How many of us operators have had that sliding feeling when you are loading a tracked excavator onto a low loader/lowboy trailer. Picture the scene, its cold, muddy and wet the trailer bed is all metal and it is parked on a slight camber, you make it up the ramps and then she just starts sliding off the side!
This happened to me once on an old Hymac 580D and I must say it was a very frightening experience indeed. So just imagine if it was to happen with a massive mining sized excavator like a Komatsu PC5500 for instance?
Well we have received this batch of photos from two of our friends down under which show a machine slip which happened recently.
This incident happened at Griffin Coal Mine at Collie in Western Australia and apparently is not the first time that something like this has taken place.
Its a slightly different scenario though as by all accounts the PC5500 which weighs in the region of 527000kg was already on the trailer and being moved to a different location in the mine when the chains which were securing it to the trailer snapped under the strain.
Someone on the ground was heard to say "I think we might need some bigger chains mate" !
I suspect a fairly expensive trailer repair bill was the order of the day after this event.
Thanks to Gary Steen and Shaun Hall for the photos.
