• Thank you for visiting HeavyEquipmentForums.com! Our objective is to provide industry professionals a place to gather to exchange questions, answers and ideas. We welcome you to register using the "Register" icon at the top of the page. We'd appreciate any help you can offer in spreading the word of our new site. The more members that join, the bigger resource for all to enjoy. Thank you!

Terra-Cobra Scrapers

Wyo-Bob

Member
Joined
Jul 14, 2013
Messages
12
Location
Cheyenne, Wyo
Occupation
Retired
Any one heard or have a pic of one? Operators called them "The Terrible Cobras" for good reason.
Late 50's on a Sunday I visited a friend of mine in Custer, SD., and he took me to their job north of Custer to show me the scrapers they had to run. They were a different breed to say the least, scraper controls were front right, about head/shoulder high. with a extra palm lever that was for emergency quick drop. He said the only way it would release, was to stand up, rear back and kick it. Steering was by a chain that ran around behind the hitch, very pron to break pretty often he said. One neat idea it had was a big spring inside a large pipe that slid into another with a push block on the back of it, making this one of the first pushing cushions. Bad part, all the springs were broke on them.
I asked him to push me off, and I hauled 3 loads just to say I ran one. They were really poorly maintained and in bad shape, sloppy steering, no brakes, etc. They were the only ones I have ever seen or heard of.??
Later in the week he called and told me the one I run broke a steering chain while hauling down hill and the guy hit a pine tree. National Forest Service charged the contractor $85.00 for the tree.
That DW 21 sure felt like a Caddie Monday morning.
 

Wyo-Bob

Member
Joined
Jul 14, 2013
Messages
12
Location
Cheyenne, Wyo
Occupation
Retired
Seems I did a poor search job before as I found all kind of info, mostly coming from this great site. MK had 5 of them right here building 3 track for UP 4 years before I came here.

http://www.constructionequipmentgui...ufacturing-Company-Offers-Rich-History/16566/

It was also around this time that the Morrison-Knudsen Company, Inc., of Boise, Idaho, acquired a financial interest in Wooldridge. M-K, part of the Six Companies joint venture that built Hoover Dam and other major projects, had grown to become one of the largest contractors in the western U.S. During the 1940s and 1950s, M-K purchased large numbers of scrapers and other equipment from Wooldridge. M-K had 34 Wooldridge pull scrapers and nine Terra Cobra motor scrapers on one Missouri River levee job, and for the Union Pacific Railroad’s third main line over Sherman Hill from Cheyenne to Dale, Wyo., M-K used eight 17-yard Terra Clippers and five 15-yard Terra Cobras in 1952 to 1953.
 
Top