OLDEST Walking Dragline Of Its Type in Europe - Swillington, UK - Superlatives on Waymarking.com

This 1150B walking dragline is the oldest surviving machine of its type in Europe. It was built in 1946 by Bucyrus Erie at Milwaukee in the United States and brought to the UK in 1954 by the National Coal Board. It worked at several different opencast coal sites before coming to St. Aidan's in 1974.

"Oddball" as the machine is nicknamed and others like it have been the backbone of the opencast industry for 50 years until the advent of large hydraulic shovel excavators. This machine is one of several together with their sunshine (above ground) miners that have transformed the landscape from Cross Green, Leeds, to Allerton Bywater since the first site at Temple Newsam in 1942.

How does it Walk?
On each side is a rotating cam to which is fixed a huge foot. The feet are lifted forward as the cam rotates. When the feet come down they lift the whole machine up a little and it advances a metre or so before sitting down again. Its maximum speed is less than half a mile per hour and it weighs 1,200 tons.

The machine is now owned by the St. Aidan's Trust. It is preserved as a memorial to the thousands of sunshine miners who worked with this and similar machines in the coalfields of England, Scotland and Wales.