[BITList] Newcastle MEGA MOVE road trip

[John Feltham]

Many of you may not be aware the Newcastle Port is undergoing a large expansion project. The Newcastle Coal Infrastructure Group was given approval to expand its operations within the port, building its third coal exporting terminal. As part of the project the Hunter River was deepened to allow access for the larger ships further within the port. Another stockyard was built with additional rail and conveyor systems incorporated. This stage was completed in mid 2010, creating an export capacity of 30 million tonnes per annum.  

In August 2010, Stage 2 was approved. Stage 2 would repeat the construction phase of Stage 1, increasing the export capacity to 52 million tonnes per annum. To keep up with demand, another Coal Stacker Reclaimer would be purchased as part of the project, imported from Korea. 

Dad mentioned he heard a story on the radio last week about an accident at the port. As soon as the story was made public, it was quickly removed. After emailing around I found out some of the components of the coal stacker had arrived at port and were ready for transport to the site. Turns out one of the 200T components had fallen off the truck last weekend as a result of a hydraulic hose failing on the trailer. The component tilted and swayed for the SLOWEST 8 seconds ever one of the supervisers told me until it came to rest with very minimal damage. This component on the night was cancelled while the second component was still ready to be moved. First Image was from last Saturday night. It is the base of the stacker. 

As you can see, the Police are on site and all the electricity cables are removed. The Ports were very quiet about the operation. Once seeing the image I was keen to get up there and see last nights operation. They would be moving 2 more larger components, one of which is the component that fell off the trailer last weekend. This is the 'C' shaped component that enables the Stacker Reclaimer to slew left and right. 

Both components were over the 200 Tonne each and required a lot of supervision during the transport which was about 1500m. 

At 8pm last night, I left Sydney, Newcastle bound, hoping to make port before the roads were shut and the area was locked down. I arrived just as the last electrical cables were being removed. With 2 cameras at hand and a tripod, i set up at waited it out. 1am came and amongst all the workers on the job, myself and 2 other fellas were the only public members in the area. Another 2 men were at hand taking photos for a magazine, and recording a video for the haulage company. For the sheer size of the operation at hand, the port had done a remarkable job at keeping the whole operation secret. Not one newspaper article, nor were there any people out watching apart from the 3 of us. 

With the huge components now ready to move, they moved one component at a time. Police escorts followed by haulage escorts and a crowd of foot patrollers made the slow journey to site. I called it a night at 6am and made the sketchy drive home after a long night of no sleep. In bed at 9am for what was probably the most well deserved sleep in a long time! Very worth while road trip! 

By the way... the second component, the tripper car only just made it underneath the conveyor bridge over the road. Took about 15 minutes for the truck to make multiple maneuvers back and forth, side to side to try get the component underneath the bridge but also keep the legs of it within the road alignment and away from the trees and poles. Few photos of the operation. Hope they work.Enjoy.


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