... travels 1400 miles from East PA to East Texas - built in 11 months (!!) in 1942 for the sole purpose of supplying oil to east coast refineries and subsequently European troops for the purpose of kicking the Nazis ass in WWII, who themselves were sinking the majority of the oil tanker shipments off the coast of Florida when rounding the Florida peninsula... goes over eight mountain ranges, under thirty rivers and hundreds of small streams - was the biggest pipeline project in the world at the time...
... heres a few informative links:
... a short informative video for those who gotta' run:
... another short construction video - not the Big Inch, but fun:
... found a few old archive photos of our own:
... bet we've climbed this section of the Big Inch at least a hundred times over the years en route to a local rock crag and boulder field - these photos are from sometime in the 90's during an upgrade - wasn't aware of the history at the time - would have liked to have gotten a souvenir hunk of the original pipe looking back on it... sat and watched an operator bring a big track backhoe down that steep slope one day (is a lot steeper than the photo suggests) - he pretty much bull-rode it down the whole distance using only his bucket to brake the machine, which slid, bucked and rocked like crazy and occasionally spun near ninety degrees the whole trip - pretty impressive handling on that guy's part...
... a bit better perspective - strongman Matt and the Big Inch about 600 feet above the Dunbar Creek valley - another day, watched that big CAT dozer (in the photo) winching another big dozer up that big slope - the operator would back up then drift forward then back up the drift forward and so on - each time stopping right at the top of the big drop on the drift - after getting the other big machine to the top he shut down and got off his big CAT - I thought he was pulling the other big machine up the big hill - he said no - the big CAT he was on didn't have any brakes(!!)... "I been tellin' 'em they need fixed"...
... a 90's Muscle Girl Sarah along this day as well - we see she has along her combination brush/briar/rattlesnake stick (for shoo'n 'em off the path) - wise gal - that's big rattler habitat up there...
... nothin' but respect for the guys and gals (recall there was a very good female welder or two on this project) who construct this stuff - Good Work!!...
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