These guys are hooking up a dragline that is under the ice. The operator made some bad decisions like digging right beside the machine and because it was freezing he undermined the shore. He did not notice it until the shore broke off and the machine was sitting with one track hanging over the water. At this point it was too late. He jumped off and then a few minutes later got back on to shut off the engine. About 10 minuets later it was completely under the water.

Litz wanted a lot of money to lift it out so Dad bought another 1.5 yard dragline and together with Fast Bros. lowbed truck we took it out ourselves. The dragline was hooked up with a two part line and the truck was anchored with a loader and then pulled with the winch on the truck. It worked quite well and we got it out without any complications. The machine is was in the water for about a week and the hole had time to freeze over.

We had to cut the ice so that we didn't damage the boom more than necessary. The ice was about 4 inches thick. Here we had just started lifting, the boom came out first and the machine is still in the water. The machine was lying with the tracks parallel with the shore and the high track was only about a foot or two under the surface. This allowed us to hook up without having to dive. We bought a wet suit for the guy hooking up. He could sit on the ice or in the water and work in the water without getting cold.

After the Insley came out of the water we towed it to Fast Bros shop and drained all the water from all the necessary places like the fuel tank, air cleaner and the motor. We had it running the day it came out. The boom needed some fixing and soon it was ready for work again. But it had been replaced by a bigger dragline, the one we used for lifting it out. So it's useful life was more or less over. I did some ditching at the southwest corner of the pit and a few things like that but it never did much work. It ended up parked at the shop where it quietly rusted away. The motor got sold to someone from Ontario and that kind of put an end to the Insley.

I kind of missed this machine. It was a nice machine to operate. The Lorraine that replaced it had awkward push clutches instead of pull clutches. They were also much harder to operate. The Insley was a nice nimble machine. In the past I fed the crusher with it and one of our operator's loaded truck's with it when our loaders broke down when we had a big pile of crushed gravel that was scheduled to leave the pit at a certain time.

This is the boom for the Insley. If you look closely at the base end you can see a five or six foot section with no paint. That piece got replaced after we took it out of the water. That was about the only damage to the machine other than the windows. The engine was fine after draining all the water and filling in fresh oil and also changing the fuel filters and draining the fuel tank and refilling that as well.

Eventually the Insley got cut up and hauled away for scrap. During the 90's Dad got enthused about cleaning up and turning all the scrap he had accumulated into cash and here you see the bottom end of the Insley loaded up ready to be hauled away.

This is the Lorraine that was used to lift out the Insley. Eventually it got replaced with a 2 yd Lorraine. Repairs to this machine were going to be more than what Dad could buy a bigger and better machine for. This one was relegated to the scrap pile till it eventually made it to the shredder.

This machine was assembled in Giroux at the rail siding. It was too heavy for shipping in one piece so it was dismantled and shipped on 3 flatcars. In this picute we have the house and the car body. We assembled it right at the railway and then walked it to the pit in Blumenort where it resides to this day. The machine weighs about 285,000 lbs.

A dragline that does not have a boom on is very heavy in the back, in fact it will probably sit down on it's rear if something is not done to change that. So for traveling to Blumenort we put the counterweight that is supposed to hang on the rear in front of the drag and lift drums. This provided for a more balanced machine. We greased the machine at the end of every mile. When we started on the next mile we sent a truck ahead to block off the road to all traffic other than those that needed to get to a driveway that was still before the machine. We left Giroux about 9:00 o'clock in the morning and arrived at Penner Performance about 6:00 PM.

After leaving Penner Performance we walked the 88B down what was later known as Elm Street. We put tires down under the tracks all the way from the 311 to the end of the pavement. The person at the back picked up the tire and laid it on the track and let the machine carry it to the front where that person made sure that it was laid down correctly to remain under the track as the machine moved on. It looks like it must have been a cold day.

When we got the 88B to the pit we had to finish assembling it. The 2 yd Lorraine got put to good use as a crane.

Finally the day arrived that even the 2 yd Lorraine got replaced. The 88B Bucyrus replaced it. Only this Lorraine got sold instead of scrapped. It was purchased by a chicken farmer that also owned a gravel pit. Sherbrook Motors delivered the machine for us. Over the next year or so I operated this machine approximately a day a week in the summer time. Some years ago this machine was still located in the same pit we dropped it off at.