Peak Downs Mine: BHP build new road to move massive mining shovel

Epic timelapse footage shows engineering gurus in the Bowen Basin moving a mammoth 2000T shovel from mine’s north to south pits. Watch the video.

Why did the shovel cross the road?

The Peak Downs Mine engineering team delivered a critical rail and road crossing to support the relocation of Shovel SHE36 from the north to south pits inside a 36-hour window.

Engineering manager Matt Ray said it had been one of the team’s more challenging projects, but seeing the collaboration across the board, to successfully deliver the project on a tight timeline was a milestone worth celebrating.

“Incorporating three jurisdictions of the mine lease, rail/road corridor, multiple onsite and off lease stakeholders all came together over nine weeks to successfully design, procure, construct and deconstruct a rail bridge and two road crossings for the movement of the 4100 XPC Shovel,” he said.

“Weighing a mammoth 2000T in total, the target was to cross the rail line in a defined 36-hour rail outage.”

The team moved shovel SHE36, weighing 2000 tonnes, from the north to the south pit.

The key elements to enable the crossing included:

· Plan the route from north to south to use existing in ground footing placed in the rail corridor from a previous dragline crossing.

· Redesign the rail bridge to accommodate existing structural elements and procurement lead times.

· 700 metres of purpose pavement to cross the roads and travel across country.

· Upgrade 1.1km of a redundant road to act as a traffic bypass for 4500 movements/day during construction, crossing and deconstruction.

General manager Peak Downs Mine Brendan Lynn congratulated the teams at Peak Downs involved in the project.

“The success of the project was achieved by multiple departments collaborating and working together as a team,” he said.

“This project involved interfaces from a lot of departments including engineering, operations, Maintenance, HSE with support from the leadership teams.

This planning and collaboration ensured the project was delivered safely and informed decisions could be made quickly to ensure deadlines were met to meet our mine plan requirements”.