My Account
Four big boys toys are hard at work on the Puhoi to Warkworth motorway shifting around 6000 cubic metres of material a day.
The machines are three 60-tonne Komatsu 605 rigid dump trucks and a 120-tonne Komatsu 1250 excavator (digger).
They are part of the biggest cut and fill stage of the project with 2.3 million cubic metres to be shifted to form the foundation for the motorway.
They arrived in September, with the excavator coming from Australia in five truck loads and requiring two cranes to be pieced together over a week.
The kit cost $7 million in total, with the dump trucks $1.8 million each and the excavator $1.6 million.
All of the vehicles require regular servicing and fuel burns fast with the 605 needing 280 litres a day while the 1250 uses 360 litres a day.
The excavator has a bucket capacity of seven cubic metres and the trucks will take loads of up to 60 tonnes.
The trucks work on a constant rotation cycle so the excavator can continuously shift material to achieve maximum value and efficiency on the project. It takes about six bucket loads to fill the truck.
This will be the biggest machinery used on the Puhoi to Warkworth project and will be used on the earthworks stage until mid-next year.
One other Komatsu 1250 excavator from the South Island has already been operating on another part of the project.
Around four million cubic metres of earth will be shifted during the whole project.
