I believe Jan Meermans knows a bit about the MRS scrapers. I believe as a Sea Bee his squad used one in Viet Nam as a boose taxi because of its decent speed. Maybe he will chime in.

Hey Deas,
The colored pic in post #7 of the man standing beside the Right rear tire on the Western pusher, is my father-in-law, Fred Peterman of Ellsworth, KS. I took that pic. after we went to Milford Dam in Junction City, KS in 63. He was 6' 4" tall so that will give you a idea of the size of the tire. The cab was 15' up in the air and had 1500 HP. I came home on a visit from in the service to go look for this machine. It was broke down again. catskinner Marvin Bush PS my name is down in the lower right corner.

Hi, catskinner.
Thanks for the history and for the 'scaling' for that photo.

"Broke down - again"???????????? I had heard that it had a bit of a habit of bits and pieces falling off of it - like the complete back end came off at least one time.

Just my 0.02.

Going back to post 7 picture 16 has a caption of Western 2000 Castaic Dam 1970, is this saying the Western Pusher was brought from Kansas to California? And that was still usable into the 70's?


Very interesting history,thank you all that have added to this and thought to take pictures back in the day.

Hi, Ray54.
From what little I have been able to find, Western did bring it to CA for the Castaic dam. I believe they kept using it as and when they could - in between breakdowns - until the early 1980s when they decided they didn't have any more use for it and they then scrapped it in 1983. I have no idea where it was located when they scrapped it.

Here is another 'Tonka Toy' that Western made around the same time. I have no information on the eventual fate of this jigger.



The second photo in color shows the unit after the re-power with the 4 exhaust stacks as mentioned in the caption of the first photo

Just my 0.02.

Hi, Folks.
Back on scrapers.

Some of you may have heard of the triple 657 scraper that Buster Peterson built for Peter Kiewit for use on the California Viaduct. Whether you have heard of it or not, here are some photos of it:



Just my 0.02.

Deas Plant,
That bit you said about bits and pieces falling off probably came from me. I answered a article, a long time ago, in a Equipment Mag. about IDing the pusher. I said,I was talking to a guy that worked for Western Contracting Co. at one time, and he told the story about the pusher was pushing a TTSS40 Euclid scraper down hill and when he got down to the bottom and the scraper was loaded, he went to back up and he couldn't, as the whole rear axle was back up towards the top of the hill. What I don't understand is , how can a operator not know something was wrong. The axle had to make some noise when it can out and I would think that it would be quite a jolt also. The Western Company was from Montana and I wish I had been around to get pics. of it when it was working. catskinner

Hi, catskinner.
Thanks for the added history.

I had heard about various bits falling off the machine before, including that the whole back end had fallen off. How-wevver, your story does shed more light on that particular incident 'cos I had never before heard the circumstances surrounding the event.

At the very least, I would have thought that the operator would have felt a bit of a thump as the back end hit the deck, a change in the fore-n-aft angle of the machine and a severe loss of traction and pushing power with only the 2 front wheels driving and the back end dragging. I am also a little surprised that the whole machine didn't quit right there where it happened due to electrical failure.

But what would I know? I'm just a 'pore, dumb bulldozer operator', not wunna them edge-yew-mac-ay-ted 'sparkle-ologists'.

Just my 0.02.

Hi everyone , browsed again through my files and found a spec sheet of what would be the biggest scraper . A heaped volume of 74 cu yd is mentioned and not less than 1400 hp .
Found also pics of these tractors coupled to Wooldridge scrapers . Well , that is quite a volume of dirt .
In the sixties I found smaller MRS tractors in our country , coming from military surplus . I was always surprised about these heavy , mass fenders over the drive wheels .
The Netherlands , johan7 .