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Digger Man Blog

by Nick Drew  |  Mon 20 Jul 2015

Western Australian machinery spotting road trip (Part Three)

Continuing our machinery spotting journey with our man” Down Under” Michael Bullock and his work mate William Doyle.

The lads left Waroona and headed down to the mining town of Collie which is just over an hour’s drive away. Collie lies some 213 kilometres (132 miles) south of the state capital of Perth and is the location of the only coalfields in Western Australia. Coal production is big business in the area and there is always plenty of big kit to be found both new and old. One of the first old machines spotted was this Ruston Bucyrus RB54 face shovel, which is one of a number of restored machines on display around the local area, which bear testament to the locations mining heritage. At another location the lads spotted this Liebherr R 995 Litronic excavator, which appeared to have undergone a complete rebuild and was just having the finishing touches done on her. This massive P&H 2800 Mk2 electric rope shovel has made an appearance on the blog before. It once worked at the Mt Whaleback iron ore mine in Newman, which is one of the largest open cut iron ore mines in the country. The machine started its working life there back in 1976, before being moved to Collie in 1995 where it continued to work until 2010. It is estimated that the machine has shifted around 200 million tonnes in its lifetime! Michael’s mate William is seen stood at the base of the machine. Once again, giving a great indication of scale in this shot we see Michael stood in the bucket of the P&H 2800 Mk2. The lads then called by the Premier Coal mine in Collie which is one of two massive mines in the area. From the roadside they observed a Bucyrus RH 340 B loading overburden into Caterpillar 793 trucks. The machine was still sporting the purple and white colours from the brief spell of Bucyrus branding before the takeover by Caterpillar. We thank Michael for sharing these cracking photos with us here on the Digger Man Blog.  

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