The dragline is so named because of its prominent operation of dragging the bucket against the materials to be dug. It has a long light crane boom and the bucket is loosely attached to the boom through the cables. Because of this, dragline can dig and dump over larger distances than a shovel can do.

i. Dragline is used for digging below its track level and handling softer materials.

ii. The draglines can be of crawler, mounted, wheel mounted or truck mounted type.

iii. Basic parts: It includes boom, hoist cable, drag cable, hoist chain, drag chain and bucket.

Working:

1. The bucket is lowered in fully dumped position, releasing both the hoist and drag cable, till it rests on the ground with the teeth digging into the earth. The hoist cable is slackened slightly and then the drag pull is applied.

2. This action fills in the earth and the bucket takes a horizontal position. It is then hoisted. When the required dumping height is attained the boom is swung to the position of dumping and the drag brake is released.

3. This will dump the load of the bucket. The boom is then swung back to the digging position and the same cycles of operation are repeated.