The Untold Story: How A Legendary Bucyrus Mining Tool Saved Trapped Miners

WISCONSIN -- After years of research, a new book authored by Maxim W. Furek tells the previously-untold story of how a mammoth Bucyrus mining tool saved the lives of three Pennsylvania miners.

The book, published Sheppton: The Myth, Miracle & Music, documents a strange 1963 Pennsylvania mining disaster where new rescue technology was developed.

Says Furek, “Although there have been several books written about Sheppton, the complete story has never been told. I wanted to acknowledge the Bucyrus-Erie 50-R that saved the lives of two trapped coal miners and investigate the innovative rescue technology that became the accepted standard. Much of this is information virtually unknown outside the mining community.”

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The 50-R was the perfect machine for the Sheppton rescue. Nicknamed “The Beast,” the 50-R was a 55- foot high behemoth that rose 11-stories tall and housed a massive drill. Weighing a staggering 65 tons, its gigantic derrick ascended defiantly into the sky, an American flag proudly waving atop the structure.

Valued at $160,000, The Beast was one of the most commanding machines in the world, exerting up to 75,000 pounds of precise, focused pressure. Driven by 4,100 volts of electric current, provided by a tire-mounted diesel-powered mobile generating unit, the imposing machine was equipped with a 12-inch- diameter bit that would be changed to a wider size once the trapped miners were reached.

Houston billionaire Howard Hughes, owner of the Hughes Tool Company, provided specialized tungsten carbide cutters that were flown to the rescue site aboard a U.S. Navy plane and attached to the 50-R.

Renamed Bucyrus International Inc. in 1997, the company had a history of designing and constructing machines when a project demanded something that was beyond the existing technology of the day. One such Bucyrus project was the construction of the Panama Canal. The project, which took place in 1904- 1914, used 77 shovels to excavate 225 million cubic yards of earth. It was a huge undertaking that many thought would never be completed.

The superior technology of the Bucyrus-Erie 50-R Beast allowed a larger borehole to be drilled, rapidly, more than 300 feet. The dramatic method of rescue utilizing the 50-R was completely new.

The Sheppton borehole technique was later used during the 2010 Chile copper mine disaster that rescued 33 Chilean miners. That ordeal was documented by Pulitzer Prize winner Hector Tobar in Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine and later revisited in the 2015 motion picture “The 33.”

Sheppton: The Myth, Miracle & Music is an exciting blending of human survival and American technological innovation.

Learn more at www.shepptonmyth.com