The Classic Machinery Network

Does anyone have info on this beast, I undestand that only 36 were ever made, so they were pretty rare, I know of only one that worked in Welsh opencast at Wimpey's Ffos Las site.

Hi Geraint-I've looked this one up in a couple of books and apparently the G350 was made from 1980 to 1986 and 34 were sold.It was designed for use in large surface mines and weighed in at 90,000lbs-this is all the info I could find. Tim

From the book ''Opencast Coal Plant & Equipment'' by Bill Huxley it seems that NSM operated an O&K G350 grader to support the O&K RH300 and Wabco 170C haul truck combination it used for a while.
According to Bill Huxley's book and Sunshine Miners by Peter Grimshaw the O&K RH300 seems to have operated on three sites, one in Staffordshire and two in Derbyshire.
In the current (August 2009) issue of Earthmovers magazine there is a photo of a G350 that has been preserved by a former mining contractor.

Miller Mining owned a couple of the later series G350 graders. A very rare grader to find anywhere. There were different series produced within the 36 machines - mainly upgrades and the most obvious was the change of cab to the modern version. I have pictures somewhere of this machine. They were a powerfull grader but did have some reliability issues.

There was a RH300 parked up at Taylor Woodrow's site at Nadine's, Swadlincote, must have been around 1995/6 ish, don't know what became of it...

SB

Miller had a 350 at Houghton opencast nr Barnsley.
Not sure the RH300 was still in one piece in 95/96 i thought it was cut up before then.
I last saw the RH300 at NSm's site at Godkin nr Ripley, it was loading Wabco trucks if i remember right.

Hi, Renaultman.
Been there, dunn that, miserable sods wouldn't give me a T-shirt to prove it. 42 Tons operating weight with a rear-mounted ripper, Cummins 855 'donk', 20 foot blade, rigid frame, some air-over-hydraulic controls (different - not necessarily better, but 'different'.), would push-load a Cat 660B scraper better than a Cat D8H dozer and was a real glutton for work. I was at best comfortably busy keeping fill and haul roads in shape for 3 x Cat 660B scrapers, ripping the floor of the borrow pit for them, cleaning up after topsoil stripping, fishing out the odd bogged scraper and any other odd jobs they could find to throw at me. It was NOT a Cat grader but I enjoyed my time on it, mostly because of the sheer grunt of the beast, I think.

That was on a job constructing an earth-walled retention basin for treated effluent for sugar cane irrigation near Hervey Bay, Queensland, Australia, in 1996. I don't know where the jigger is now but could possibly find out.

Here is a picture of one of the Miller Mining G350 graders......yes and it's in bits!

Thanks for those, what was the problem, a leaking seal.

tim wrote:Hi Geraint-I've looked this one up in a couple of books and apparently the G350 was made from 1980 to 1986 and 34 were sold.It was designed for use in large surface mines and weighed in at 90,000lbs-this is all the info I could find. Tim

G350.jpg

In the book Orenstein&Koppel 125 years building machines lokomtives and tractors stood the production begin in 1979 until begin ninetys .
Gretings , Roel .