Steam shovel on the history channel

[Frank DeWitt]

Just caught a History Channel Mega movers on the saving and moving of a 1923 Bucyrus B50 Steem shovel. Good show. I hope they repeat it.
Here is a little info from the web.
http://www.themountainear.com/story19.shtml
http://dmtop.blogspot.com/2006_02_01_archive.html
http://www.themountainear.com/story6.shtml

Does anyone have any more info on it? How does it compare to the Bucyus-Erie 50-B steam shovel at Rollag?

Frank

[W.B.Lewis]

They did repeat this as I saw it on History Channel several months ago. Would like to go see it at the new museum sometime.There are some early steam powered cranes near here that were used to load and unload ships at a shipping terminal.

[Terry Welch]

Rollag advertises their 50B as the largest existing opertaion shovel that is run on coal. I belive this is true. There is a 50B in CA that burns oil. There are bigger steam shovels around, but they are static displays at this time. The boiler on the one on the History Channel has been replaced at some point in the past I read this someplace. I heard this also from one of the people that helped with the move.
There is a fellow about 40 miles from me that is restoring a Bucyrus steam drag line at this time. You steam guys from Wisc. might know who it is. He has done a great job on it. I think he is working on the pivot pin right now. He built the boom new, boiler has been redone, cab about 75% done, next will be the under carriage. He hopes to have it up and running within a couple of years. He is taking his time and doing a good job.
Terry

[Bud Tierney]

On the off chance that posters here may not know of it, there're some nice old pix and posts about shovels on stripmine.org