April 4, 2007

Environment

Old equipment finds a home

PETER KENTER

correspondent

TORONTO

Where does old construction equipment go to die? Anywhere but the National Construction Equipment Museum in Bowling Green, Ohio where notable construction equipment of years past is accepted for loving restoration and exhibition.

“Ohio is located in the heart of what used to be the heavy equipment manufacturing belt that ranged across western New York, Wisconsin, Michigan and Illinois for much of the 20th Century,” says Tom Berry, archivist with the museum.

“The first electric power shovels were made in Toledo circa 1910 and the first mechanized ditch digger was built in Bowling Green by the Buckeye Traction Ditcher Company.”

The museum is sponsored by the Historical Construction Equipment Association (HCEA).

“People used to hand out metal watch fobs stamped or cast with a company logo,” says Berry.

“Some of the members of the association started talking about the fact that there was no association for construction, surface mining and trenching equipment and that’s where the HCEA got its start.”

NATIONAL CONSTRUCTION EQUIPMENT MUSEUM

ABOVE: The Marion Model 21, built by the Marion Steam Shovel Company of Marion, Ohio was the first smaller shovel powered by electricity. This 1926 model may well be the last one in existence.

While some associations specialize in equipment produced by a particular manufacturer — Caterpillar Tractors or the ACME Machinery Company, for example — construction equipment of general historical interest might otherwise fall through the cracks.

The museum was established 15 years ago and currently maintains 50 exhibits in various states of restoration that tell the story of the evolution of construction equipment through the years. Some of the exhibits were discovered locally, but other exhibits are found as far away as the West Coast.

“There’s a lot of older machinery in the desert,” says Berry. “It’s paid for and it doesn’t rust, so they keep using it. In Las Vegas, they’re still using equipment that dates back to the 1930s and ‘40s.”

Once equipment has been acquired by the museum, it’s restored by a team of volunteers that includes people from all walks of life — an operating engineer, an arborist and an electrician among them.

“Our pride and joy is a 1926 Marion Model 21 electric shovel,” says Berry. “All of the electrical wiring needed to be replaced and repaired.

“We completely cleaned and rebuilt the controls so that it operates like new. At some point, however, the original wooden body gave way to termites, rot or fire, so they replaced it with a steel body.”

Among the museum’s holdings is an archive of sales records, inventory logs, photos, and original catalogues from about 2,600 equipment manufacturers.

Working from the historical records, original sales literature and a similar steam shovel located in Minnesota, museum volunteers created an exact replica of the Marion’s original wooden structure.

Replacement parts are also difficult to find, but occasionally museum researchers get lucky.

“We had a 1957 Caterpillar motor on a scraper that needed work done to the exhaust system,” says Berry. “There was oily black guck coming from the outside of the exhaust. To repair it, we needed an umpteen-thousand dollar replacement turbo charger.

“I remembered that we used to see this model operating in California, so we looked high and low in that state and finally located a dealer who had two of them at a good price — new replacement parts for a model that was discontinued in 1961!”

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