Early British walking draglines

[philiphales]

My father-in-law, who passed away last October worked for Derek Crouch and was responsible for bringing Big Geordie - the giant, 3,000-tonne dragline which was once the biggest machine of its kind in Western Europe. This worked on the open-cast coal mines in Northumberland. A Bucyrus Eries 65 - 65 being the bucket size in cubic yards.
I once had a photo of a 22 RB sitting in the bucket!

[FOWLER MAN]

OK Folks,
I have researched this and have lots of info and articles on R&R and other British made walkers.
Below is a list of R&R machines available in 1948. The W1500 listed as being built for Stuart & Lloyds was, as far as I can tell, actually the first of the W1400s. I can find no other record of a W1500 being produced.

The first of several articles I have downloaded from from "The Engineer," This one dated Feb. 1945 on the W150 is posted below. I think the pic in the article is a W90 so I have posted another of the W150 here.

[IBH]

As NCH are already mentioned in this thread I thought I'd add in a snipped from the February 1948 issue of Coal Magazine and a 1978 advert for Rapier walking draglines.

Coal Magazine Feb 1948 NCH crawler crane.JPG

1978 Ransome and Rapier walking dragline advert.JPG