I had a load of pipe delivered today, and got to talking to the truck driver. He said he'd done heavy haul for a number of years (said he's retiring next month after 41 years of driving), and was telling me about some of the loads he had hauled. Anyway, he said he moved part of a huge Cat dozer from the plant in Illinois to a gold mine in Nevada. Claimed it was called a D19-750. Said the track frames were 51' long, tracks were at least 8' wide, blade had to be moved in 3 pieces, etc... He said it was supposed to be the first one they ever made, and was being taken to that mine for testing before production. He said he had moved D-11's before, and this thing made them look small. Said it was powered by 2 V-12's. Does anyone know anything about this? I would have thought he was full of crap, but everything else he talked about having moved sounded realistic. And by that, I mean he seemed pretty knowledgable about other large equipment, and what it took to haul it. It just seemed kinda far fetched to me, but I'm by no means any type of authority on large mining equipment. The biggest dozer I've ever been on, or will probably ever be on was a D9-L. It just made me curious.
I wouldn't put it past CAT to come up with a bigger mammoth machine to stay ahead Komatsu. I work in Peoria, IL and get to see all kinds of their machines loaded on rail cars and semis. Haven't seen this one though.
I wonder what he had been smoking?
Those actually do exist. They are ment for filling in parts of the mine once that part is no longer needed. They go as large as D57. http://www.kenkenkikki.jp/zukan/e_bull_h04.html That's all for working mines. Want to move a mountain? the D19 can move it bit by bit. Anything above the standard D11, is typically going to be custom made. Not standardized. Only two items for mining equipment that's standardized, are the massive "Dump "Trucks" and the massive Excavators. Everything else is custom as far as mining stuff goes.
the pic in the link you have there is a komatsu 575, not a cat...handtpipeline said the trucker told him it was a d-19-750 cat dozer
Apparently the truck driver isn't the only one who's been smoking someting funny......LOL.
lots of people call any tractor on tracks a cat just like they call anything on rubber tires with a bucket on it that loads trucks a payloader, or every scraper is a tournapul, or used to be.
:idontgetit i reckon
I don't know, I would have just passed it off as BS, if he hadn't had seemed as no-nonsense and knowledgable about large equipment as he seemed to be. He absolutely claimed it was A Caterpillar, and I think he said from Peoria Illinois. I'm sure he said Illinois. I also forget how many trucks he claimed it took to move it. It wasn't the kind of story someone usually makes up as they go. He was too descriptive for it to be made up on the spot. He said I believe that the track frames were each 51' long. Is that something that Cat would possibly do, build a prototype and send it to a mine like that for field testing before any production run? Or would something that large just be built on a custom, per order basis? I can't see there being a huge demand for such a machine, kinda like a 575 Komatsu. And how would they keep such a beast quiet in the industry?
That would be fantastically large, cause I think a 575 is only about 40' from blade to rippers And, if y'all will sit on Tiny: Truckdrivers are renowned for being full of it.
IF, and it's a big if.........Cat were to build something like that, it would go to their proving grounds and have a bunch of the bugs worked out of it before it went to any mine to test out. The biggest dozer Cat has built is the D11T. There are claims that they have built prototype D12s, but from the sources I have, those are merely stories to try and make the story teller look good. I have no doubt that a larger dozer has had planning work done for it, but there simply isn't a big enough market for one at this point.......with the technology they are currently using. Now, once the electric drive is worked out on the larger machines, this might change things.....dramatically.
Cat did twin 9s back before the days of the D10 so anything is possiable. There were a few side by side 9s in the strip mines of Ohio.
there are strip mines in ohio??
Maybe I should said surface mines. You dont get out of WV much I take it?
yeah i get out of wv alot and i have been all over ohio, my mom lives in columbus, i went to school in lima, and i've never seen a strip (surface) mines anywhere, what are they mining? if its coal it just about has to be on the eastern part of the state
Most all the mining was/is in the east central and southeasten part of the state. Some of the largest mining shovels in the world worked in that area with the last one being retired and scraped just a few years ago. There was a large mine at Zanesville Oh operated by AEP for years. Google up the Silver Spade or the Muskie and check out the pics...... I think your will be impressed.
been through zanesville before and didnt know thats where silver spade and big muskie ate at though...but i guess that would be prime territory for a strip because there couldnt be much cover
Truckdriver... driving 41 yrs? Started about 1969ish? Sounds about right... "Lucy in the sky with Diamonds"... Personally I am not buying it. Even for a non production model. I load truckdrivers and even used to be one.... If they think someone will believe anything they are being told? It's STORYTIME....
according to this, this was the biggest ever made, looks like cat had a lot to do with it ??? http://www.vincelewis.net/acco.html
There are indeed surface coal mines in eastern Ohio (also underground coal mines). I worked from 1978 to 1987 as a Reclamation Specialist for the US Department of the Interior, Office of Surface Mining. But, please, don't hold that against me!!
While that is a big dozer, built with alot of Caterpillar parts, and even kinda looks like a Cat, it has never made it out of Italy. Let alone to Peoria, loaded on a bunch of trucks and shipped to Wyoming. Perasonally I dont belive anything that large could fly under any radar for any lenght of time. SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE would have taken a picture of one of the loads someplace along the line. I know if I would have passed something like that going down the freeway on a lowboy, I would cause a wreck just to get a pic or two!
and the Acco is still only about 40' long from blade to rippers.
I agree Don't forget the OP was writting about something that happened some time back, not everyone took pictures like they do today.
He didn't really give a time frame, but from the way he talked about it, it was supposedly in the last couple of years. I thought it was a Oversize Load of BS, but he seemed pretty familar with a lot of other models of large equipment. It woulda been a lot more convincing if he had a pic of some kind. Cell phone cameras have been out quite a while now, and if I was ever around something like that, you can bet I'd have some pics of it somehow...
Okay I miss understood, not everybody owns cell phones, I just bought my 1st cell phone a week ago, said I'd never own one.