Saturday Afternoon Adventures

When I was a little kid, my dad took me somewhere in Kansas to see Big Brutus.  Turns out, Big Brutus is in West Mineral, KS.

 

 

So can you tell how big Big Brutus is??

Big Brutus is the nickname for this massive machine, a Bucyrus-Erie model 1850B electric shovel.  It was the second largest of it’s type back in the 60’s and 70’s.  It is 160 feet high (16 stories high) and weighs 11 million pounds. The bucket holds 90 cubic yards or 150 tons. Maximum speed is 0.22 MPH. It cost $6.5 million in 1962.

Now to give you a bit of an idea how large he/she it really is, do you see PC down by the tracks??  Yeah, it’s that huge

 

 

This is the bucket.  Brutus wasn’t used in the coal mining but more to remove rubble from the area.  The bucket was operated by the Operator and he could pick up a load in complete in 55 seconds.

Ok I’m sorry, but people defacing something like this to “leave their mark” is kind of sad.

This lead to another small room.  No idea what it was for but there was a gap between the two doorways…

The elevator on the left was the only way in or out of the machine.  The top right photo is trying (although not doing a good job) of showing how massive the inside of the machine was.  The bottom right is sad.  Come on people, don’t sue if you do something stupid… you cause it for the rest of us not to be able to experience cool things because people are afraid of being in horrible lawsuits!  Remember Lawyers are the only ones who benefit from lawsuits!  They get a pretty penny!  Ok done ranting :).

 

 

They had maps on the wall and people placed Pins from their location.

Ok it was HOT on Saturday.  Can you see that by my car temp pics?  What was really funny is the fact that when we crossed the Kansas line the temp in my car rose a degree :). haha.  So anyway Big Brutus closed at 6.  As we were driving to dinner (we ate at Josie’s in Scammon KS), a storm blew up.  I had plans of washing my car (seems to always rain when I do), but waited until after our adventure.  Well it rained before I got my car washed.  The lower left photo shows the storm blowing in.  The dust was flying!

So have you ever been to Big Brutus??