Highwall Failure onto Truck

Dozer onto Light Vehicle

This looks like the sort of thing that is done at a 'Monster Truck' rally. This must have been in Australia. It looks like a Datsun 180B underneath the left tread, and a Commodore and Falcon in the background.

Nothing proves how good your dozer is a pushing dirt like running over some light vehicles!

Rear-Dumper Off Bench

Stuck Rear Dumper

Komatsu PC5500 Slip Off Float

These are another set of photos sent in by a reader. These are from the Griffin coal mine in Western Australia.


It looks here like the float has slipped backwards down the wet ramp.

Those chains are looking a bit small for the job.

You can see here that the tracks were muddy before being loaded onto the float. This would have decreased the friction between the excavator and the float.





Yeah, those chains are far too light for the purpose of restraining a 500t load. The only thing holding the excavator to the float was the surface friction of two metal plates with a bit of water and mud in between.

A lot of equipment doesn't get secured onto floats (probably because it would take a crane to lift sufficiently strong chains into place), but if you're going to do a job...


The Komatsu website lists the weight of the PC5500 as 525t, 'including operator'.

Hmm, no flag, beacon or even reflective markings on the light vehicle in the background.

Komatsu 930 vs Caterpillar 16H

This is taking the whole Caterpillar / Komatsu rivalry way too far. Here, an operator on a Komatsu 930 lost control, and drove over the side of the Caterpillar 16H grader.

Massive damage to the grader.





Look at the tire marks on the side of the cab. A very lucky operator.

Komatsu 930E on side

Back to the rear-dumper carnage again this week. On this picture, you can see how the truck lost its traction going down the ramp (you can see the skid-mark in the front-right of picture.)