Interesting facts about excavators. Steam engines and other retro equipment in the construction of roads and canals

Classification of excavators

By type of running

• Crawler excavators
• Walkers
• Pneumatic
• Rail
• floating

According to the principle of work

• Cyclic excavators (single bucket excavator (in the direction of the excavator bucket tooth), working equipment: dragline, front shovel, backhoe, grapple)
• Continuous excavators (bucket, rotary, milling)

By operational purpose

• career
• Overburden
• Construction
• Mining

For power equipment

• Electrical
• Diesel
• hydraulic
• Combined

History

Officially, the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bcreating an earth-moving machine belongs to Leonardo da Vinci, at the beginning of the 16th century he developed a prototype scheme for a modern dragline excavator. A sketch of a drawing of a grab for an excavator, created by da Vinci in 1500, is known, later Leonardo took part in laying canals in the Milan Valley with the help of his invention. But there is evidence that earlier, in 1420, in the Venetian edition of the Giovanni Fontana Code, a text was published mentioning an earthmoving machine used to deepen the bottom of canals and expand sea harbors.

For some time, Italy, namely Venice, actively developed the excavator business - machines were needed to clean the Venetian canals. Further, the invention was developed in France and America.

The active construction of railway tracks in the 30s of the XIX century and the lack of workers prompted the American Otis in 1832-1836 to invent the first single-bucket excavator. Later, bucket-wheel excavators, or absetsers, appeared, which had huge size and moved along the rails, digging trenches of the rock. Many special machines worked with them, among which a track mover was noticeable, moving the numerous rails of the excavator.

In the Soviet Union, three absetzers were built, two of which were German-made, operating from the early 1960s until the collapse of the USSR, at the extraction of phosphorites in the Lopatinsky mine. At the moment, all three machines are not functioning and have been sold for recycling, only one small subsetzer is working in the mine, extracting phosphorites in limited quantities.

Images

see also

Notes

The excavator is controlled by the profession - "Excavator driver". However, given the complexity of the independent movement of the digging mechanism itself (an excavator with a bucket volume of 2.5 cubic meters or more), as well as the winch mechanism, the length of cables and other equipment, there is an additional specialty - “excavator driver assistant”. The main purpose of such a position is to eliminate minor problems and other maintenance work on the excavator.

Literature

Links

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Synonyms:

See what "Excavator" is in other dictionaries:

Commercial: Yes Site type: Internet portal Language(s): Russian Owner: RIA Excavator Ru ... Wikipedia

- (from Latin excavo I hollow, squeeze out * a. excavator, excavating machine; n. Bagger; f. excavateur, pelle mecanique; and. excavadora, cavadora, cavador) self-propelled excavation loading machine designed for excavation (digging, scooping, ... … Geological Encyclopedia

- (lat.). Device for earthen recesses. Dictionary foreign words included in the Russian language. Chudinov A.N., 1910. EXCAVATOR machine for dredging. A complete dictionary of foreign words that have come into use in the Russian language. Popov ... Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language

Excavator, dredge, bucket, scoop; rake, noria, grabar, dragline, absetzer, digger, klemshel, mountain hero, dragline, steel coal digger, bager, steel digger Dictionary of Russian synonyms. excavator n., number of synonyms: 17 ... ... Synonym dictionary

Single-bucket or multi-bucket self-propelled earth-moving machine for excavation, loading it onto vehicle or moving [Terminological dictionary for construction in 12 languages ​​(VNIIIS Gosstroy of the USSR)] excavator Self-propelled machine on ... Technical Translator's Handbook

- (English excavator, from Latin excavo I hollow out, I hollow out), a self-propelled excavation and loading machine for mining during open-pit mining, loading and unloading bulk and lumpy materials, for earthworks… … Modern Encyclopedia

- (eng. excavator from lat. excavo hollow), the main type of earth-moving machines, mainly for the development of soft rocks in an array or rocky in a crushed state. There are single-bucket (mechanical shovel, dragline, etc.) and ... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

EXCAVATOR, excavator, male. (from lat. excavo I gouge). 1. Machine for excavation, lifting and moving soil, upr. during various earthworks (tech.). 2. Surgical tool for scraping cavities. Dictionary Ushakov. D.N.… … Explanatory Dictionary of Ushakov

EXCAVATOR, a, m. Earthmoving machine for excavation, loading and dumping of soil, upotr during road, mining and other works. Single-bucket, multi-bucket e. Walking e. (walking). Explanatory dictionary of Ozhegov. S.I. Ozhegov, N.Yu. Shvedova. 1949 1992 ... Explanatory dictionary of Ozhegov

A machine for tearing, lifting, moving and dumping the developed soil. Distinguish E. single-bucket with a rotary boom, single-bucket without an arrow, and multi-bucket. All of them consist of: a) working equipment, which includes one or ... ... Technical railway dictionary

The main type of excavation-loading machines used in construction for excavation and for the extraction of minerals in open-pit mining. There are single-bucket and multi-bucket E., chain and rotary. ... ... Emergencies Dictionary

Every technology that has ever been designed and built by man has been designed to minimize human labor and enhance human capabilities. important group construction machines excavators, which freed mankind from hard physical labor and allowed it to carry out construction and survey works of enormous scale, became excavators.

Modern excavators are also huge draglines used in open-pit mining

This huge Takraf Ers 710 mines up to 1500 cubic meters of rock per hour

and miniature hydraulic machines to assist in landscaping.

A miniature excavator that can even dig holes for planting trees

At first, the cable excavator was invented by mankind.

Its principle of operation was similar to the work of a crane and consisted in moving the trolley and bucket along the carrying ropes. The very creation of cable excavators was the result of the combined efforts of many enterprises over several decades.

Some of these companies, such as Gradall or Caterpillar, have become well-known brands, the very name of which is associated with the concept of an excavator. Others are long gone, destroyed by economic turmoil or swallowed up by more successful competitors. Today, with the exception of some samples of mining draglines, cable shovels have practically died in the Bose, giving way to hydraulic excavators.

However, of course, the history of the creation of the excavator began in the distant 18th century with the invention of the steam engine.

The first steam excavator was built by 23-year-old American engineer William Otis in 1836. It is this inventor that can rightly be called his "father".

Portrait of William Otis

The first prototype of the future excavator turned out to be rather unsuccessful, and in 1837, together with an experienced engineer Joseph Harrison Jr., Otis builds an improved version of his machine, which already meets his requirements.

Although William Otis filed his original patent application for a steam shovel on June 15, 1836, a fire at the patent office destroyed these papers. His second application, dated October 27, 1836, was not approved by the patent office until February 24, 1839. Thus, the official date for the invention of the steam excavator was not 1836, but 1839.

Otis himself called the created machine “a crane shovel for excavating soil and removing earth”, while the people called his machines “Otis Shovels”. They were rather underpowered - up to 20 horsepower, clumsy and cumbersome machinery and were only partially swivel, since the boom of his steam excavator could not move more than 180 degrees.

1869 photo of Otis Spade at Hanging Rock in Echo Canyon, Utah, USA

One of the American newspapers of the time wrote that the Otis Spade was one of those rare inventions where a genius, working for himself, created benefits that could change the entire civilized world. Otis cars aroused such genuine interest, and at the same time horror among ordinary citizens, that they came in droves to gawk at this miracle of engineering.

William Otis died at the age of 26, having managed to build only 7 steam shovels, two of which remained in North America, the rest dispersed around the world. It is believed that Otis' steam excavator was first used in 1837 in the construction of a railroad between Ohio and Baltimore, but documents confirming this event have not survived to this day. The documented use of the first steam shovel took place in 1838 in Springfield, Massachusetts, on the construction of the Western Railroad, where the steam Otis Spade faithfully served for 3 years.

It is likely that one or two Otis machines were used in 1840 to build docks in Atlantic City (a city in the northeastern United States, New Jersey), and then in Brooklyn and Boston.

Photo of a steam shovel in Boston

In 1842, one Otis steam excavator was involved in work in England near Brentwood (Essex) during the construction of a railway in the eastern counties of Great Britain.

John Duncan, an English entrepreneur who was allegedly sold a patent for the use of the Otis Shovel in the UK and European countries, apparently did not manage to independently reproduce a single sample of this machine. New World he was reluctant to accept technical innovations, considering the "arrogant Yankees" upstarts. This attitude towards the ideas of the Americans slowed down the development of scientific and technological progress in Europe. In the future, they will have to catch up with leaps and bounds.

Subsequent evidence of the use of Otis Spades in Europe and the United States is rather vague. It is known that the last car he created broke down by the end of 1905 at the construction of the Chicago Railroad in Illinois.

Photo of the latest Otis Spade in action on the Chicago Railroad. The picture was taken between 1900 and 1905.

According to modern estimates, the Otis Shovel could do the work equal to the efforts of 120 people, and its productivity was about 100 m3 of soil per hour. Otis cars could move only along the railway tracks, which were specially laid to the place of work. And this factor greatly complicated the use of such machines, because the construction of the railway track was an expensive and labor-intensive task.

Photo of a steam shovel mounted on railroad tracks. The picture was taken in 1904 in the state of South Dakota at the construction of the Orman Dam.

Photo of a 1919 steam shovel at a quarry near San Diego (California, USA)

Representatives Russian authorities first saw the "Shovel Otis" at the construction of the Western Railway in 1839. The railway company's consulting engineer, Major George Georgievich Whistler, was assigned to purchase one of Otis' machines for use in the construction of the railway between St. Petersburg and Moscow. Thus, the first steam excavator appeared in Russia in 1842, and it was produced in America.

In those days, steam excavators, in fact, were piece goods. They were a "rare guest" in household buildings, for the most part used only in the construction of railways.

An old steam shovel preserved in a museum in Alaska. As you can see, it consisted of a boiler, a water tank, a winch, a steam engine, the boom itself and a beam on which the bucket was attached.

But they began to gain their true popularity only in the second half of the 19th century, at a time when the railway network covered a significant territory of the United States and England.

The first creator of steam excavators in Europe was the English company Ruston & Proctor & Co. led by its owner, engineer and talented entrepreneur Joseph Rust.

By 1877, Ruston had produced about 100 steam excavators, some of which he exported to the United States for the construction of the Manchester Ship Canal. And in 1890 he went to Russia, where he successfully won a tender for the supply of several dozen of his machines for carrying out construction works in the Polesie region (at that time it was the territory of Russia, now it is the regions belonging to Ukraine). Thus, in fact, in Ukraine, the first steam excavators appeared in 1891.

One of the first and, perhaps, the most successful companies that put the production of steam shovels on an industrial footing were two competing American corporations - the Marion Steam Shovel Company and the Bucyrus Foundry, both organized in 1883 in Marion, Ohio.

The creators of the "Marion Steam Shovel Company", engineer-inventor Henry Barnhart and Edward Huber in the same year patent their improvement in the spring attachment of the bucket, replacing the fragile and inactive chain, which leads to greater reliability and increased productivity of this machine.

It was to the owners of these two companies that in 1903 the US government asked to provide the construction of the Panama Canal with steam shovels. 77 excavators were supplied by the Bucyrus Foundry and only 24 were owned by the Marion Steam Shovel Company. But it is the excavator owned by Marion at this construction site of the century in July 1908 that will set a world record for productivity.

Photo of a Marion excavator, model 91 "Culebra Cut" on the construction of the Panama Canal

Photo of a preserved example of a Marion excavator, model 91 Culebra Cut. This sample has already been "put" on a caterpillar track

However, until 1920, the produced excavators remained partially rotary, with the ability to move only along railway lines, which limits their scope.

With the invention of caterpillar tracks by Benjamin Holt, excavators become machines that can already be operated in difficult places. There are samples with diesel and electric motor which are gradually replacing steam engines.

However, one of the dominant inventions in the history of the excavator was the introduction of hydraulics into its control system.

The primacy of the invention of the hydraulic system of the excavator is currently disputed by England, France and Italy.

The earliest information about attempts to create an excavator on a hydraulic control system can be found back in 1882 in the history of the English company Armstrong Whitworth, which specialized in the production of weapons, warships and aircraft.

Sir William George Armstrong, founder of the Armstrong Whitworth Company (1810 - 1900) was an English genius engineer whose inventions were ahead of their time. Armstrong was Britain's biggest industrialist and one of the wealthiest men in Europe of his time. In the history of England, he became the first scientist who was awarded a peerage for his contribution to science.

It was Armstrong who first invented the hydraulic control system for mechanisms, introducing it into the operation of sluice gates in harbors, cranes and bridges. Its hydraulic mechanism, which opens the Tower Bridge in London, has become an engineering masterpiece of its era. And his first construction machine, controlled by hydraulics, was crane, an example of which was built in 1845 in Newcastle.

Photo of William Armstrong's first hydraulic crane built in the port of Newcastle (England)

In the future, his invention of the hydraulic system was actively exploited in the military industry, equipping with hydraulics lifting mechanisms locks in the mines of the Royal Navy, in the lifting and reloading of field guns, in factories for the manufacture of ammunition.

However, it was Armstrong's attempt to build a hydraulic excavator that failed. His hydraulic excavator turned out to be a machine too bulky, inactive and poorly coped with its functions. But, despite the failure of a fellow tribesman, the British consider their scientist to be the progenitor of a hydraulic excavator.

Years passed. And as is often the case with the greatest discoveries, completely different engineers worked on the creation of a hydraulically driven excavator at the same time, independently of each other.

In America, it was created by the Ferwerd brothers, natives of the Netherlands, who moved to live in Ohio and organized the now well-known Gradall Tractor company. It is to their talent that the excavator owes a telescopic boom. And in 1941, their first hydraulic excavator saw the light of day, of which only 3 models were created.

A significant shortage of labor on highway construction projects during World War II prompted engineers to work more seriously on the creation of a hydraulic excavator. The war changed the views of society on the design of construction machines. The global destruction left behind by fascism required mobility from equipment, and the existing sedentary caterpillar excavators no longer met the requirements that had been created. Increasingly, manufacturers of construction equipment began to mount their machines on the base of the car in order to provide it high mobility and the ability to quickly relocate from one construction site to another.

In 1948, the first wheeled excavator prototype was born, equipped with an improved hydraulic control system. Its creators were the Italian brothers Carlo and Mario Bruneri, who in 1954 sold a patent for the manufacture of a mobile version of the excavator of the French company SICAM. The model, created by the Bruneri brothers and called "Yumbo S25", was the first hydraulic excavator mounted on the wheelbase of a truck.

But the industrial production of excavators equipped with a hydraulic drive was the first to be established by the German company Atlas only in 1950.

However, the produced hydraulic excavators were still partially rotary, their angle of rotation of the boom did not exceed 270 degrees, which made it difficult to perform many works.

In 1951, Hymac entered the English market with its invention, presenting the first full-revolving hydraulic excavator.

Photo of the Hymac team against the background of the thousandth copy of the Hymac 580 full-circle excavator, taken in 1960 at the exhibition

It is this company that is rightfully considered a pioneer in the development and production of full-circle excavators. Subsequently, it will release a whole line of Hymac 580 excavator models, which will be sold by the thousands around the world.

Many models of this machine are still used in construction today, some of them can be seen today at vintage equipment exhibitions in the UK and Europe.

Almost simultaneously with "Atlas" and "Hymac" in 1951 to industrial production hydraulic excavators will be connected by the French corporation Poclain. For a long ten years, its designers will work on a full-rotation excavator system, in the end, having achieved the desired result only by 1960.

This is how the history of the emergence of the excavator was created, in which the genius of many people was able to give us such a perfect construction technique, without which today it is impossible for us to imagine our life.

The production of earthworks at all times required a lot of effort. The best effect occurred when using various devices specially designed for this purpose. Digging various pits depended on the use of such simple tools as hoes, picks and shovels. Many ancient buildings and similar structures that have survived to this day are located on solid foundations. In order to create such voluminous and reliable foundations for the structures under construction, large-scale earthworks were required. All this contributed to the invention of special units and mechanisms.

Today, an excavator equipped with a special bucket has become a familiar type of earthmoving equipment. It can be seen as construction site multi-storey building, and in the process of erecting an individual cottage. In addition, the technical characteristics of the unit are such that they can be effectively used for digging trenches for various purposes, as well as for leveling earthen soil in many household plots.

First models

The history of the creation of excavator equipment has several millennia. According to the information obtained by scientists, prototypes of such mechanisms were used during construction and irrigation works on the territory ancient egypt. After many centuries, the famous inventor Leonardo da Vinci created a schematic basis for an excavator device. In particular, the grab, designed for the dredger, has been “counting down” since the 16th century.

At the beginning of the 18th century, several gifted mechanics from France created a design for a special device for digging the earth. Such a unit was equipped with two buckets at the same time. This excavator successfully operated in the vicinity of French port cities. In the 70s of the same 18th century, a wheeled scraper made of wooden materials. Despite the fact that horses served as the “driving force” of such a mechanism, these units were quite successfully used in road work.

cardinal changes

Significant changes in the development of excavation technology occurred in the 19th century. In America, the most famous inventions in this area belong to Elisha Otis. He created a scheme for an excavator unit equipped with a large (for that time) bucket. This technique was powered by steam. For several years practical use these units could become a powerful technical replacement for the labor of diggers. Each such unit was able to replace about two hundred workers.

The history of the technical improvement of such earth-moving machines received its new development in the 20th century. Electric Energy greatly expanded the design capabilities of such units. In 1905, German engineers created a model of an excavator, the cabin of which could turn in different directions. Within 5 years, their American colleagues developed and produced the first tracked model of an excavator device. Already by the 20s of the last century, such earth-moving machines began to be equipped with diesel-type engines.

Modern and efficient

Modern excavator mechanisms have powerful technical specifications. They are able to function effectively in the most different conditions and subdivided according to several main parameters. EXPA specialists provide all necessary consultations to corporate buyers. The widest choice of spare parts, and also OEM is available to clients.

All accessories from original manufacturers which guarantees their high quality. In addition to sales and supply attachments, EXPA specialists provide qualified technical service. By contacting the Moscow or St. Petersburg offices of our organization, you can make the necessary order on the terms that will be most beneficial for you!

Carrying out earthworks with a steam excavator at the construction of the Amur railway, 1909.

The construction of an embankment using trolleys at the construction of the Amur Railway.

But the photo tells us about technological methods removal of soil from hills when laying a road:

Development of excavation in the English way with the help of an adit at the construction of the Amur railway
They made a horizontal adit deep into the hill. Then they made a vertical adit on the hill, combined them. And the soil was simply thrown into the "well" into the trolleys.

Carrying out zero work on the construction of a temporary bridge on the Amur railway. I'm not sure, but it seems to me that these are wooden piles.

The construction of a metal bridge on the Amur railway. The metal trusses of the bridge were assembled from separate beams.

The construction of a bridge support across the Khor River at the construction of the Ussuri railway.

Development of excavation at the construction of the Ussuri railroad. This photo is indicative of those who are of the opinion that the road was being restored. But it is quite possible that the canvas was brought into such a “ravine” (for the lowest cost)

Excavation and embankment on the Ussuri railroad. Open platforms for soil transportation

Let's go through a few photographs of steam shovels of that time.

Excavator "Putilovets". Performing earthworks on the construction of the railway. January 1915

Excavator "Putilovets" at work (1911)

Also in tsarist Russia Since 1903, the Putilov Plant (Society of Putilov Plants, founded in 1801 by N. Putilov) has organized the production of steam excavators of the Putilovets railway type with buckets with a capacity of 1.9 and 2.29 m3 according to the drawings of the American company Bucyrus (Bucyrus) .
The progenitor of this type of excavators is the Thompson system excavator, produced in the 1870s and 1880s. at the Bucyrus plant in America and is a typical machine of that time (in the figure above).
In 1906 - 1916. "Putilovtsy" worked on the construction of railways - Siberian, North-Donetsk, Kazan-Yekaterinburg, Murmansk, Petersburg-Orel, etc.
Their maximum production reached: monthly 80, shift 2.28, hourly 0.243 thousand m3. These figures were not inferior at that time to the performance of the same type of excavators in the United States.
In 1913-1916. during the construction of the Balogoe-Polotsk railway, the Putilov excavator with a bucket with a capacity of 2.29 m3, developing heavy clay and loading it into normal gauge railway platforms (which was news at that time), produced up to 3000 m3 per 12-hour shift.
In total, up to 1917, 37 excavators were built.
Subsequently, the Putilovets excavator was taken as the basis for the development of the Kovrovets excavator design, the production of which was launched at the NKPS excavator plant in Kovrov from 1932.

Excavator "Putilovets" with serial number 21, manufactured in 1913

Excavators of the Putilov factory at the construction of the railway near Petrograd (1915). The bucket-wheel excavator was produced at the Putilov plant (10 pieces in total) according to the drawings of the Lübeck company (Germany). The photo was taken from N.G. Dombrovsky's book "Excavators".

This is the receiver of the Putilovets excavator - a part-turn steam excavator on a railway track with a bucket with a capacity of 2.5 m3 "Kovrovets".

Repair of the excavator "Kovrovets".

On April 21, 1931, a new excavator, called "Kovrovets", was tested. After acceptance by the State Commission, "Kovrovets" was sent to the city of Gorky for use in expanding the local railway junction. Later, "Kovrovets-1" worked on the construction of the "Belomorkanal", near the city of Murmansk, at Balkhashstroy, in the quarries of the Kazan railway.
The next machine, Kovrovets-2, built according to new, corrected drawings, was manufactured by the plant in October 1931. These two first Kovrovets excavators laid the foundation for the development of Soviet excavator construction.
Since 1932, mass production of Kovrovets excavators began, and in total, by the end of 1934, 177 similar earthmoving machines were manufactured.

The Kovrovets excavator is mounted on a 4-axle railway-type platform. For stability it is supplied with 4 lateral jacks. The excavator has one working equipment - a direct shovel; a chain is used to lift the bucket; boom rotation angle - 180°. The fuel for the boiler is coal, firewood, it is possible to use oil. As engines, the excavator has 3 steam engines: lifting, rotary and pressure, with a total power of 245 hp.
The control of the excavator is concentrated in two places: on the turntable and on the excavator boom. The car was serviced by two teams: upper and lower. The structure of the top included a machinist, boom, oiler and stoker; in the composition of the lower - foreman and 6 workers. Kerosene lighting was provided inside the excavator. The excavator is equipped with a wooden body, and workplace on an arrow - an awning. The weight of the excavator is 85 tons.

On November 20, 1934, the workers of Kovrovets put it on the Deep Ditch. Photo from the book "Moscow-Volga", P.I. Lopatin. - M., 1939.

Then the production of steam excavators began:
MIIIP-1.5 "Votkinets"
MPP-0.75 "Kostromich"

A selection of photos of steam excavators:

Steam dredge at the construction site of the Panama Canal

A rail-mounted excavator next to narrow-gauge rails. Exact date unknown turn XIX-XX centuries.

A sand pit near the village of Shapki (now the Leningrad region), where a line from Tosno was laid in 1912. Loading is carried out by a steam excavator of the Putilov plant.

Steam excavator on a railway track in the Shapkinsky quarry.

Steam excavator in the mines of the Urals

Monchegorsk. Crawler steam excavator, 1937

Steam excavator in action (1921)

In particular, in the United States, a lot of steam technology was also used. Photo of a 1919 steam shovel at a quarry near San Diego, California

Excavation drawing for part of a railroad line between Springfield and Worcester, Massachusetts, Western Railway, Otis excavator

As an example. The Suez Canal (length 160 km, construction began in 1859) was built for about 10 years (mostly by hand). Total population workers employed in the construction, reached 40 thousand people. During construction, approximately 75 million cubic meters of soil were moved. During the construction of the Panama Canal (1880-1913), 160 million cubic meters of soil were moved. At the second stage of construction (1903-1913), more than a hundred single-bucket (mainly railway) and about 20 bucket-wheel excavators were used.

Copies of the sample 1929. some where even survived:

Steam excavator operation (at the beginning of the video)

The world's largest steam-powered excavator was built by Marion Power Shovel. The machine was assembled in 1906 for the General Crushed Stone Company, which originally used an excavator in a quarry to extract stone. At first, the excavator was put on rails closed in a circle, and the wheels were like those of trains, only much more considering that the weight of the machine was 105 tons. After some time, the manufacturer released a special kit for converting an excavator to a caterpillar, which was done in 1923.

He is still alive. This excavator served until 1949, when it was parked near the quarry, where it remains to this day.

Let's move on to the steam taps:

Steam faucet. Built at the Sormovsky plant in the early twentieth century.

Crane PK-TsUMZ-15 No. 918 with a grab works at the coal warehouse of the Moscow-Butyrskaya station in the late 50s

Six-ton ​​trucks were mass-produced by the May 1 Kirov Machine Building Plant in the 1930s and 1950s. As well as the Odessa Crane Plant named after the January Uprising, but in smaller quantities. If they were all produced in a single number range, then more than 3,000 of them were built in total. In the journal " Railway transport» No. 12 for 1997, in the retro photo section, a photograph of the PK-6 crane number 3093 was published, if, of course, it is correct.
All six-ton ​​trucks came out of the factory gates as steam, which is reflected in the name PK-6 - a steam crane with a lifting capacity of 6 tons.
Cranes PK-TSUMZ-15 with a steam drive with a lifting capacity of 15 tons were built serially by the Kirov Plant.

They worked until the middle of the 20th century and even later (somewhere in Ukraine)

UZhKP-1.5 - jib full-revolving self-propelled railway steam crane with a gauge of 750 mm with remote outriggers and a mechanism for pulling the load. Manufacturer - Valmet (Finland). Starting year of production - 1949.

Steam faucet at the construction site of the London Underground

Some steam faucets are still in operation today: The 83 year old floating faucet is still in working order

For some reason, this steam technique has been forgotten. But for the regions of the far north - it is simply irreplaceable. It is not tied to the delivery of fuel, it can work in remote areas. All you need is wood and water. With modern materials science, a steam engine could be improved and approached an internal combustion engine in terms of characteristics.

As can be seen from these examples - at the end of the 19th century, the beginning of the 20th century. hard work for the construction of roads, canals was not completely manual. The technique was. Yes, it was not enough, but it was present at critical areas. A small number of photographs with steam engines is not a reason to think that the times of full manual labor were until the beginning of industrialization 20-30gg.

In the state of New York, almost at its northernmost border, there is a town called Le Roy. Well, there is and there is. This could be the end of the story, but there is one "but" that prompted me to mention this locality. The fact is that literally 3 kilometers from Le Roy, on a site fenced with a fence, there is one of the old miracles of mechanical engineering.

The Le Roy Marion
The world's largest steam-powered excavator was built by Marion Power Shovel, which I already wrote about in. The machine was assembled in 1906 for the General Crushed Stone Company, which originally used an excavator in a quarry to extract stone.

At first, the excavator was put on rails closed in a circle, and the wheels were like those of trains, only much more considering that the weight of the machine was 105 tons. After some time, the manufacturer released a special kit for converting an excavator to a caterpillar, which was done in 1923.

The steam excavator was controlled by 2 teams: at least four people were required inside the machine:
- a stoker who monitored the steam boiler and the water/coal level;
- a driver-engineer who controlled the bucket and movements of the excavator;
- 2 crane operators, who sat on the right and left parts of the boom and guided the driver, and also controlled the movements of the bucket on the sides with the help of ropes.

Another 4 people worked around the excavator, directing its movements.

"Le Roy Excavator" could not turn 360 degrees. The type of steam engine used on it was the same as on the locomotives of the time. The transmission from the engine shafts was carried out using chains and gears.

At the moment, the car is heavily rusted. The original boiler still stands there, which, judging by the condition and eyewitness accounts, can still be restored. The mechanisms that made it possible to move the bucket have rusted so much that they can no longer be touched - they will fall apart.

There is also unverified information that this excavator worked during the construction of the Panama Canal, but there is no reliable evidence of this fact. But where is Le Roy, and where is the Panama Canal? (map) It is known for certain that an excavator manufactured by Marion Power Shovel was used in the construction of the Panama Canal, but was this the exact excavator?

This excavator served until 1949, when it was parked near the quarry, where it remains to this day. If you go by car to Niagara Falls, then there is an opportunity to see this miracle car with your own eyes, since Le Roy is located near the city of Buffalo, which is on the road. Unfortunately, I found out about the location of the excavator after a trip to Niagara :(