Montana oil and mining journal. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1931-1953, 1940-01-13

break downs and was moved imme-
diately in place of a shovel out of
order Two shovels were P and H
electric shovels with a bucket ca
pacity OF two and one-half yards,
especially designed and built for
Snake Butte Quarry. The other
three shovels were made by the
Bucyrus Erie Company, two being
driven by gasoline engines and the
other being an electric drive made
over from a gasoline drive. These
were smaller than the p and II SHOW
els and had a smaller lifting ca
pacity; the p and Fl were able to
lift stone weighing up to twenty
tons on the ends Of their booms
All five shovels ran on caterpillar
treads. Pay rock was loaded on
flat cars and waste was loaded into
steel body air dump cars. Almost
all of the waste was switched to
the east end of the quarry, where
it was dumped on a waste pile.
Most of the stone was much
larger than the shovel bucket.
Loading of this stone was done by
juggling one stone around the muck
pile until it became balanced on
the teeth and top of the bucket and
then lifting it onto the car, where
it had to be further juggled to dis
lodge it from the bucket teeth.
Stones that could not be balanced
on the bucket teeth were snaked
onto the cars. This was done by US
ing a steel cable looped on either
end, about ten feet long; the stone
would be looped by the cable, with
one loop hooked on the bucket
teeth One would think that this
would be very inefficient way of
loading, but surprising speed was
attained in this way. Good operators
on the p and II shovels could load
as many as twenty-five pay cars in
one eight-hour shift. Besides the
pay cars, usually more than thir-
ty waste cars were loaded, so that
the loading time per car was as
little as ten minutes, taking into
consideration delays of one kind
and another. OF course, all opera
tors could not do as well a stated
above; as few as three pay cars
were loaded by some operators in
an eight-hour shift. Much would
depend upon the muck pile, some
times the pile consisted of mostly
waste with very few pay stones.
All pay rock had to meet GER
tain specifications before it was
sent to Fort Peck OF course, the
ideal stone would have been one
that was a solid cube with no
Jagged ends or irregular surfaces.
Stones even approaching cubes were
impossible with the large-scale pro-
duction maintained. So inspectors
passed all rock that did not weigh
over twelve tons, did not have any
natural or blast fractures in it, that |
was not decomposed in any way |
or did not weigh too little. Over |
ninety per cent of the rock on |
car had to weigh over two tons. One |
or two stones below one ton that |
could be used as filler in the rip |
rapping were passed per car
Switching to and from the shov-
els was done by four small steam |
locomotives burning oil. One gaso-
locomotive was used in |
the main yards in making up the |
outgoing trains, and to cut empties |
from the main strings which were |
to go up to the quarry floor. |
About fourteen empties could be |
at one time on the quarry |
floor. All these locomotives were |
owned by the government. All cars,
both flat cars and waste cars, were |
owned by the Great Northern rail-
road and were rented to the gov !