So our new hydraulic shovel has been put to work. I haven't had a chance to try it out yet but I imagine it will be fun for the first little while. Seems kinda small, but the big advantage is it doesn't have cables and it doesn't have ropes. Cables are the power cords of the electric shovel and one of my major responsibilities as a shovel oiler. They're heavy and awkward and I am always pulling a back muscle manhandling them. One time I got snmashed in the face with a pothead (connectode) and that wasn't fun. Another time I got a small electric shock when I picked a disconnected one up- when connected they have 7700 volts. And sometimes they just blow up randomly so you have to watch out for them. So I am all for shovels that don't have miles of extension cord behind them.
Ropes are the steel cables that electric shovels have for hoisting and lowering the bucket. We call them ropes but actually they are incredibly strong steel cables capable of bearing 150 tons of metal and rock. You can see them in this picture, attached to the bucket. They then go up over the point sheaves and into the house where they are wound around the hoist drum:

The other day we had to change these ropes, another oiler responsibility, though this is more of a mechanic's job and I just assist. We were within ten minutes of finishing the job in a very respectable two hours when we lost them. Well, one of the mechanics unchained them to shift them around just as we were about to put them on the drum. Ever so slowly they started taking off, back over the point sheaves and then crash! Fall onna ground! Luckily no one was standing underneath or they would have been squished dead. As it was, the brand new ropes, a set of which probably costs $30,000 or more, was ruined. The ends looked like a sprung spring. And of course we had to do the whole operation all over again. All in a day's work.