The Classic Machinery Network

Hello Everyone, The site was now in full swing & 1 of the RB-195Bs that my uncle operates was working on the new site,while the other,along with the Poclain 1000CKB backhoe were working still over on the old site extension. The Lima 2400B had now been changed over to dragline & was pulling c...

Hello Fred, With regards to the Derek Crouch site @ Onllwyn,a close friend & colleague of mine, that I worked with @ Taylor-Woodrow,Brynhenllys,his father was the plant manager on this coal site.His son David Lewis served his plant fitters apprenticeship on Wimpey,s Onllwyn site. I am quite fami...

Hello Everyone, This was a long running open cast coal site,from the 50s to the mid 1980s,although,there was different contracts awarded to Wimpey over the complete time of the site,which also included a site to Wimpey on the boundry,called Bryn Dafaid,in the early 70s.We will talk about this later ...

Hello again everyone, I would like to carry on the story of the above site. The Lima 2400B & the 2 x RB 150 shovels were progressing along on the new contract.The previous contract was still being worked over the other side,where the 2 x RB 195B shovels & a now relocated Poclain 1000CKB bach...

Hi Dave, Excellent story, You can see a lot of photos of this contract in the Book Opencast Images.From what I see Coal Contractors used a big fleet of Caterpillar 631Cs on that job & a Cat D9H can be seen pushing them.That actual Cat D9H was first owned by McErlain & it ended up down in Sou...

delHello Everyone, I would like to mention in this post,as we have mentioned the Terex R45,R50,R70 &33-11 trucks.The Allison transmission,torque brake,as the name implies (retarder).The brake is applied by the operator & is a lever by the side of the gearshift (quite a big lever & manual...

Hello Again everyone, I will carry on my story as per the site contract,as far as my memory allows me to. The RB 71 shovel was moved from Ffyndaff & you can see on the Meadowgate Videos on Youtube that it was moved up to this site in the mid 70s. The next 2 x new machines to arrive on site were ...

Hi Dave, Your latest photo is of an O&K RH40.When I worked on the F Shephard'Hill Ras Bryn & Pen Bryn Oer O.C.C.S,we had 1 on there,although it had the earlier paint scheme,of all red.It was used to load 3 x Caterpillar 769C trucks,1 of which I operated.It used to load us with 4 bucket fulls...

Hello everyone, I am going to write about this site in segments,because of the long duration of this contract,of 30 years.I was only a young boy when it started & most of my stories come from my father & both my uncles long term employment on this site,with Sir Lindsey Parkinson Mining &...

Hello Everyone, I forgot to mention,about the Kohring 1266 backactor,that was on the Shand mining Park-Slip site in the 70s.This machine was also bought new by Shand for the contract.The machine had 2 x GM Detroit Diesel V71 engines in it.I am not sure what Cylinder engines they were.The machine was...