Marion 6360, also known as ''The Captain'', was a giant

power shovel A power shovel (also stripping shovel or front shovel or electric mining shovel or electric rope shovel) is a bucket-equipped machine, usually electrically powered, used for digging and loading earth or fragmented rock and for mineral extraction ...

built by the Marion Power Shovel company. Completed in 1965, it was one of the largest land vehicles ever built, exceeded only by some

dragline A dragline excavator is a piece of heavy equipment used in civil engineering and surface mining. Draglines fall into two broad categories: those that are based on standard, lifting cranes, and the heavy units which have to be built on-site. ...

and

bucket-wheel excavator A bucket-wheel excavator (BWE) is a large heavy equipment machine used in surface mining. The primary function of BWEs is ...

s. The shovel originally started work with

Southwestern Illinois Coal Corporation The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sepa ...

, but the owners were soon bought out by

Arch Coal Arch Resources, previously known as Arch Coal, is an American coal mining and processing company. The company mines, processes, and markets bituminous and sub-bituminous coal with low sulfur content in the United States. Arch Resources is the se ...

. Everything remained the same at the mine except for the colors which were changed to red, white, and blue. The shovel worked well for Arch Coal until September 9, 1991, when a fire broke out in the lower works of the shovel. It was caused by a burst hydraulic line that was 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 and energy 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 ...

) River Queen Surface Mine in

Central City, Kentucky Central City is a home rule-class city in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, in the United States. The population was 5,978 at the 2010 census. It is also the largest city in the county and the principal community in the Central City Micropolitan Sta ...

. 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. History Muhlenberg County was formed in 1798 from the areas known as Logan and Christian ...

Specifics

* Boom Length: * Bucket Capacity: (double doors) * Dipper Stick Length: * Overall Weight: 12,700 tons * 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 15,000 hp * Build time (site erection) 18 months & 150,000 man hours

References

External links

* Stripping shovels Engineering vehicles 6360 {{mining-stub

Specifics

See also

References

External links