Western Australian machinery spotting road trip (Part One)

by Nick Drew | Sun 24 May 2015

Western Australian machinery spotting road trip (Part One)

Today we present yet another batch of photos from our Englishman Down Under Michael Bullock, as he and his mates check out more old retired kit and some newer machines too.

First up we see another shot of one of the machines featured in last week’s blog post, in a before and after scenario. The P&H 1900AK was the first P&H electric shovel to be purchased by Mt Newman Mining (now BHP). The machine weighed in at around 372 tonnes and was delivered to site in 1968. This machine was decommissioned in 1989 and has been on permanent display at the mine ever since.

The lads took a tour of the mine which is very popular with tourists and machinery enthusiasts alike. In this photo we see the impressive view that awaits visitors from the lookout point.

There appear to be bits of old kit on display all over the place in this historic mining area and just on the outskirts of Newman the lads came across this tidy looking Cat 793B dumptruck on the side of the highway which had been donated by BHP. Michael said, “Most mining towns around this area usually have a piece of heavy equipment on display, one day I would like to do a big road trip and visit them all!

About 270kms away is the town of Tom Price which is another historically important mining town. The mines at Tom Price are run by massive global mining rivals Rio Tinto. In this shot we see Michael stood by a Lectra Haul dump truck which is on display on the outskirts of town. This 98 tonne machine, which was powered by a 1600hp motor, worked at Tom Price mine between 1980 and 1992 during which time it’s estimated to have shifted about 23 million tonnes of iron ore. The machine was retired when Rio Tinto switched to Komatsu and Caterpillar as their preferred trucks.

But it was not all old kit during this visit and during the mine tour the boys witnessed this machine, one of four Hitachi EX3600’s on site loading ore into a Cat 973 truck.

Finally in this batch of photos we see one of 7 huge Liebherr 996B’s, this 690 tonne monster was receiving a major service right next to where Michael was operating his “small” 33 tonne Cat excavator! During the service, along with all the usual stuff, all the hydraulic rams are replaced to keep the machine running without further downtime. Note the JCB rigid mast forklift to the fore, helping out with the parts, which is totally dwarfed by the big Liebherr.

Once the major earthworks were completed on this site, the lads were dispatched to different sites to work. But during a recent spell off Michael and William hit the road to Kalgoorlie on a mission to check out some more big equipment, including Komatsu 575 dozers, PC8000 excavators, and RH 340 face shovels to name a few. Michael has promised to share some of those photos over the coming months here on the Digger Man Blog, so look out for them.

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