Eastern Railroad Discussion > How we used to get coal..."Big Muskie"

Every eight weeks my brother and I drive to see a high school friend in Parkersburg, WV who has ALS. On our way south on Interstate 77 we pass exit 25 where you can see the "Big Muskie" bucket. With the war on coal lately I thought I would ask my brother if we could stop on way back home and he said yes. Glad we did as never knew this was here until we started going to see Pryce. Interesting as Ohio Power Coal Company use to have front end loaders that would load the coal directly into hoppers cars located to this open strip mine where the Meigs #9 coal seam used to be....



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/23/16 17:00 by Forever-Railfan-45.

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Weight of "Big Muskie" was 27 million pounds (13,500 tons), bucket capacity was 220 cubic yards (325 tons) and empty she had a bucket that weighed 230 tons, cable diameter was five inches, voltage to power this machine was 13,800 volts, and during her twenty one career she removed over 608,000,000 cubic yards of overburden uncovering 20,000,000 tons of coal. Not sure if anyone has any pictures of the Ohio Power Coal Company trains. The picture that I saw had them painted red, white and black...



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/23/16 16:59 by Forever-Railfan-45.

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Picture number eight shows the front end loader loading the coal into hopper cars...as the war on coal is going on I finally stopped to see the "Big Muskie" bucket. Tried to crop the picture a little tighter and it is the "Muskingum Electric Railroad."I just corrected it and damn my eyesight is going. Had no idea they existed. Hope you enjoyed it.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 07/23/16 16:20 by Forever-Railfan-45.

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Actually it was the Muskingum Electric Railroad and used GE E44's similar to those on PRR/PC/CRR.

Gordon

Interesting.....!!  Thanks for sharing.

​I will have to check it out sometime.  

If you're interested, on the weekend after Labor Day the Stumptown Steam Threshers meet near New Athens, OH. Just down the road from them, generally accessible by shuttle van, there's a coal equipment museum open during the steam show hours. There's also a really nice coal mining history museum at the Puskarich Public Lbrary nearby in Cadiz. It's not a terrible detour off 77 if you happen to be going that way.

Rebecca Morgan
Jacobsburg, OH

Reallyy nice pics and info...really enjoyed seeing it.

Ed

It's another one of those places that wasnt too far away but not too close to anything so not many people ever went there. My Grandma and I drove over right after I got my first brand new car (2000 Ford Contour). The catenary was still up and rail still in but the operation was down to the last two miles I guess. Being that it was a new car I didn't take it on some of the tiny dirt roads that may have went to that area. North of Ohio 83 there several big washouts. I think we saw the 44 tonner but didn't see either of the E50 locomotives. I took a few pictures but need to find and scan them in. 

Several threads about the Muskingum Electric through the years but not a lot.
Pictures
http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,1188101,1188101#msg-1188101
Some interesting history
http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,3162804,3162804#msg-3162804
Pictures
http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,3163200,3163200#msg-3163200
Pictures and good thread following
http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,3426856,3426856#msg-3426856

Jim

Thanks so much for the pictures Jim. Was quite impressive looking at the bucket today of "Big Muskie" and the land that she mined. Looking out past the bucket you could tell where the "valley" was that was created by "Big Muskie." Meigs #9 coal seam must have been worth the time, effort and money to mine from AEP's standpoint back then. Again thanks for the pictures of the MERR in operation.

Posted from Android

Thanks for sharing Carl. An operation I wished I could have seen.
John

Big Muskie was visible for miles. I was fortunate enough to view it from a distance ( via telescope,) watch the electric railroad run, and see segments of  the PRR Marietta Branch in its final years. Never thought of taking pictures! BTW, that's the first pic that I've ever seen of a crewman in a Muskingum Electric locomotive. Thanks!

Great post - very interesting.  This is not intended to be political, but that bucket is a poignant image/reminder of the "trickle-up" impact of coal mining on the larger US industrial manufacturing economy that is now gone.

RMD23 Wrote:
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> Great post - very interesting.  This is not
> intended to be political, but that bucket is a
> poignant image/reminder of the "trickle-up"
> impact of coal mining on the larger US industrial
> manufacturing economy that is now gone.

There are huge buckets and drag lines in use at Florida's Bone Valley, btw Lakeland and Tampa.  Several stories high, dragging phosphate for use in fertilizer.  Even at night, they're lighted like apartment towers.

CSX hauls the material out in endless train loads

Being a  EX-Heavy equipment operator , I'm interested in machinery like this. I knew of Big Muskie but have never heard of the RR that hauled coal out. I was stationed at Fort Campbell, KY and went up to see some of the big shovels and draglines in Kentucky coal minea between 62-65. Nothing as big as Big Muskie but still  interesting. Got to go up into the cab of a 110 yd. bucket shovel while it was working and ride  along as it dug and then would swing away to dump the overburnen over a 100 ft. away. upkpfan

In a touch of irony concerning Big Muskie, its demise was due in part to the Clean Air Act of 1990. It was the Clean Air Act that shifted coal production from the Appalachian and Ozark coal fields to the Powder River Basin. This was an absolute bonanza for the CNW/UP and the BN, as lower-BTU Wyoming coal had to be transported further, and more of it.

The government giveth and taketh away.

The coal was in a "captive loop" from the dig site to a power plant. The goal was for the train to run automatically but that never worked all that well. It was supposed to run without a crew getting commands from trackside units. It eventually had someone riding the locomotive while in the "automatic" mode. Think 12" to the foot scale electric train set. I was there for the dedication and there were a couple borrowed B&O coaches to take VIPs over the line and ironically they could not get the locomotive out of the "automatic" mode to manually operate the VIP trains. Obviously they finally did so by using cables on the locomotive to bypass the automatic controls.

After the operation ended the ovehead wire was reported to be left "energized" to prevent theft of the copper. That may be another urban myth.

The whole area was extensively strip mined and unless I'm mistaken "The Wilds" annimal preservation facility nearby is on formerly mined land.

DaleR

There is a HO model of the crane in a Colorado Springs CO hobbyshop.

By the way, I've been told that at one point "Big Muskie" crossed I-70.  I wish I could have seen that operation.  Huge equipment wil always be fascinating to me....fantastic pictures!
 

airman65 Wrote:
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> By the way, I've been told that at one point "Big
> Muskie" crossed I-70.  I wish I could have seen
> that operation.  Huge equipment wil always be
> fascinating to me....fantastic pictures!
>
I can't dispute that but think it is a confusion over the fact that one of the huge "conventional" shovels crossed I-70 about 25 miles west of the Ohio River (Wheeling). A special earthen roadway was built all the way across the interestate so the weight of the machine wouldn't demolish I-70's pavement and the Interstate was closed during the move. It was just east of the Ohio Route 800 interchange. The shovel was operated by Consolidation Coal Company and at the time was the largest conventional shovel in the country. The operator's cab was three or four stories above the ground.

Dale