Recovery and Restoration of a 25-Ton Bucyrus Steam Shovel

Image Gallery This is what it looked like when we found it.

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It was a nice brisk January day in 1974 when Joe Martin and Edwin Fiscus decided to check on the condition of a steam shovel that was located in Remington, Ohio. Edwin Fiscus had seen the steam shovel some fifteen years earlier. It may not be there now, for a lot can happen in that period of time.

As we drove up in the driveway of an old 2-story red brick house, we could see off in the distance some 500 feet what appeared to be some rusty angle iron and structural steel. The dead weeds and green honeysuckle were so thick you couldn't be sure what it was you were looking at.

We immediately parked the car in the drive and proceeded to investigate. Finding no one home at the house, we walked in the direction of the rusty iron. When we got within 100 feet of it, our pace quickened, for sure enough it was still there, but much more deteriorated than fifteen years earlier.

The roof was gone. Some of the piping had been removed and weeds, briars and honeysuckle had grown up all around the shovel. After climbing up on it and looking it over for about half an hour, we wondered where the owner was, if it was for sale and what he would want for it.

We walked back to the nearest house to the old red brick to seek information. When the lady answered the door, she told us to go up the road five more houses to see a widow by the name of Mrs. Charles Link. We drove up there, but nobody was home, so we headed back home, planning to contact Mrs. Link at a later date.

That evening Edwin Fiscus decided to look in the phone book to see if there was a telephone listing for Mr. Link. Sure enough there was, and a phone call was made.

Mrs. Link said that she isn't own the steam shovel any more even though it was still on her property. A man named Richard Carmel had bought it about eight years before and was planning to restore it.

I told her that we (OVAM) were looking at it. Then Mrs. Link gave me the telephone number of Richard Carmel.

The next night I called Mr. Carmel and we talked for about an hour. We both knew a lot of the same people, but we had never met each other.

Richard had bought the shovel to keep it from going to the scrap yard, and with dreams of restoring it. He had corresponded with the Bucyrus Erie Company and had some prints on it along with letters from other people around the country that had experience and advice to give him on steam shovels.

Mr. Carmel was head engineer over the Reading, Ohio electrical power plant, run with steam turbine. His work was so demanding of his time that he hadn't found time to get the steam shovel moved so that he could really get into the restoration of it.

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