Mulligan's Excavating

I can only say one thing ! Fabulous !

Sure is! Nice touch with the little didactic plaque in front of her.

Gosh, long forgotten. I grew up watching Captain Kangaroo.

That was one of my favorite books of all time.  I have read it many times now to my son.  I love the way you continued the story and brought the restored Mary Anne to life.  I also love the fact that the Mulligan's use Caterpillar tractors.  (I work for Cat).  Thanks for bringing back happy memories and awesome work on the diorama.

John

I loved reading that book as a kid, I even believe I may have picked it up as a young adult and read it to my daughters when they were young (they are now 17 and 22).  My grandparents had (and may still do) this book for my cousins and I in their library.  I will have to go see if its still around and read it again for nostalgia purposes.

Thanks for all the positive feedback.

Good lord, where did you get that cool old coal shovel???? Is it diecast?

You know I"m one of your biggest fans; you never disappoint. I have a particular love for old steam shovels--their rusting bones are scattered all throughout Coal Country in Northeast Pa where I grew up. I did one in HO scale; it's a wee-bitty thing, Where did you get this one, Dave? How big is it?

I got the shovel a long time ago. I probably paid too much for it, but at the time it had been out of production for a couple years.

It's available again from Jordan. I comes as a shovel or a crane. I've seen an aftermarket to add a drag line shovel to the crane.

It's HO scale and a bit of a tedious kit. Lots of pieces. The detail is amazing.

Never read "Mike Mulligan..." I was a deprived child.

Dave,

Wow, I never would have believed that it was an HO scale kit!! It looks much better detailed that the little Bucyrus  that I put together. That had all of 6 pieces, I believe? I know what you mean about "tedious" though--the wiring was quite the patience-tester.

I'm going to look this up on eBay. I want one--rusted out and sitting in a post-Coal forest setting, natch.... ;)

Thanks again for the reference and info!

Karl

This one has more than 6 pieces. I have to admit it looked a bit scary when I opened the box. The directions are really good and the pieces fit together without much clean up at all.

Wow, excellent, Dave!

I just ordered one off eBay, just under $25. can't wait to get it! I would run across these all the time in my explorations and some of them were monstrously-huge,

Doog, what you have in that picture is a drag line.  In HO scale the biggest dragline made, Big Muskie would be about 67 inches long with the boom stretched out.  Even the smaller (???) ones would be a couple of feet long or longer. I work with some people who design these things, and never cease to be amazed at the scale of these machines.

John

wolfhammer1

Doog, what you have in that picture is a drag line.  In HO scale the biggest dragline made, Big Muskie would be about 67 inches long with the boom stretched out.  Even the smaller (???) ones would be a couple of feet long or longer. I work with some people who design these things, and never cease to be amazed at the scale of these machines.

John

John yeah, they're wicked-cool!! They're scattered all over coal country, wasting and rusting away. Some have been scrapped, but that's mostly the smaller ones. I have about a dozen of them photographed and am always on the lookout for new ones.There's a beauty of a Manitowac down by Centralia, Pa, and a massive hydraulic-walker monster on the culm piles outside of St CLair, Pa, that we used to actually ride by in an Enduro race that I used to run. I always wanted to stop and photograph that, but the clock wouldn't stop ticking, lol! Man, but they're cool!

Karl, they certainly are.  The company I work for just bought Bucyrus, and now some of those mobile buildings are going to be wearing CAT yellow.  HooRah!

Some days, going to work is so much fun.  

John