Coal Age

AUG 2016

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50 www.coalage.com August 2016 captain mine fire The Captain's Dying Hours The largest shovel ever built, a Marion 6360, was destroyed by a nighttime fire during September 1991 by keith haddock On a late summer's evening 25 years ago, a disastrous fire destroyed the largest shovel on the planet. The event still lives vividly in the memories of those involved in that horrific event. The Marion 6360 stripping shovel known as "the Captain" was the flagship machine at the vast Captain mine complex near Cutler, Illinois. When origi- nally put to work in 1965 by Southwest- ern Illinois Coal Corp., the machine made headlines with the technical press around the world. A masterpiece of American engineer- ing, the Captain was commissioned on Oc- tober 15, 1965. It was named after Thomas C. Mullins, known as Captain Mullins, a leader in surface coal mining technolo- gy in the early 20 th century. His son, W.E. (Bill) Mullins, president of Southwestern, named the machine and the mine after his father. It doesn't sound like much to- day, but it was said the Captain shovel cost $25 million in 1965, and went to work the same year Caesars Palace opened in Las Vegas, also at a cost of $25 million. In 1969, Southwestern was purchased by Arch Min- eral Corp., which later became Arch Coal. The gigantic shovel's dimensions and specifications are hard to comprehend. Its operating weight, estimated to be some 15,000 tons, was more than double the weight of the Silver Spade (Bucyrus-Erie 1950-B, last operating stripping shovel at 105-yd 3 capacity, weighing 7,200 tons). The Captain's 215-ft boom rose more than 200 ft above ground, undercarriage width was 88 ft, and maximum dumping height was 153 ft. The 6360 shovel's dipper measured 18 ft 6 in. wide, 24 ft 6 in. from front to rear and 16 ft high. It held 180 yd 3 or 300 tons of rock and earth, and was the only shov- el ever built with two dipper doors. They each weighed 15 tons. Like most stripping shovels, the 6360 was mounted on eight crawler units as- sembled in pairs at each corner of the lower frame. Individual crawler assemblies measured 45 ft long, 16 ft high, and were fitted with 42 10-ft-wide shoes. Each shoe weighed 3.25 tons and, with eight crawlers, 336 were needed in total. At each corner of the lower frame, a giant vertical hydraulic cylinder 16 ft 9 in. high and 66 in. diameter supported the machine on the crawler as- semblies. Electrical equipment on board in- cluded eight hoist motors rated at 16,000 hp, eight swing motors provided 10,000 hp, and four crowd motors added another 4,000 hp. A total of 16 propel motors, one at each end of each crawler unit were rat- ed at a total of 3,200 hp. Of course, not all these motors ran with maximum power at the same time, but the machine consumed enough electricity to serve a town of 30,000 people. The Fire The Captain mine ran a three-shift opera- tion with the afternoon shift running from 4 p.m. to midnight. The 6360 Captain shov- el had a four-man crew consisting of oper- ator, oiler, welder, and a ground man who looked after the trailing cable and operated a wheel loader to clear stray rocks around the machine. Gene Miller was the operator of the 6360 on the fateful afternoon shift of September 9, 1991. At about 7 p.m., he noticed a burning smell, stopped the ma- chine, and went with oiler, Fred Kruger, to find where the smell was coming from. "That kind of smell could have come from a variety of sources," Miller said. "It could have been a brake shoe sticking, overheat- ed shaft bearing, or electrical fault, just to name a few. So we checked the house first and then noticed some smoke coming up from the lower works. On investigating, we found some hydraulic oil had caught fire in that area." Miller continued, "Oiler Fred Kruger, welder Gary Andrews and I immediate- ly started to fight the fire with 20-lb dry chemical fire extinguishers. There were many dozens of 20-lb extinguishers po- At 180 yd 3 , the Captain shovel wielded the biggest dipper ever mounted on a shovel. It had two dipper doors, each weighing 15 tons. (Photo: Keith Haddock)

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