Western Australian machinery spotting road trip (Part Two)

by Nick Drew | Mon 13 Jul 2015

Western Australian machinery spotting road trip (Part Two)

It’s been a couple of months since we last caught up with Michael Bullock and his pals who are working down under in Western Australia, so here is the latest batch of photo’s he has sent into us at the Digger Man Blog.

Michael and William Doyle had both completed their work up in the Pilbara region and planned to go on a heavy equipment road trip to Kalgoorlie. They both owned gas guzzling V8 Holden utility cars, so instead of using the Holden’s they hired a brand new Toyota Rav 4. As It turned out it was the best decision they had ever made, even if according to Michael, they looked like a couple of hairdressers! The little Japanese car ran on 'the smell' of petrol and for 15 quid a day they were laughing!

To start off with the lads had a quick stop around the plant yards of Perth and spotted some big kit, various Cat D10's, and repainted D11's waiting their next job, a rare Komatsu D575 which we found out had been given an extensive rebuild, but was hiding behind a building, plus several PC 1250s and PC 2000.

They then headed 105kms south to the town of Pinjarra and joined the free Alcoa Huntley Bauxite mine tour. Huntley is the world’s largest bauxite mine. The bus took us to watch a PC3000 bulking out bauxite and some contractors Cat 657 scrapers were working in the distance. Our tour took us to the primary crusher and workshop. We were hoping to see one of their two Komatsu D575 dozers working, but we didn’t have any luck, although we spotted one in the workshop, but couldn’t get a photo!

The lads came across a pair of Liebherr R 994 Litronic excavator’s at the workshop, this one had no chains, idlers, dipper or bucket rams, it’s highly unlikely that these two old girls will ever be running again and it was assumed that Alcoa still run a number of R 994’s at the mine and that these are kept as donor machines for parts.

The lad’s then drove south to the town of Waroona. Huge mining and earthworks contractor, Charles Hull contracting, is based here and they called by their huge yard. Ignoring the large sign saying 'no tourists, no visit without appointment' they pulled into the offices. Immediately an older bloke asked what we were looking for? Michael quickly explained that they were both plant operators and wished to take a photo of a Komatsu D575 dozer. The old chap headed into the office, 5mins later he emerged said they could but he would have to escort them around.

The guy explained that they own no less than 4 Komatsu D575’s and that 3 of them were in this yard. They also saw various D11 dozers, plus Cat 992 loaders and 777 dump trucks, 2 x PC1000s, PC1800, Hitachi 1100s, various scrapers, and lots of smaller diggers around the 30+tonne range.

Also of note was a pair of huge Dresser 580 loaders, the lads were told that they had been bought from an Iron Ore mine “Up North”, which is how Australians refer to the Pilbara, but were never used once purchased.

Michael said “The D575’s were a real treat to get up close to, a 4th one is still in use in a gravel pit nearby, but our guide said 'she uses too much juice, so we use Cat D11’s instead now. He said they have run many D575’s in the past, and told us the first ones they had owned had 1500hp under the bonnet, but they tore the ripper box off the tractor in heavy ripping on several occasions, Komatsu then de-tuned them to 1150hp”.

The lad’s would have loved to stop to chat to this chap, and look at more gear, but they felt they were pushing their luck. Happy that they had got to see the D575’s the travelling pair then headed to the coal mining town of Collie, but more on that when part three of this post continues later on the Digger Man Blog.

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