MECHANICAL MONSTERS
The twentieth century finds this planet again stocked with monsters larger and more powerful than the gigantic saurians that dominated the earth in the Jurassic and Cretaceous epochs, but our mighty fire-breathing, steel-sinewed beasts are humbly subservient to the will of man.
The spectacle of a large steam shovel at work makes one feel at once very small and very big. Before the work of this monster the human shoveler shrinks to the proportions of a mere insect. Seven to eight cubic yards shoveled into a cart is considered a fair day’s work for a laborer, but a big steam shovel can easily gobble up as much material in two bites. However, when we contemplate that this mammoth machine is a human creation and an absolute slave to human command, we are rather inclined to be puffed up with the greatness of man.
Steam shovels are ideal machines for excavating railroad cuts and were primarily developed for just such work. The general operation of the machine is very similar to that of hand shoveling. The shovel proper consists of a big scoop or dipper and a dipper handle which correspond respectively to the blade and handle of a hand shovel. Like the shovel, the dipper is supported at two points. The dipper is suspended by a chain from the end of a boom while the handle of the dipper is also supported in the boom. By loosening the hoisting chain the dipper is lowered to the ground, and by moving the handle forward the toothed cutting edge is made to bite into the ground or sand bank. The hoisting chain then hauls up the dipper, making it scoop out the bank, after which it is swung to one side over a car on an adjoining track. The rear of the bucket is fitted with a door which is opened by a spring latch and the contents are emptied out. Some of the largest steam shovels for ordinary grading have dippers with a capacity of 5 cubic yards. They are not confined to railroad grading, but are applicable to any excavation where a firm footing is provided for the heavy machine. They are even used for excavating the cellars of large city buildings. The machine must be supported on road wheels or on skids. When used for excavating sewer trenches, it is sometimes mounted on a platform spanning the trench. However, the steam shovel is rather limited in its reach. The largest ordinary steam shovels have a clear lift of but sixteen feet and can make a cut only sixty feet wide at the top.
For more extensive excavating as well as for digging ditches and trenches the drag-line excavator has recently come in to use. In these machines a scraper takes the place of the dipper. This is suspended from the end of a long crane and it is dragged along the ground by a cable, scooping up a load of earth. In some cases the scoop or scraper is merely attached to a cable leading from the hoisting engine to an anchorage and back to the engine. To adapt excavating machines for service in soft ground they are mounted on broad wheels or on track-laying tractor surfaces. One peculiar form of walking traction used by a drag-line excavator was described in Chapter XIII.