Komatsu has released the HD1500-8 mechanical drive dump truck, a 142 metric tonne capacity hauler designed to reduce cost per tonne through such features as highest payload in its class, faster cycle times, improved fuel efficiency, longer component life and enhanced maintainability. It replaces Komatsu’s HD1500-7, introduced in 2008 and with more than 50 units…
Three big Hitachi Zaxis excavators at work – a 480, 450 and 200 – demolishing a 21-year-old, multi-level Auckland apartment building on Mt Eden Road Auckland to make way for the new Mt Eden Railway Station on the city’s $3.4 billion City Rail Link. The 11 apartments cost the council $7.8 miliion to buy all…
Grant Rinkhoff from the US enjoyed our Classic Machine article on the Oliver OC-18 so much he sent us his own story of an Oliver rebuild organised by his father Ed. This Oliver OC-18 was bought new in 1956 with a 12 foot angle dozer blade, a double cable winch, 24 volt battery starter and…
Kubota’s KX033-4 compact, three tone excavator is the latest member of its KX series and replaces the KX91-3. The machine shares many of the standard features that Kubota’s larger class machines including a larger cab, dash-controlled pre-sets for auxiliary circuits and a standard hydraulic diverter valve are a few examples of the new features. “The…
The NZTA is the largest single client for the civil contractors, spending $4 billion per year per from the National Land Transport Fund, influencing another $1.5 billion of local government spending, and investing another $0.5 billion of Crown funds. When Government signals a change to how that much money will be spent it has massive…
Auckland’s next decade of transport is looking fantastic with latest version of the Auckland Transport Alignment Project just released by Transport Minister Phil Twyford and Mayor Phil Goff. We’ll have some more complete analysis but here are some of the highlights: It’s a fully funded, $28 billion package over the coming decade. $4.4b of new…
The teeth of a pre-European ceremonial wooden comb, a heru, have been discovered during earthworks on the Huntly section of the Waikato Expressway. A machine operator uncovered an old midden site with an excavator. He realised the significance of the find and stopped work immediately to allow time for Kaiarahi Kawe Nikora to contact the…
Things at Transmission Gully are going smoothly. There are over 300 machines working on the site during the season. What better way to check progress than through the picture album? Here are some recent images from the construction zone(s).
The excavator we saw performing at the Transdiesel product launch event was built in Volvo’s Korean factory and had been in the country a fortnight. This is the largest crawler excavator in the company’s range: at the time of writing it’s the sole EC950E in New Zealand. More EC950Es will inevitably follow, but there’s something…
On Friday we were able to shoot some footage of the three new Volvo machines in action. In the clip below you’ll see the Volvo EC950E Excavator operating separately then see the L260 Wheel Loader working in tandem with the A60H Articulated Hauler(the rear view).
Last Friday the stars aligned for brand Volvo. Customers of Transdiesel, Volvo Construction Equipment’s NZ agency, converged in Auckland from as far afield as Perth and Singapore to attend an demonstration of new machines in the construction range. There was also the small matter of a stopover in the Volvo Ocean Race, and its associated…
Running between Greymouth and Westport, State Highway 6 runs along a scenic albeit exposed stretch of the South Island coastline. The contractors responsible for maintenance on SH6, Fulton Hogan and sub-contractors MBD Contracting, are on alert at present, as a tropical cyclone is scheduled to make landfall today. It’s actually the second tropical storm in…
