Keen dragline enthusiast loves his machines
Farmer used draglines to build canals, form stopbanks and clear drains all over the Waikato writes
Neil Fitzgerald was born into a dairying family in Ramarama. They moved to Springdale and his father started a contract drainage business, although he worked on the farm.
“I learned to drive at 15 and worked for DH Price in Te Aroha,” Fitzgerald said.
“Using draglines I dug canals, formed stopbanks and cleared drains all over the Waikato.”
He worked on the foundations for the raised Tahuna to Paeroa road, which skirts the Kopuatai Peat Dome wetland, a 10,021-hectare peat bog.
Fitzgerald said he bought his first dragline when “dollars and cents hit the country”, so 1967.
Fitzgerald and his wife Jennifer have had a dairy farm and contracting business for the last 56 years.
Their son Grant took over the contracting, and Jennifer still oversees the dairy side.
Fitzgerald is semi-retired with time to work on his large collection of tractors, bulldozers, draglines, Land Rovers, a Model A car and Minis, and add to his substantial agricultural and earthmoving model collection.
Operating a dragline takes skill
Fitzgerald was delighted when he was given a 1940s Ruston 10-RB dragline in 2018, just like the ones he used to operate.
The 48hp VRH Ruston diesel engine has three cylinders, and the cab sits on tracks.
“Before hydraulics came in during the late-1970s, operating a dragline required skill and experience,” he said.
“To lift the bucket safely, you had to work the clutches with your hands at the same time as using your feet for the brakes.
“This controlled the wire ropes running down the 28-foot boom to the bucket.
“It’s easy to tangle the ropes if you don’t know what you are doing as the cab can rotate 360 degrees.”
When breaking-in boggy farmland on the Hauraki Plains, the dragline body and cab sat on wooden pads that were often semi-floating under the water surface.
“You worked going backwards, the bucket was thrown out in front, dragged until full, and hoisted up, and the cab and boom turned 90 degrees to deposit the bucket contents to the side,” Fitzgerald said.
“Then you reversed on to the wooden pad behind you, hooked up the wooden pad you just left and turned the cab 180 degrees to deposit that pad behind you before throwing out the bucket to the front once more.”
Dragline nostalgia
Fitzgerald chuckled as he remembered the slow and hair-raising process and how the goal was not to unbalance the cab and tip the whole rig over into the bog.
“It’s a shame because at one point draglines were being scrapped as hydraulically operated machines took over.”
However, Fitzgerald has three draglines, which he admits are purely for nostalgia reasons and so there are still some of these amazing machines around.
It’s easy to tangle the ropes if you don’t know what you are doing as the cab can rotate 360 degrees. Neil Fitzgerald