The earliest machines were steam powered and were the first mechanical excavators used by man, in the 1800s.

Butterwell Opencast Coal Site, Northumberland. This list is incomplete please add other manufacturers.

Smaller draglines were also commonly used before hydraulic machines become widespread. info@earthmoversmagazine.co.uk. The coal mining dragline known as Big Muskie, owned by the Central Ohio Coal Company (a division of American Electric Power), was the world's largest mobile earth-moving machine, weighing nearly 13,000 metric tons and standing nearly 22 stories tall.

On larger draglines, only a few extra metres may be reached. It was originally owned by British Coal but passed to UK Coal, when British Coal's opencast operations were sold off. BGS image ID: P260809: Big Geordie's bucket. The dragline was invented in 1904 by John W. Page of Page Schnable Contracting for use digging the Chicago Canal. The bucket arm is pulled back to drive the bucket into the loose rock or Coal face then lifted up by the boom and the machine then swings and dumps the load usually into a large Dump truck sat at the side by opening the back of the bucket which is a hinged flap on the back, then swinging back and digging in again. For instance, there is a long-lived story that, back in the 1970s, if all seven of the Peak Downs (a very large coal mine in central Queensland, Australia) draglines turned simultaneously, they would black out all of North Queensland.

[1] The length of the boom ranges from 45 to 100 metres. The Largest being a Ruston-Bucyrus RB110 Face shovel, and An NCK 605 Front shovel. The final cut if required is a pull back, pulling material back further to the low-wall side. Power was from internal combustion engines driving generators.

Researchers at CSIRO in Australia have a long-term research project into automating draglines and have moved over 250,000 tonnes of overburden under computer control. The bucket can also be 'thrown' by winding up to the jib and then releasing a clutch on the drag cable. The larger types are used in strip-mining operations to move overburden above coal, and for tar-sand mining. This is called a dump operation. © Sundial Magazines Ltddocument.write(" "+new Date().getFullYear()); This website and services embedded within it use cookies to offer you the best user and functional experience and to provide us with performance statistics. The “Ace of Spades” only UK rival was the other well-known dragline “Big Geordie” which first entered service in 1969 and had an operating weight of 3,000 tonnes. Was called "Big Geordie" and worked at the Radar North opencast site near Newcastle, England from 1969 to 1976 for Derek Crouch Mining, Then at the Butterwell site of Taylor Woodrow Ltd from 1977 till 1991, when coaling was completed.

Their power consumption is so great that they have a direct connection to the high-voltage grid at voltages of between 6.6 to 22 kV.