greybeard
Well-known member
Ran across this old picture I took back around 1993 near Jonesville La just outside the Red River levee when I was working in the oilfield in central Louisiana.
It is abandoned in a field near the river levee it built. Locals say it's been there since the early 40's anyway. The intresting thing about it, it doesn't crawl on tracks, it 'walks' on the cam operated leg and foot on each side. When the cam comes down, it picks the whole thing up and pushes it forward about 4 ft, judged by the sie of the offsset on the cam. There is a cam & leg on each side. This thing is huge, the upper front window is about 6' X 8'. I'm 6'4" and standing on the "foot", I could not touch the lower roller and cam. Powered by big diesel elec DC generator. Motor has exposed windings and armature. When the foot is raised, the crane body sits down on its flat bottom and water has to be pumped thru pipes in the bottom to break suction in the mud when they wanted to move it fwd or backwards. The bucket is not shown in this photo, but is about 12 ft x 5 ft. 2" cables. It has living quarters on it for the crew, and judging from the # of beds, it took about 15 men to run it.
I don't know if it's still there today or not, and probably couldn't find my way back to it again. About all I remember is it is in the same field as some indian burial mounds.
I have a couple more hard paper pics, including one with a co-worker in the window, to show the size of this machine, but I no longer have a scanner. It is my understanding, it was built in the north somewhere and worked it's way down the levee as it was completed by Army Corps of Engineers. I remember there was a plate on it somewhere saying it was built in Pennsylvania or Ohio. Don't know how they transported it westward to the river.
It is abandoned in a field near the river levee it built. Locals say it's been there since the early 40's anyway. The intresting thing about it, it doesn't crawl on tracks, it 'walks' on the cam operated leg and foot on each side. When the cam comes down, it picks the whole thing up and pushes it forward about 4 ft, judged by the sie of the offsset on the cam. There is a cam & leg on each side. This thing is huge, the upper front window is about 6' X 8'. I'm 6'4" and standing on the "foot", I could not touch the lower roller and cam. Powered by big diesel elec DC generator. Motor has exposed windings and armature. When the foot is raised, the crane body sits down on its flat bottom and water has to be pumped thru pipes in the bottom to break suction in the mud when they wanted to move it fwd or backwards. The bucket is not shown in this photo, but is about 12 ft x 5 ft. 2" cables. It has living quarters on it for the crew, and judging from the # of beds, it took about 15 men to run it.
I don't know if it's still there today or not, and probably couldn't find my way back to it again. About all I remember is it is in the same field as some indian burial mounds.
I have a couple more hard paper pics, including one with a co-worker in the window, to show the size of this machine, but I no longer have a scanner. It is my understanding, it was built in the north somewhere and worked it's way down the levee as it was completed by Army Corps of Engineers. I remember there was a plate on it somewhere saying it was built in Pennsylvania or Ohio. Don't know how they transported it westward to the river.
