Member Burnout on here invited me to come and check out some older machines at a site they plan to turn into a working museum. They have the Raygo Giant grader that they recently got running. It is apparently the 7th one made out of 7 and the only one still running. I didn't realize how many other classic and custom built machines they had. I was gobsmacked! 2 Warner & Swassey Hopto 1900's (largest American excavators in their day, 1st built in 1972), one with an elevated cab and undercarriage and both with twin 8V-71's for power. They were originally used on the Alaska pipeline and bought by Henuset Pipelines (Henuset had 5 of them) and had all the hood and sheet metal removed to make them easier to service. The hoses were huge. I saw pics. of other 1900's on raised supports with really wide tracks to straddle the soil piles. They also the 1 of 1 Henuset designed and built Henuset Polar Bear trencher. Apparently the largest trencher ever built or one of the largest. As an added bonus there happened to be a guy there that worked for Henuset for 40 years. He had a bunch of pics. and stories. The Polar Bear was built in a month! from soapstone drawings on the floor of the shop. It was too tall to fit out the door on the shop so they used it and dug a 4ft. deep trench right through the concrete floor to get it out. The adapters for the teeth were cast specifically for it as they had Henuset and a part number cast on them. 1250 HP Detroit, I think a 16V-149 but can't remember. One guy said it was used in locomotives. They got a TD24 started and were trying to free up the steering. I was too much in awe to take pics. One of an old Autocar and this one of an Eimco track loader. It was pretty neat. The operator had to climb inside it. I think it's an overshot loader that dumps over the back of the machine.
I think this video, originally posted by skadill has some of the iron you describe in it. At the end they show those hoptos without the tin on them, and an elevated one.
Yes, that video shows some of it but there's a lot more. A 245 Cat modified with a slide arrangement at 4 corners to raise it 10' high for river crossings! It's currently sitting without the lifted tracks but they are there. It is shown in the video with the posts on the corners. A couple Buffalo Springfield rollers and Letourneau Carryalls, 2 Cat 60's and a few D8's. An old pipeline testing rig that uses high pressure air at 2800PSI! They don't use air anymore but 1 guy said everybody was kind of on pins and needles when they were testing. Just a lot of neat stuff. What's interesting about the Hopto's is when you see pics. of them with all the hood and sheet metal they look really long but without it they appear fairly compact to fit everything. The 4 hyd. pumps look puny compared to the size of the hoses. I read that hose replacements were common on them and blown O-rings were often the culprit. Standing under the boom looking up it is huge like 5 or 6' wide. It's kind of odd the Raygo Giant isn't the star of the collection but just part of it.
The guy at the site must have been mistaken. Looking online the Polar Bear trencher was 2000 HP! It originally had 2 Cat engines but was changed to the single 16V-149. I climbed up and looked at it and it was big. There were 2 big hyd. cylinders in the upper corners I think were for raising and lowering the trencher wheel. It was designed to come apart so each section could be transported. The guy that worked for Henuset had hauled it. It was built in 1982. Henuset also had an HD41 pipelayer that I think it could lift 200,000lbs. With the counterweight on it. There is a video of it carrying a Cat 594 pipelayer (without the counterweight) which is impressive.
There's some wrong info floating around. I read a reliable source that the Polar Bear was made in 1982 but have since found a magazine article about it from March 1973.