Holland Belt Loader: A rare item of kit

by Nick Drew | Thu 02 Oct 2014

Holland Belt Loader: A rare item of kit

After a week away in the sun I’m back in the Digger Man Blog seat. Whilst I have been on holiday I have received these great shots from our friend down under in Australia Gary Steen.

Gary took these photos around 20 years ago, back in the days when he was working for Komatsu, the shots have been scanned from negatives but are still worth a look as they feature an unusual piece of earthmoving machinery which works like a scraper and belt feeder.

The Holland Belt Loader was owned and operated by Cooks Construction and according to Gary it was the only model ever to be fitted with Komatsu dozers, of which Gary was responsible for servicing and maintenance. The dozers in question were two D375A models one at the front and one pushing from behind. The D375A was powered by a Komatsu’s own SA6D170B diesel engine which offered a power output of 515hp meaning the machine had a combined push/pulling power output of 1,030hp! There were also two industrial power packs powering the belt feeder functions on the machine.

This massive machine was initially trialled at the Penrith Lakes Project in NSW, where it was seen to be capable of loading a Caterpillar 777 dumptruck in less than 20 seconds, which is impressive going by anyone’s standards.

The entire machine was controlled by just one operator in the cab of the front tractor, assisted by a multitude of camera’s and a head set.

As impressive as it was to watch Gary said that the machine never really reached its full potential, due in part to the area where it was put to work, which was not really a long enough run and the fact that it was difficult to turn it around.

In summary Gary said it was an amazing piece of gear to watch in operation, but you certainly needed a big fleet of trucks to keep up with her! We thank Gary for sharing these photos with us here on the Digger Man Blog.

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