I have been waiting for Walthers to come out with these. I was searching the internet and found a great video on them. If you are fascinated with these beasts then you have to see this video. It even shows the view inside the cab as they are used.
That is one neat video! I’ll almost have to have one of these monsters just for the for the fact that they are so unusual looking. I have no real need for one but man they look neat! Thanks for posting the video.
Jim
Walthers is the one selling them. I also have absolutely no need for something like that but would buy one just to assemble it for show. They are nice looking and unusual. Below is a link to the ones Walthers is taking advanced orders on.
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-2966
Mike
Reminds me of a bunch of vultures picking aprt a carcass.
I am scratch building one in N scale. It is a monster, 10 inches long and 2.75 inches wide. It has been over 2 months and I am just beginning the upper part of the hulett (the walking beam). I may be crazy but eventually I would like to do another one for my docks.
Amazing video! Thanks a bunch for pointing it out.(Youtube ROCKS!)
There was an artical a few montha ago in RMC about someone who scratchbuilt 3 of them in either N or HO. I would love to see a few pics of your progress. If you are watching the video click on the other video on the right that says “DUMPING SLAG AT BETHLEHEM STEEL IN 1994” it amazing to see how they get the hardened crust out when the tub is empty.
Mike
Were these monsters designed by 1920’s Russian make work projects for their 5 year plans, talk about making something very large, overbuilt, inefficient and far too big, 8,000 tons of iron works to operate tiny clamshell buckets, AND - - - AND - - some poor mook is actually INSIDE the bucket arm, who could invent something so grotesque? I’m sure there was a more efficient way to unload these ships even back then, conveyor belts? other types of unloaders. I guess the childhood dream of everyone was to sit in the bucket unloading ore for the next 25 years. If I hadn’t seen this video there is no way anyone could believe such a contraption.
I love how they pick up those big front end loaders and use the arms to lower them into the bottom. I also liked the poor guys who were sweeping up the left over ore. No msks on either.
Here is a link to a forum thread that shows a scratch build of one. rumor is Walthers based their kit from this one.
After you have viewed the Video of an operating Huelett Unloader, I highly recommend that you also view the related videos listed on the right side. Be sure to view the Slag Car Dumping. It is fantastic. I am in the process of trying to reproduce the scene with a model slag car. I happened to have a harbor at the end of a peninsula which contained a mountain with s ski-skate resort, a mine, a 7 track pass through staging yard, and a 3ft’ diameter access hole (with lift-out town on the Luan circle above the hole. The unfinished 32" dock on the harbor was just long enough for my 30" ore carrier, and just enough space to be able to swing past a swing bridge. Facing the harbor dock, is a long double track, which will be just the size required for installing two Huelett Ore Unloaders, with 4 tracks below, and rear extension for dumping ore into piles. Each Huelett unloader is actually only 4 5/8" wide, (but with the two 5/8"x3" roller extensions on each side),has a footprint of 9"x17"(expandable to 24") There is also enough space for the Slag Dumping pit, and the 8 tracks that feed raw materials to the Blast Furnace, transfer the molten iron to the Rolling Mill, store scrap,limestone, store and remove the finished products. . Luckily, there was also room for the 20"x27"x23" HO scale Blast Furnace, it’s raised ore loading skip platform with two parallel tracks (connected by a double slip switch), a 17"x32" Rolling Mill (parallel to the Blast Furnace) When finished, there will be glowing molten ore and slag (illuminated by two tiny black-light tubes. Will Post a video of the 3ftx5ft. set-up when it is completed, (with coke and scrap metal piles). Total cost ??? (with six bottle cars and six slag cars — “ugh !”, about $500) Bob Hahn
Did you take notice of where the operator’s cab is? That must have been a wild ride.
The way they unload with seemingly no influence on an empty ship and their speed for their bulk …is…just…spooky.
Yeah, I wonder if the operator had elevator spins from going up and down in that all day. I do agree it looks really inefficient.
Kinda reminds me of the Martian machines in War of the Worlds.
The article that you wrote about was in the October 2007 Railroad Model Craftsman. It is for an N scale hulett. That is the one that I am using to build mine.
I thought that guy built 4 of them? any who that RMC issue was a year ago, I’ll have to look tonight and get back tomorrow. I wouldn’t need one either but almost thought of building one just to model it. I think that would kind of be neat set in a diorama with a few ore cars on some tracks and a portion of a ship. I gotta go check out that video now.
Interesting enough, I did some research (well, googling and wiki searches) when we first discussed this a month or so back, and apparently self-unloading ships were available pre-WWI (one date given was 1908) - the problem with this is generally you need a sloped bottom to the holds, since most systems unload the lading into conveyor belts under the holds, which then bring it up top to a conveyor tower/arm which then carries the lading out to the unloading area on the dock/shore - these self-unloading ships eventually led to the decline of the Huletts and other such shore equipment - and from the video (if it’s the one I saw last month), the holds were square (hence the reason they used the Hulett as a crane to place a front end loader into the holds, get the rest of the material out).
Hulett were still cool looking however, and pretty good and efficent for what they did - just became obsolete by self-unloading ships…
Or some 19th century machine invented by an evil villan on the “Wild Wild West” movie / TV show.
It is hard to judge the speed of these machines because they are so HUGE. In some of the earlier shots there are some people walking around that look like dots. I like the comment from the photographer that the cab ride was so smooth.
Looked like 4 or so huge dinosaurs bobbing up and down, as if they were eating