When I heard a rumor from Guy that there was an abandoned excavator with a view of the salt pan in Death Valley that he had never visited, I knew I had to take a look and see if I could find it. After a bit of research, I was relatively sure I had located it's location and took a trip out to find it.
The piece of machinery in question is a 1955 Drott International Model TD-6. When new it featured a useful & much touted “4-in-1 bucket”, a 4cyl 248cu/in 35hp International diesel engine, 12in tracks, and a variety of other features long since removed from this particular unit. One of the more unique things about this model of diesel engine is that it employed a "gasoline start" system, which used spark plugs & gasoline to run the engine until it was warmed up before switching to diesel operation. This was a rarely used starting method, instead of the more traditional (but more battery dependent) glow-plug starting system seen on most diesel engines. Dry weight (without the bucket) was about 7500lbs. They were well respected machines in their day, considered to be tough, reliable work horses.
While it's not super common to find abandoned heavy machinery remaining in Death Valley National Park, it's not unheard of. And for good reason: machinery was expensive and virtually everyone out here mining or prospecting was generally on a shoestring budget and couldn't afford to leave equipment behind. What is a bit more odd in this case is that almost all of that abandoned machinery remaining is at a mine site or at least historically connected to a mine or specific project, with the odd wreck having been possibly washed downstream in a flash flood at some point in the last 100 years. This Drott TD-6 seems to be purposefully abandoned in a random location, with absolutely no mines, prospects, claim markers, road cuts, tracks, or any other apparent reason for it to be in such a remote place. The only items found anywhere nearby was a couple of short wooden 4x4s and old fuel drum. I think the 4x4s originally had been left propping up the bucket, before being eventually washed out from under it. And the way it's parked looks deliberate and frankly seems to be placed specifically to hide it from view from almost any direction.
But it hide it from whom and why? Was it stolen by a disgruntled employee and stashed? Did someone intend to start prospecting here but met their end before they could return to the site? Or was it a drunken prank that was just never solved? We may never know.
