by Nick Drew | Tue 03 Jan 2017
The Cat sat in the dumptruck is a D10T (Blog Post Re-Visited)
Back in August 2013 Anders Soderstrom posted some fantastic photos on Maskinisten.net, one of Europe’s most successful plant and machinery forums, and the place where my internet journey began, many years ago!
Anders works in a large quarry in North East Norway, just close to the border with Russia, where they have devised a novel way of moving their large items of kit in the back of Caterpillar 785D dumptrucks. Distance from the work face back to the workshops is about eight kilometres, which is considered too far to “track” large dozers and excavators for any major maintenance that cannot be performed out in the field by their team of mechanics.
This shot shows the 2009 Cat D10T sitting proudly aloft the Cat 785D, with a Ford Transit crew bus in the foreground to give some sense of scale!
When moving machines around the site like this, they load about 50-60 tonnes of waste rock or Iron Ore into the bed of the truck, which protects the skip and gives the machines a level platform to sit on, and then the machines climb on board by using a ramp, which is constructed to the right height to match the rear of the trucks.
Many other items of plant can be loaded in the same way, including a variety of drilling rigs and excavators, like this Cat 330 and also 345’s.
We thank Anders for sharing these great photos with us here on the Digger Man Blog.