Moving a Big Load in WA

I've seen a few 996's come onto site, but never in one piece. An impressive bit of haulage.

I wonder which poor apprentice gets the job of checking all the tyre pressures?

Overloaded Low-Loader

I'm not sure if this crusher is too heavy for the low-loader, or if it's just too much of a point load for it.

EX1800 Into Overpass

Another one sent in by a reader. At the Oak Hill mine in Texas, USA. April, 2010.

Burnt Bomb Truck

Some more great photos sent in this week my a reader. The float must have caught on fire, and then set fire to its cargo, a million-dollar bomb truck. This incident happend on the 3rd May, at Brockman.

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.

Transformer into River

This big transformer was being loaded onto a barge to be taken to a new mining operation. Unfortunately, it never made it in one piece.

Poor Dismount

Good performance, but he's going to lose points for the poor dismount. This photo comes from the Curragh mine in Blackwater, Queensland.

edit: May '09 - Additional Photo