Doug Hamilton’s Machine Memories (Part Eleven)

by Nick Drew | Wed 25 Sep 2019

Doug Hamilton’s Machine Memories (Part Eleven)

Continuing our series focusing on the memories of retired plant man Doug Hamilton in his own words and featuring archive photos from his own private collection.

“After Pickle Crow, we headed west again to another mine that was hiring 90 miles north of Hinton on Highway 16 to the west of Edmonton Alberta to a great new little town up in the Rocky Mountains”. “The McIntyre Mines had strict safety procedures but only if it didn’t interfere with production and they had the union in their back pocket! I started driving a Terex 33–15 B 170 tonne rigid dumptruck but it soon became mind numbingly boring, shovel to dump, shovel to dump, up to 80 times a shift with your foot on the Dynamic break to help keep it under 14 mph or it would run away with you”.

“They tended to use Cat 773 trucks with special coal bodies for hauling the coal and Cat 777, 85 tonne trucks for clean-up operations, which was much more me to be honest”.

“The thing I really didn’t like about those diesel electric drive systems was going to the South Side dump, where you had to back up to the edge with no safety bunds in place, raising the body a crack in the ground would appear between your front and rear tyres and not being like a power shift, in gear and gone, you had to wait to build up power for the traction motors to kick in and some would not engage with the box up, and all this time you sat there with a 2000 foot drop to the bottom of the dump behind you while praying that she would pull away quickly!”

“Another time I was working with the other Cat 777 on our own, I didn’t pass him on a return trip as I got closer to the dump, I could see the truck and as I got closer, I could then see the driver hanging upside down off the ladder! I managed to get him up to his Cab by walking him one step at a time with my arms around him and holding onto the railings. The fact that it was -40 so having bare hands sticking to the metal pulling the skin off, was like putting your tongue in the freezer at home , I drove him in his truck up to the office a foreman drove me back to my truck did he have his hard hat on he kept saying yes I said (liar that I am )knowing they were trying to cover up for their liability”.

In recent emails to Doug’s old work mate Bill Peters, he spoke about his regret at not getting the chance to drive the giant Wabco Haulpak 3200B truck at the Lornex Mine which was featured in the last post on Doug’s Machine Memories, but reckoned he would have done if he had purchased a company house at the time. Doug also wrote that not far from the Lornex Mine there is a giant Terex Titan which was donated to the town of Sparwood and now stands as a tourist attraction, that machine has been featured on this blog a number of times before.

Doug also shared an interesting rare photo that had been given to him by a friend at International Harvester, it features a prototype IH 580 wheeled loader on display at the Las Vegas Convention Centre sometime between 1968-70.

More machine memories from Doug in the next instalment here on the Digger Man Blog.

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Doug Hamilton’s Machine Memories (Part Eleven)

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