The shift change bus on the Shell Muskeg River Mine is taking me to her.. She will be mine for today.. From the distance she looks huge. As I get closer and closer to the world’s biggest graders, dozers and excavators, the tiny 25 passenger bus feels like I am riding in a Hot wheels car.. I see her grow bigger and bigger as we approach. There she is. The top of the bus can’t reach the height of her tires.. I can hear and feel the rumbling air and ground as she idles there. Her V20, 4500-5000 HP (They are detuned, as they can generate upward of 7500 HP. But because of this soft ground environment it would shear transmissions and final drives of) engine with quad 14 inch turbo is breathing like a world swallowing titan waiting to be unleashed and let lose on the world.. In a way it is what it is.. I walk out of the bus and walk in front of the monster and give the thumbs up which tells the bus driver it is ok and safe to leave me here. A quick glance at her to see if there are leaks or damages on the tires that could both stop her and kill me. Each tire is $65,000.00, and 12 feet high and more than 6 feet wide. At 106 P.S.I, they are bombs when heated. Some of them have blown in the past and sent pieces half a mile down the road and cut people in half while they were standing.. DO NOT ever underestimate the magnitude of the accidents and dangers lurking beneath her 400 tons yellow figure. And that is her empty weight. Loaded she tips the scales at close than 1.8 million pounds. I unlock her on the bumper, which is higher than I am. The transmission is electrically disconnected from the engine when no operator is onboard. I put my backpack on the top step of the stepladder, which is close to seven feet high. I heave myself up and start climbing the 15 steps to not quite the top. I walk diagonally across the radiator, which is as high a regular house front face. Once on top I look around, and suddenly everything is tiny. From one ton pick up trucks to regular eighteen-wheelers who look like little toys from up there.. I step up the cab and open the door. I am standing above the engine separated by heavy gage metal plate engine covers. The deck trembles and the rails are humming. I sit inside and look at will be my world for 12 hours. 130 feet wide blind spot, 50 something feet long. Almost as high and wide. It is like sitting on top of a four apartment block on wheels and have the steering wheel on the corner. As the door closes, the space I am in gets quiet. I look at the dash, instrument, shifter (7 speed automatic) the 3 brake systems on the floor and the one on the steering column. The four point harness and the computer screens in front of me display everything from vital mechanical information to loads, Shovels I am assigned to load at and where I am dumping.. Nothing you say? Well, let me try to put this in perspective. The roads are close to 100 feet wide. It is hard to make a U-Turn on it on one shot. When I meet another Hauler, there is not a lot of room for error on the road as we meet. She rocks and rolls gently when driving over bumps that are sometimes higher than a one ton pick up truck. When loaded I am the equivalent of 23-26 18-wheelers (80,000 lbs each) I can carry the equivalent of 95 F-150 pick up trucks. On my blind-side; you have to be parked close to 70 feet away for me to see you. Forty, feet in front! At times when rolling on semi soft surface the weight causes a 2-3 feet ripple waves on the ground behind my wheels. In winter the pressure caused by the weight liquefies the ice, which makes this monster hydroplane at 10 Km/h. Going on a power slide regularly on a 2 million pounds truck and recovering from it, will give you a new appreciation for the expression, “Pucker Factor” I assigned to an electric Shovel for my first load.. This shovel makes my truck look like a little dinky toy. The Bucyrus shovel Bucyrus Shovel fuelled by electricity generated from our own power plant, uses enough electricity in a 12-hour shift to power up a city of 20,000. The Bucket can load close to 100 tons at the time, and towers over me like she could easily pick me up.. it does not take long to load me with 400 tons of ore. Backing up to this titan in daytime or nighttime is not for the faint of heart. You base your line solely on two 3 feet plastic cones hanging under the and behind the giant bucket and line them up to the edge of your box, and this from your mirror on the right side when right side loading which is about 30 feet from you, to attain the proper loading position. Mistakes do not forgive and can cause millions of dollars in damages and let’s not even mention the human cost lives. Training is fun, but intensive and time spent in a simulator to make sure you can handle it is a good idea before you are released into an eight million dollar truck. You do not plan 100 feet ahead when driving these Caterpillar 797’S. You plan as far as your eyes can see. Shit happens quickly! Blind side rule and right of way rules are never an option. You screw up on this and as past has demonstrated, you can lose your life in a heartbeat. Driving over a pick up has happened and the operator did not even know he had just flattened a one ton pick up and taken a life.. But at the end of the shift, after delivering myself 4000-6000 tons of ore safely, I realize I do have to best job in the world. I am a little boy in a grown man body driving the world’s largest Tonka truck in a 100 billion dollars sand box and paid well above 6 figures to work (Embarrassing to call this work) six month a year. I still do not like Fort Mac! Never will! But this job is like nothing on earth.. Be safe out there
Posted on: Tue, 09 Jul 2013 02:08:05 +0000
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