Published: December 08, 2008 11:12 am      

John Watson: Big Brutus: an engineering marvel

While vacationing in Missouri recently I heard about “Big Brutus,” the world’s second largest electric shovel. This caught my interest.

Big Brutus was located in southeastern Kansas, near Columbus, less than a hundred miles from where we were staying in Joplin. We set aside a day to go see this engineering marvel.

Upon arriving at the site, we went into the museum to find out more about Big Brutus.

By the 1960s, with the aide of modern equipment, surface mining was becoming the most economical way to mine coal. In 1962 the Pittsburg & Midway Coal Mining Company of Pittsburg, Kan., purchased Big Brutus from the Bucyrus Erie Company of Milwaukee for $6.5 million.

The parts were made in Milwaukee and shipped by rail to the mine site near West Mineral, Kan. It took 150 rail cars to deliver the parts.

Big Brutus was assembled on site. Work started on the assembly process in June 1962 and was completed in May 1963. At times as many as 52 men worked on the construction project.

For the next 11 years the machine worked 24 hours a day. Big Brutus was not used in the actual mining of the coal but was used to remove the overburden; dirt and rock, from atop the coal.

When I asked the museum attendant how deep the coal vein was, I was told it averaged 40 to 50 feet below the surface.

In April 1974 Big Brutus ceased operations. By this time operating costs had grown prohibitive. In the last month of operation, with a discounted rate from the power company, the electric bill was $27,000.

Some technical information about Big Brutus.

The total working weight, with ballast, is 11 million pounds or 5,500 tons. The machine is tall as a 15 story building, 160 feet from the ground to the top of the boom. The boom itself is 150 feet long.

The dipper bucket has a capacity of 90 cubic yards. A heaping dipper of dirt can move 150 tons of overburden with one scoop, enough to fill three rail cars. Four cables, each 31⁄2 inches thick, powered by eight 500-horsepower motors, lift the bucket.

The onboard power plant supplies 7,500 horsepower under normal operation conditions and 15,000 horsepower under peak loads.

After learning all I could about Big Brutus, it was now time to go out back and take a look at the monster.

Big Brutus sits nearly a quarter mile from the museum. From this distance the machine looks mighty impressive.

You do not see the tracks from here, just the body and boom. As you draw closer you see it is sitting in a large hole dug especially for the machine. The last trip it made was to crawl out of a nearby mining pit and turn around to face the pit.

The top speed for Big Brutus was .22 mph, meaning that in 5 hours he could go 1.1 mile. The last pit he worked is now filled with water, creating a 40 foot deep lake, which they say is stocked with fish and makes for good fishing.

As you near the edge of the depression where the machine sits, you notice on the other side what looks like two toys some child may have left there. Upon closer examination you find they are full-size equipment, a dozer and another mining bucket.

Walking under Big Brutus, I could just imagine what Gulliver felt like on his travels when he was stranded on Brobdingnag Island and was approached by the 60 foot tall farmer — very insignificant.

The bottom of the power plant must be close to 20 feet overhead. The machine travels on four pair of crawler tracks. Each crawler tread is 5 feet 6 inches wide and weighs in at 2,008 pounds.

When I stepped on the bottom track there was still a foot of clearance from the top of my head to the top track.

Standing and looking up at the front of the machine, you see a little glass enclosure on one side where the operator sat. At the height of the operator’s cab, looking down from it would be like looking down from a fifth floor window of an office building.

Going on out to the dipper bucket, I stepped inside, and there was plenty of room to walk around. You could easily park two cars in there side by side.

With all its size and weight, Big Brutus was very agile. It is said that it could scoop up a dipper of dirt, turn to the side and dump it and turn back and be ready to take another scoop in one minute.

If you are ever in the southeastern Kansas area, a visit to see Big Brutus would be a good side trip.



John Watson is a Cleburne resident who can be reached at texastraveler@sbcglobal.net.



John Watson’s book “History and Lore of Cleburne and Johnson County, Texas” is available at the Times-Review office for $15.