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Over 25 years ago, I met the prototype of this project stored at the Puget Sound Railway Historical Association site in Snoqualmie, WA, USA. The shovel later was sold to another private party and relocated to the owners site in Pierce County, WA.

The shovel is an Erie, originally used in the construction of the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway on Vancouver Island, BC. Rail-mounted, self-propelled, coal-fired with a locomotive boiler originally fitted, it required a 2 person crew, engineer and fireman. The engineer worked behind and to one side of the boom pivot, the fireman at the rear of the car.

The boom pivoted at thr front of the car. It was equipped with crowd-stick or thrust shovel, the type we normally associate with steam shovels. It had two or three engines, the main hoisting engine, a swing engine, and possibly a thrust engine. The thrust engine, if used mounted on the main boom. The swing and trust engines were small, reversing-throttle engines.

Some basics of what I'll be building.
• Standard gauge car, 33" wheels.
• Archbar trucks, chain drive for propulsion.
• Horizontal return flue boiler, oil or propane fired. (This boiler chosen to put the stack at the back of the car to allow me to straddle the car for operations. Many were reboilered with vertical or other boilers replacing the original locomotive boiler.)
• The idea is to build a shovel that will actually operate. 

Pictures and plans will be forthcoming.

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