(or sometimes caterpillar tracks or railroad wheels) a house (on the platform) to contain and protect 'the works' The shovel has several individual operations: it can raise or luff the boom, extend the dipper stick with the boom or crowd engine, and raise or lower the dipper stick. Some shovels can rotate the platform on which the bulk of the machine is mounted on a turntable above its truck, similar to a modern excavator, while others, particularly those with longer bodies, have a turntable at the base of the boom, and rotate the boom. When digging at a rock face, the operator simultaneously raises and extends the dipper stick to fill the bucket with material. When the bucket is full, the shovel is rotated to load a railway car or motor truck. The locking pin on the bucket flap is released and the load drops away. The operator lowers the dipper stick, the bucket mouth self-closes, the pin relocks automatically and the process repeats. Steam shovels usually had at least a three-man crew: engineer, fireman and ground man. There was much jockeying to do to move shovels: rails and timber blocks to move; cables and block purchases to attach; chains and slings to rig; and so on. On soft ground, shovels used timber mats to help steady and level the ground. The early models were not self-propelled, rather they would use the boom to manoeuvre themselves. Steam shovel manufacturers North American manufacturers: Ball Engine Co. Bucyrus Erie Marion Steam Shovel Dredge Company Moore Speedcrane (later Manitowoc Cranes) Northwest Shovels Thew Automatic Shovel Co. Vulcan Iron Works European manufacturers: Demag (Germany) Fiorentini (Italy) Lubecker Menck Newton & Chambers (UK) Orenstein and Koppel GmbH (Germany) Ruston & Hornsby (UK) Power shovel/dragline manufacturers Bucyrus International Insley Manufacturing Co. Komatsu Lima Locomotive Works Link Belt Marion Power Shovel P&H Mining Equipment Priestman Bros (UK) Ransomes & Rapier (UK) Ruston-Bucyrus (UK) Preservation Most steam shovels have been scrapped, although a few reside in industrial museums and private collections. The Le Roy Marion The world's largest intact steam shovel is a Marion machine, dating from either 1906 or 1911, located in Le Roy, New York. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008. Ruston Proctor Steam Navvy No 306 Dating from 1909, this machine – Ruston's called it a 'crane navvy' – is the oldest surviving steam navvy in the world. It