I took a trip to Texas this week to document the largest rock cutting machines ever built. Texas is home to the largest concentration of giant trenchers, road miners and rock cutting surface miners in the world. Geology plays a role in this, in particular around San Antonio and Austin. This is home to some of the largest rock excavation companies in the world and the equipment they use all over the southwest and other areas. The Trencor 1860HD is the largest rock trencher ever built. Only 9 such machines exist, with six in Texas now. I was able to see the last unit built in operation near Breckenridge Texas trenching for a huge water supply project. This unit was cutting solid limestone 7 feet wide and 10 feet deep. The machine has a 1,250 hp Cat 3512 to power the digging chain and a 3306 to power the hydraulic system. It weighs about 220 tons. The power and size is incredible to see first hand. It takes FOUR D-8 track chains to handle the digging
Pt 2 Here is one of five Trencor 3000 SM's ever built. Realy a giant milling machine on steroids, it is powered by a Cat 3412 at 1250 hp and weighs in excess of 150 tons. This unit is working on a huge rock job carving out a massive shopping complex and industrial park.It is one of several on this job. View attachment 137115 View attachment 137116 And here is a big Trencor 1660 road miner also on this big job View attachment 137117 View attachment 137118
Tim Nice to see you share some of your great stuff here at HEF I hope there is much more to come, as I always enjoy what you post.
AND Here's the SMALLEST!!!!!!!!!!
Wonder what they paid for it since it has a Ritchey Brothers auction sticker on it?
I'm wondering if the Vermeer T1655 would be bigger? It weighs in at 200t
No, the Trencor 1860HD weighs upwards of 240-250 ton depending on configuration. 1,600 hp total. Also I don't think the 1655 is or can be a trencher. Those machines are built as Terrain Levelers, I don't know if they handle hard rock either. The 1255 does though. The 1655 is two 1255's side by side realy.
Got enough fire suppression onboard that one? LOL
The 1655 cuts the same ground as the 12 To say it's two 1255s isn't quite accurate. It does run 2 C18 engines but hydraulically it is more than double the capacity of a 12 Thanks for the info on the Trencor. I work on the 1655 at the minute and have in the past worked on the 1255 also
The largest of all of the 1860’s is 1860#101 it was cut down the middle and widened 2’ to give a maximum trenching width of 10’ and to. The best of my knowledge it has only been used on 2 jobs. One of them was the lake texoma outfall project in north east texas. It had a custom chain box and used two sets of undercarages per side of the machine. She was massive. for the longest time 8 of the 1860’s were owned by one company each one of them had there little customizations done to them over the years.