Before I even got aboard the dredge back in my freshman year, I first explored the equipment on the shore nearby. There's a large quarry / open pit mine nearby, and the whole area is basically a recovering strip mine (some of the tailings piles are toxic enough that nothing grows on them, but most have bushes and treest by now). The first time I visited these I just had a video camera, and I finally returned to take better ones after I got tired of the screen captures I had on this page. While climbing around I almost got caught by some people who drove up from the mine, the full exploration story is here.

The two largest machines near the dredge are a dragline crane and something I call the Sandcrawler.
There are also some smaller machines nearby, and some old cabins and vehicles.

The Sandcrawler: This was some kind of mobile feeder system for a conveyor belt that transported the material the dragline crane dug up.
I belive the tracks were powered by large hydralic motors, although I don't know where the engine was, or if it was even kept on board.

Inside and on top of the Sandcrawler: the grating lead down into a funnel and then onto the conveyor system. Some sections of conveyor were lying around.

The dragline crane, I always thought this was missing some tracks or something, but then I saw an old video of it. The damn thing actually WALKS on two pontoon feet! A rotating wheel lifts one up and forward, then takes the weight on that side and rotates the other one around. I want to fix these things up and equip them with robot arms and lasers, then have a deathmatch!

The interior of the crane.
 

Misc. photos. The last two are vital parts of any sucessful mining operation!

To see Dredge #10 (the floating thing), click here.
 

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