the task was going back through painting and numbering the compartments later on . I knew that tub so well after it all, I could crawl it in the dark, which I often had to because of my flashlight dying. 😅 Good times

[@ar-sithf.austin3744]

I'd hate to replace those cable drums if there was ever an issue with the gears driving it. Least you have a 35 ton overhead crane for help 😂

[@oil_lord]

Incredible, it is rare to see the inner workings of drag line.

[@toddbishop4701]

215 Ton bucket scoop.. MAD AZ

[@jaydee6440]

Awesome video 😊

[@steelerdude1967]

The company i work for we are making a set of rails and rollers and thrust rails for the 2570 tub.

[@apollomoon1]

Interesting video thanks. Some specifications on the machine would have been helpful.

[@bholdr----0]

Imagine what a person from, say, 1750 (at the start of the industrial revolution) would say/think when seeing one of these monsters! Or, how Newcomen/Watt/Diesel would react!?

[@ragoonsgg589]

This is what makes KZbin

[@ShannonFreng]

How much do those operators get paid?

[@zabdas83]

MTV turned up too do Cribbs - pretty F'ing cool 😎

[@rich.trails]

I'm curious what the amount of power it takes to run and compared to how much coal it digs. It's always interesting to think about the economies of scale with big equipment. I'd love to see real data on comparisons.

[@blueman5924]

the extension cord didn’t look That big, maybe 220v 60 amps.😉

[@gregjames5070]

It doesn’t dig any coal.

[@kmg501]

How many crews are there to rotate through the twelve hour shifts? I have to assume that it is more than two crews.

[@AaronWitt]

yeah there are more than two for each machine. Typically 4-5 total per machine. I think each crew technically works on average about half the year. It's a good gig

[@kmg501]

@@AaronWitt Sounds good, thank you.

[@RampageGarage]

FINALLY!! I LOVE WALKING DRAGLINES! 😅

[@livingwiththebritts9753]

Heaps still working in Central Queensland Australia 🇦🇺 I work on them every other day

[@AaronWitt]

Yeah mate we’ll be out there in a few weeks

[@josemanuelmunoz1555]

Very interesting machine ,thank you for showing us the work of those important people.

[@errolfeistl1705]

Love the video, but could you please include the metric equivalent on the screen as well?

[@AaronWitt]

noted