Burned Rear Dumper

Reclaimer Pushed By Cyclone

These great photos came in this week from a new reader of the blog.

RC702 first Long Travel

'New' FMG reclaimer first movement (not no-load commissioning). This occurred during the recent cyclone.

Instructions were to:

      ·         Ensure all LT and Slew brakes were engaged

      ·         10t sling restraining each corner of the machine

      ·         Wedges to be placed on LT wheels, and

      ·         Boom to be luffed down and secured to crane counter weights

What happened:

      ·         2 out of the 12 LT brakes were engaged

      ·         3t come-alongs were used

      ·         Wedges were not put in correctly, and

      ·         The sling securing the boom came off in the high winds

Result: the machine moved 204m up hill on the rail and only stopped when the 3 leading bogies fell off the end of the rail, and the yard hold down roller frame was tipped over and jammed into the impact table. There were no end buffers in place so these hold down bolts were ran over.

Cost: 3-4 weeks extra delays in finishing reclaimer, and damage to 200m of belt and structure.

Dragline vs Cable Tractor

These photos were sent in by a reader this week, but with no backstory. Can anyone tell us which site / when this occurred?

Rolled Dozer

Shovel vs Rubber-Tired Dozer

Highwall Failure at Eaglefield

This incident comes from the Eaglefield mine, in the Bowen Basin. It looks like this shot was being loaded at the time of the failure.

Sent in by a reader.

Oxy-Acetelyene Explosion

From the MSHA report:
This incident happened on Monday the 29th of September 2003. A fitter with a work van left an E size Ox and Acetylene cylinder on the back seat of a Toyota dual cab over the weekend. The Acetylene cylinder v was not fully closed and a leak occurred.

Over the weekend the Acetylene accumulated in the van. On Monday morning the fitter approached the va opened the door, a large explosion took place. The ignition may have been caused by either the circuitry, the automatic door control, mobile phone which was on the front seat of the van, or lighting a cigarette. The fitter was also a smoker. He has damage to his ear drums and facial damage. As you can see by the att photo he was very lucky. Don't let safety be something you learn by accident.

Rear-Dumper Rear Ender

Excavator Bench Failure

Downshifting in a 793

Lots of people send it photos to this blog. (Thank you!). Normally,  I check them to see if I already have them in my collection, and then put them into the rotation. Sometimes, the photos are so amazing that I just have to put them up on the site right away.

This is one of those times. These photos were sent in this week by a reader. In it, he says that the operator of this 793 downshifted from sixth gear to first. The engine didn't like it. Some rebuilding of the engine may be necessary.