Discovery Dragline 2 - Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada - Preserved Machines on Public Display on Waymarking.com

The Discovery Dragline #2 is one of two massive retired machines on public display at the "Giants of Mining" attraction north of Fort McMurray. The exhibit is free and there are many display boards to provide information about these machines. The information board for the Discovery reads:

The dragline displayed here was one of four assembled at Syncrude during 1977 and 1978. Two of the units assembled were manufactured by Bucyrus-Erie and the other two by Marion. Each unit took 18 months, or 375,000 work hours, to assemble. Discovery began production in 1977, and by the time it was retired in July 1999, it had recorded over 105,000 operating hours and mined over 624 million tons of oil sand. That's over 6,500 tons per hour, 24 hours per day! Discovery moved one-third more material than was moved for the construction of the Panama Canal, or enough material to construct three Trans-Canada highways from the East Coast to the West Coast.

A team of three employees working on a 12-hour shift was responsible for the operation of Discovery. One operated the machine and was located in the cab on either side of the boom; the second was the "oiler," responsible for the operating integrity of the unit during the shift; the third was the "groundsperson," responsible for the ground maintenance of the equipment and grade of the "bench" the dragline was sitting on.

Discovery facts
• Boom length: 110 metres / 360 feet (the approximate length of a regulation CFL football field) • Bucket size: 61 cubic metres; holds 80 cubic yards (150 tons, equal to 75bbls SSB)
• Horsepower: 28,000
• Operating weight: 6,200 tons (positioned on 1,000-ton tub)
• Walking shoes: 4.2 metres x 22 metres. Each step takes about 40 seconds, and is just over 2.5 metres in length. It would take about three days to walk to Fort McMurray. Discovery walked a distance of approximately 1,100 km during its mining operating life.
• Replacement value: $110 million
• Officially retired: July 1999

Type of Machine: Dragline Year the machine was built: 1978 Year the machine was put on display: Not listed Is there online documentation for this machine: Not listed

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