This one just commissioned last week in Burma.
Wow that is a beast! What kind of work is it doing!
There are a few lignite coal mines and other mines in Burma/ Myanmar. http://www.projectmaje.org/coal_report.htm
This one is in a copper mine, north west Myanmar. The locals told me they still prefer the name Burma, though the government changed the name to Myanmar. Everytime I told someone I was going to Myanmar I got a confused response and they only knew it as Burma.
Hey Zed, how is the Bucyrus line going to hold up in the recent cuts by Caterpillar? I'm sure you still have some in the pipeline, are they going to continue to take orders for new machines?
Impressive looking machine. Curious as to how that staircase works. I would imagine it's hydraulically operated? Is there a safety switch on it so the machine won't swing with it in the down position? I work around some operators who'd have that removed in short order.
From my group (HMS - Hydraulic Mining Shovels) we have a 'good' problem to have right now, the factories can't build the new models quick enough! We have won a deal in Indonesia for 44 6015B's and 30 6020B's over the next 5 years. As for other Bucyrus/O&K models, the 6015 & 6018 (RH40 & RH90) is all but gone, order books are closed for the backhoe models, but you can still get them in face shovel version. 6015B and 6020B are not available with FS attachment. All the others are still available, and have not heard any talk of dropping further models. We have 6030B and 6060B in development now.
Thanks Zed, love the pics and updates of the big iron. Keep them, coming PS I never want to work on them again but love seeing them (spent 7 years in mining with Cat before they bought Bucyrus)
cb75, the ladder is hydraulic and extends to vertical position. There is a proximity switch for ladder up, and the machine cannot swing or travel with the ladder down.
That's a nice backlog order! Good to hear. That 6060B must be a big one.
You must be one of those top notch , check grade every hour laborers !
What exactly is that supposed to mean?
Have some more pictures of the assembly, just trying to figure out how to load them
Update: Here are some pictures of the same machine nearly 6 months later... It has nearly 3000 hours on it now.
I was impressed that they don't seem to have knocked any paint of it yet!
Thanks for posting the photos Zed! What are the order books like for 6030 through 6090? Is the market for front shovels in the smaller weight classes diminishing? When the RH40 and RH90 order books close, do you expect Caterpillar to offer a shovel front for the 6015B and 6020B? One of the 6015B prototypes was trialed at an operation near me. They put it up against a non-current PC1250 and EX1200 for production comparison testing. I'd love to know how they came to a conclusion considering the differences in boom and stick lengths and bucket capacities. Here are a couple of photos:
There is a plan to design a FS attachment for the 6020B, but this is a long way off and I was told they won't start on that for at least a few years. I would have prefered they do it sooner, but it is what it is. There is not that much demand for smaller FS these days, though it would have been nice to have something to offer as we are now just handing it to Komatsu/Hitachi. 6015 and 6018 I am sure can still be ordered as FS. I have a copy of that production study, it is very comprehensive and yes the machines are not identical, but it is the competition for that size machine. I think they were shooting for a 10% performance benefit for the NPI models over the competition.