US Style detachable goosenecks in Australia.

[Nige]

Compare this photo of a 994 chassis (90 tons or thereabouts) leaving the factory with the ones in Post #31 above. The complete machine weighs 3 times that .........!!!
You guys in the US sure have to jump through some hoops.

 

[Randy88]

Nige, yea I'm thinking you might have a few dot issues if you were here in the states, not really sure how you'd ever get the load in post 41 through a round about here either, thanks for you tube video, I can't say I"ve ever seen a haul truck travel down a two lane road before quite like that without some prison time involved for someone. Is there nobody ever on those roads, or are they shut down to traffic while those loads get moved?

 

[Nige]

The road in question is a public road. It connects the Pan-American highway in Northern Chile to a border crossing over the Andes to Argentina. However there are 2 major mines almost at the end of that road, and they paid for the upgrading of the road during their construction phase & they continue to pay for maintainance of the road as a concession to being able to move all their materials up & down it. Prior to the mines opening it was only a dirt road, and from a point East of the mine gates to the Argentinian frontier it still is. Result of it all is that because of the amount of money they invested in the road the mines pretty much control all traffic on it, with the approval of the Govt and the police, although it is still a public highway that anyone can drive on. So to move a truck (either on a lowboy or under its own power) like that just needs the police to be informed and a couple of escort vehicles eqipped with 2-way radios to ensure that traffic at the most critical areas on the road is out of the way when the oversize load goes past. Simple as .............

I still need to find that other YouTube video.........

 

[Nige]

And I have finally found it ......... took me a while. That's me in the white pickup early in the clip taking to the dirt to get past the convoy to get ready for a turn into the mine about 5 miles up the road. Never realized anyone had caught it on film....!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elNyQ0xZ6mY&feature=related

Plus another 797B coming down the road from Escondida. One tractor ahead, 3 behind to provide braking on the 8% grades down the hill.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOWQpI8Izew

 

[Randy88]

Thanks for the video's, never seen large equipment moved quite like that before, just out of curiosity, how wide were they, how long and how high?

 

[Nige]

I don't have exact figures, but the complete rig including the tractors was around 200ft long, 26ftwide, and about 30ft high to the top of the truck headboard....

Movements like that happen literally all the time. Every machine to get overhauled will be pulled out of the mine and sent to the dealer's shop. One of the reasons is the anal safety/security rules on most of the big mine sites, the hoops suppliers have to jump through to get men & materials on to the site, and often something like obtaining sufficient accomodation on site. Despite the cost of moving the machine off the site and back again something like an overhaul (or a new build for that matter) can be done much faster & cheaper off the mine site. There is also the small matter of the altitude to consider. The mines are generally at around 10,000ft, some are as high as 15,000ft - the dealer shop is at 1000ft...... Human beings work better when there's oxygen in the air, or so my experience tells me.

 

[ben46a]

I think your width may be conservative, but it also may be a different style body. They 97s we put together up in fort mcmurray were 31 ft wide. Any way you cut it its wide for a two lane!

 

[Nige]

My apologies - I messed up the Metric/English conversion. The bodies on those trucks in the clips are actually closer to 32ft wide .......

 

[Nige]

Here's an amusing photo that was shot on a highway in Chile .........

 

[OzDozer]

Kalgoorlie has wide enough streets to drive the biggest dump trucks down them, for the annual St Barbara's Day parade (St Barbara is the patron saint of miners).

http://i48.tinypic.com/j0ffdi.jpg

 

[Randy88]

Thanks for the information and photos everyone, the best part of HEF is seeing how the rest of the world functions and gets things done.

 

[mrkw77]

im to lazy to detache i just side load lol

 

[Lee-online]

I guess you do have low bridges down under!