The next one..CAT 777 dump bed Centralia

[Popeye an old miner]

This one we got both sides to do, the tailpiece, the front bulkhead wear liner is busted loose at the top, so I gouged it out and Im in the process of reweldin it, and the bottom of the front bulhead busted out so i cut it out and gonna fix it up with a new wall plate and wear plate.

[ronsii]

Nice!!!!


You're pretty lucky, not a lot of people get to work while in a bed...

[Popeye an old miner]

Nice!!!!


You're pretty lucky, not a lot of people get to work while in a bed...

Thanks...Yeah I know I just wish one of them sleep number beds was in it, and a few blankets...startin to get a bit chilly here in these hills

[Broccoli1]

How tall is that ladder?

[Popeye an old miner]

How tall is that ladder?

The way its set there its 4 ft, its adjustable, and can fold out to 16 feet I think

[Lis2323]

Thanks for posting your job pics Not often I get to see big stuff.


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[Welder Dave]

Put a tarp over the box and have a heater in there with you.

[Shootr]

Dug this up from 2015 - my artsy attempt of the haul truck bed graveyard at Morenci...which interestingly enough is across the road from the original people cemetery.

[Popeye an old miner]

Thanks for posting your job pics Not often I get to see big stuff.


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Its some intresting work sometimes, and I really enjoy workin on this stuff, its a challenge to make it indestructable, what aint never gonna happen, some of these guys could wreck a battleship with a rubber hammer. They really are good operators but most evrybody in the coal busness here buys the back row leftover stuff and they push i to the limit most of the time for production. Most of the owners know this and understand that there is a limit to how much you can make **** shine. But its fun to make the effort, Ive had very very few failures over the years and the customers are happy with what I do.

[Popeye an old miner]

Put a tarp over the box and have a heater in there with you.

Next week we are putting it in the shop to work on, we tried a tarp one winter, it got windy like it usually does in these mountains and ripped it apart one afternoon after having it up 2 days.

[Popeye an old miner]

Dug this up from 2015 - my artsy attempt of the haul truck bed graveyard at Morenci...which interestingly enough is across the road from the original people cemetery.

Those boxes look pretty good compared to the ones we been workin on, maybe its the paint that does it, the metal flower in the last picture is that a grave marker?

[shortfuse]

You're pretty lucky, not a lot of people get to work while in a bed...

The girls at the Chicken Ranch do......

[CAVEMANN]

Some of those dump beds are HUGE, when they truck them in they are brought in 2 pieces, halved longways, and even so they still require special permits and pilot vehicles, some of those trucks are 300 & 350 tons the last reckoning I had with them. Morenci was a sister operation of the mine where I worked on Locomotives. If you've never had the opportunity to see one of these BIG haul trucks, they're amazingly big, tires around 12 feet tall as I recall. My dad was an electric shovel operator & he used to be amazed at the size some of the dippers were getting, our newest rig was a P&H 4400, it had a 14yd dipper, todays dippers would dwarf that by several times, mind you this was in the 70's and early 80's, the mine was closed in 84.

[ronsii]

The girls at the Chicken Ranch do......

I been waiting for someone to comment on my post to popeye

[Shootr]

Those boxes look pretty good compared to the ones we been workin on, maybe its the paint that does it, the metal flower in the last picture is that a grave marker?

Yeah, the old cemetery is just along the road on a hillside:

[Popeye an old miner]

Yeah, the old cemetery is just along the road on a hillside:

WOW!!! That looks like some of the old cemetaries around here where the old mining patch towns used to be. Its a shame they let them go like that, many of them the famlies today dont even know where their old relatives are buried and it turns out they are in these old cemetaries long forgotten. Very sad, those folks worked hard their whole life and now they have no one that even cares

[Popeye an old miner]

Some of those dump beds are HUGE, when they truck them in they are brought in 2 pieces, halved longways, and even so they still require special permits and pilot vehicles, some of those trucks are 300 & 350 tons the last reckoning I had with them. Morenci was a sister operation of the mine where I worked on Locomotives. If you've never had the opportunity to see one of these BIG haul trucks, they're amazingly big, tires around 12 feet tall as I recall. My dad was an electric shovel operator & he used to be amazed at the size some of the dippers were getting, our newest rig was a P&H 4400, it had a 14yd dipper, todays dippers would dwarf that by several times, mind you this was in the 70's and early 80's, the mine was closed in 84.

The biggest Ive ever worked on are the CAT 785s. I dont know how that compares to the ones you are talkin about but they bring the dump bodies in one piece here, with permits and escorts of course. The biggest shovel other than some of the draglines Ive worked on are the PC4000 from Komatsu and the Demag 285. I was told the PC4000 had a 29 yard bucket, and the Demag had a 26 yard. Either way if it falls on you your not gonna bench press it off of you. You know its a bigun when you got to use a small crane to put the teeth on it.

[In Utopia]

I been waiting for someone to comment on my post to popeye

Don't know what chicken ranch you're referring to, but I think the most famous one in the US was the one in LaGrange, Texas, and it was real.
Story is long ago money was tight guys would pay for the ladies services with live chickens.
It was famous enough to have a Broadway play and movie made about it.
They were titled The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas.
The movie stared Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton.

[Popeye an old miner]

Don't know what chicken ranch you're referring to, but I think the most famous one in the US was the one in LaGrange, Texas, and it was real.
Story is long ago money was tight guys would pay for the ladies services with live chickens.
It was famous enough to have a Broadway play and movie made about it.
They were titled The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas.
The movie stared Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton.

I wondered what that was all about...now I know...I think I know anyway

[Popeye an old miner]

This is goin down into the pit right before our big snowstorm last week, from what I been told right now its flooded from all the snowmelt after the big meltdown from all the rain we had Christmas Eve...so I wake up this morning to 4 inches of snow. How it froze up that fast that snow would stick is crazy...its 7 degrees out there at the house here. Goin up to the shop in Shenandoah PA to grease my rig and work on my compressor shortly, Im hopin they got the mountain open, there is ice under that 4 inches of snow

[dave_dj1]

This is goin down into the pit right before our big snowstorm last week, from what I been told right now its flooded from all the snowmelt after the big meltdown from all the rain we had Christmas Eve...so I wake up this morning to 4 inches of snow. How it froze up that fast that snow would stick is crazy...its 7 degrees out there at the house here. Goin up to the shop in Shenandoah PA to grease my rig and work on my compressor shortly, Im hopin they got the mountain open, there is ice under that 4 inches of snow

Is that the back side of the big mine by Centralia?
They have a massive tailins pile.

[shortfuse]

I wondered what that was all about...now I know...I think I know anyway

Yep, you know now! Us Texas boys know about the Chicken Ranch in LaGrange, LOL. They also have "chicken ranches" in Nevada, but the one in LaGrange was the original until "Maaaaarrrrrvin Zindler, Channel 13 News" got it in the TV headlines in Houston and the law, who had previously turned a blind eye to it, had no choice but to shut it down. Lots of high rollers, politicians and the poor old boys at A&M and no place to go.

[Popeye an old miner]

Is that the back side of the big mine by Centralia?
They have a massive tailins pile.

Yes it is