One of the things we like about cruising the backroads is that we often find little gems or unusual attractions along the way. Look at what we discovered just west of West Mineral Kansas.
Now this is not a little thing! This is Brutus, a 'retired' electric shovel used for strip mining. This 160 ft. tall behemoth was built in 1962. Because of it's size, it had to built in place, that is assmbled on the site. It weighs 11 million tons or 5,500 Tons and it cost 6.5 million dollars to build.
Brutus required a crew of three to operate it. It's top speed was 1/4 of a mile per hour but it's shovel bucket had a 150 ton capacity...with one scoop being enough to fill 3 railroad cars. In it's last month of operation, the electric bill to operate it was $27,000!
How big is this beast!? Look closely at this photo. Do you see the roadgrader in the foreground? That roadgrader is much closer to the camera than Brutus is and it's hard to even notice at first glance.
For more information about Brutus, go to www.bigbrutus.org/. Phone: 620-827-6177.
One other footnote: Brutus is only the second largest electric shovel ever built...
I love to see those big machines. I got to see a dragline working at an Alcoa mine in Texas several years ago and it was impressive but no where near as big as this one.
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