You can find old cranes setting around just about anywhere if you are really looking. Just about any of the "old ones" could be used as a dragline given the right combination of parts. The differences between a machine set up for dragline operation verses say a lifting crane is usually in the choice of lagging for the cable drums, then a dragline has a fairlead where a lifting crane has no real use for one, a "true" lifting crane usually has a power controlled lowering function on the hoist drum and often also on the boom lift cable. Beyond the major differences there are also minor differences between a true lifting machine and a dedicated dragline that are brand specific. Unfortunately there's no way I could even begin to name all of them here, even if I knew all of them.
Now if you take a machine and set it up as front shovel or a pull shovel your getting into some radical differences over how a dragline or lifting crane would be equipped. Thing is with the older machines if they're set up with either attachment you can usually just remove parts, change the lagging and use it as a dragline. It's a little more complicated than that sure but that's the basics of it.
Beyond all of that you get into the realm of does the machine use mechanical controls (ie uses purely manual movement of rods and levers, possibly with mechanical helpers) to control the functions, is it air actuated which uses an air cylinders to move the linkages for the functions, or you can also have hydraulic actuated machines that use hydraulic cylinders to actuate the functions.
If you plan to look, machines like the 25 or 25D Northwest are relatively small and are mechanically operated, then there's the 28D which is similar in size but air actuated. Move over the the Bucyrus line and you might want to look at say a very small 10B, or move on up the line to something a little larger like a 15B, 22B or 25B. The 10,15,and 22 are all mechanical although I've heard there was a Ruston Bucyrus 22B that was air controlled. Get much larger than this and you've got a decent size machine but the 25B is still small enough to move without alot of difficulty if needed. Head over to the older Linkbelt side of things and you enter the relm of the hydraulic controlled machines and the likes of the LS70 and LS90. I'm sure they made some smaller then the 70 but I've never had any personal experience with any of them below the LS108 which is a fair sized machine, akin to maybe a 25B Bucyrus. Around here those were the three "big brands" although you can also throw Lima, American, Koering, Buckeye Clipper, and others in the mix depending on how far back in time you want to go.
The largest dragline machine I know of in my area is a 190D Northwest although it's now settingstill broken down from being transported up here from FLA. All we're waiting on is for the customer to come up with the money to put it back together and let us perform some repairs as we go. I can't wait to see it in operation along with his 80D Northwest front shovel, which I'm headed to work on this week.
You just gotta love the old cable machines, or heck the new BIG ones too. Wether it's a dragline, front shovel, or pull shovel, just watching one of them work is like seeing poetry in motion.
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