Maintenance of Way Equipment - Pitt Driller - What is it?

[engineeral]

The picture at:
http://www.images.technomuses.ca/search ... 09&lang=en
is captioned as "Pitt Driller". What was the function of this device?

Google search turned up the UK firm Stothert & Pitt which for over 200 years manufactured cast iron and engineering items, particularly cranes such as seen at dockside. The firm did make railway cranes in the early 20th century.

But the device at the Canada Science and Technology Museum doesn't look like a track crane, nor a pile driver. A rail drill is a small tool used for drilling the holes in rails for the joint bar bolts.

So what is this thing? Did it drill holes for piles? for telegraph poles?

[stem]

This is a good one. Looks like it's steam powered. Massive traingular frame. On checking in the 1941 MP14, No. 850 on the DAR is listed as a steam shovel.
http://www.dardpi.ca/wiki/images/MP14_1 ... 22-023.jpg

[engineeral]

This is a good one. Looks like it's steam powered. Massive traingular frame. On checking in the 1941 MP14, No. 850 on the DAR is listed as a steam shovel.
http://www.dardpi.ca/wiki/images/MP14_1 ... 22-023.jpg

Thanks for the tip - I will know next time to look at those MP14 forms. The example in the museum's photo collection has most of the business end removed. The shovel would have a swivelling turntable with the boom and dipper mounted to rotate to left or right, held up by stays to the post with the large spoked wheel. A good picture of the arrangement is at:
http://semgonline.com/location/sutton_bypass.html

[Dan Conlin]

Well I have always wondered about this big thing as well. I speculated that perhaps it drilled holes for dynamite charges in bridge construction or to break up the ground at the Oak Island and Round Hill ballast pits, but that is just guessing.
In my DAR notebook on the MOW page I have a noted. Harold Jenkins photo Sirman collection, 850 rigged as steam shovel Aug. 1943. I can't find my reference to where the Sirman collection is.
I do know that Leon Barron had a great sequence of photos of 850 rigged as a steam shovel working the Round Hill ballast pit in the 1940s. It was rigged just like that Marion steam shovel in the link that Al posted.
Anyone else have insights?

Dan Conlin

[engineeral]

I do know that Leon Barron had a great sequence of photos of 850 rigged as a steam shovel working the Round Hill ballast pit in the 1940s. It was rigged just like that Marion steam shovel in the link that Al posted.
Anyone else have insights?
Dan Conlin

Do you recall if the shovel had chains (like the Marion example I cited) or cables? Chains make it older because wire rope is a newer technology. Are the pictures in the Kings County Museum collection that could be scanned by one of us and used here on the wiki? There's great videos on YouTube etc. showing how these worked - the technique is a bit different from today's backhoes.

[engineeral]

In my DAR notebook on the MOW page I have a noted. Harold Jenkins photo Sirman collection, 850 rigged as steam shovel Aug. 1943. I can't find my reference to where the Sirman collection is.
Dan Conlin

I found an email address to a Keith Sirman who has photos for sale and appears to have contributed photos to several Ontario-area railway sites, such as http://www.canadasouthern.com/caso/home.htm.

I sent an email to Mr. Sirman (keith.sirman@sympatico.ca) asking what he might have available and what his terms might be.