umaf20•24d ago

Just learned something wild about the old dredge in the harbor near my town

I was reading through some old port authority records online last night, mostly out of boredom. I found a maintenance log for the harbor dredge from 1978. The thing that blew my mind was the fuel consumption. That old bucket ladder machine used to burn through 80 gallons of diesel an hour just idling at the dock. I always knew the older gear was thirsty, but seeing that number in black and white really put it in perspective. My current cutter suction rig sips maybe 25 gallons an hour when we're actively cutting. It makes you appreciate the engineering leaps we've had in the last few decades, even if the basic job is the same. I wonder if any of the older guys here ever ran one of those old bucket ladders and what that fuel bill looked like at the end of a week?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_gray24d ago

Yeah my grandpa used to work on a steam-powered dredge back in the 50s, he said they'd shovel coal by hand for hours just to build up a head of steam to even start moving. Can't imagine the logistics of keeping that thing fed.

park.blake24d ago

Hold on, you're missing the point. Those old machines were built to last a hundred years, not to save a few gallons of fuel. My uncle ran a bucket ladder and that thing dug in conditions that would stall a modern rig cold. They were simple, strong, and you could fix them with a wrench and a hammer. Today's gear has computers that fail if they get damp. Sure, it burned fuel, but it moved mountains without ever calling the shop. That's real efficiency.