I've posted pics of the 325 coal shovel sat in the yard looking nice and shiny so thought it aboot time i showed a few pics of them swinging away and earning a crust....

SB

Great to see pics of these coal shovels in action Stuart!!

Not something that civils guys like myself get to see very often !!

Nick .

Great pics, any chance you got pics of the bucket up close for a custom job.

Great pictures, Stuart. Looks like quite a thick (by UK, not by Wyoming standards !) coal seam.

Once again top pics Stuart thanks for posting.

Jeremy

No bother...

SB

Where are these? the UK?

Joe

Looks like the yard at finnings, bet it was the sunshine that threw you!!
Paul

Hi Stuart,

Thanks so much for posting these photos! I've been away from here for a long time, but I will find your previous post with photos of the machine(s) new; eventually.

To the best of my knowledge; these machines are exclusive to the UK? I met a man from Scotland many years ago at the bauma who told me these "coal shovel" conversions were done by the companies Allied and Kocurek. I was never able to find out any information about Allied, and Kocurek never answered any of my correspondence.

I am a dry sponge when it comes to information about these shovels. Anyone; everyone, tell me all you know about these unique machines???

Do any of you modelmakers out there produce coal shovel conversions of existing models? I would also be interested in original brochures concerning this specialized attachment. Any information, photos, specs, etc...

'All the best,

John

As I understand it, these 'coal shovels' replaced cable operated skimmers and face shovels for 'lifting' coal seams at UK opencast coal sites. I have seen the flat bottomed buckets, similar to those above fitted to smaller cable shovels (e.g. 30RB) here in the UK.
After any overburden or interburden has been removed , conventional hydraulic excavators usually scrape off, the final covering of non-coal material. It has been known for men with brushes to sweep the top of coal seams to stop dirt mixing in with the coal.
The coal shovels are used to skim underneath the coal seems and 'lift' the coal and then load into dumptrucks, usually ADT's with coal bodies (see above) for transport away for processing e.g. washing and disposal.

I believe the flat bottomed buckets help by reducing the likelyhood on underlying non-coal materials being scooped up with the coal, keeping further processing to a minimum (saving money) and ensuring a clean product.
CAT and O&K seem to have been the main choice for these conversions, up until recently. I believe there are Liebherr and Komatsu conversions about.

Hall Construction Services here in the UK who own 'Coal Contractors', chose Hitachi as their base machine recently, I recall Kocurek did the conversion:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10484985@N04/2746917134

Perhaps the more technically experienced members could shed a little more light on it?