Have a Guess

Ron,

Yes they are DM 800's
Old Alex Clark from Koorda drove No34, the one in Cams picture when Bells had them.
There were five of them I believe originally.
From Bells they went to Kal. Probibly Goldring.
The last 15 years I know of they have been sitting in a yard in Boulder south of Kal.
As a result of a deceased estate they were purchased by Charlie Hull for the heavy Mack diffs and moved to Waroona.
Old Alex said one had an auto fitted as a trial and wasnt very successfull.
Of the four that made it to Waroona three of them were driven onto floats.
There is abit of a drive by a couple of people to have one saved.

Basil

Hi all, There is an ex Dampier salt truck running from Bris area to the north, it has had a 3408 Cat fitted, has had the bonnet cut n shut with about 5 in added to raise it. At a glance it looks like a T900, it is yellow, Itsa beast.
The 8 wheeler Mack is actually an R800, they do use a DM800 chassis, but a DM has a cab offset to the left and was only available in LHD. There were four built in 73 for Goldsworthy Mining Ltd. The model is A8-R897RSX, A8 signifies it is an Australian developed 8 wheeler. 97 is the ENDT866 'Thermodyne' V8 of 375hp. They pulled 31 cu.yd. dump trailers.

Jeff.

Baz - Thanks for the info. Yes, I thought they were the Bell Bros trucks. I didn't know that Goldring ended up with them.

They must have been out of commission a long time, because these style of dump trucks were very rapidly overtaken by the more conventional and dedicated style of mining dump truck, such as the big Cats and Komatsu's.

The reason for this was simple load capacity and efficiency. The dedicated 2-axle mining dump trucks appeared on the Kalgoorlie goldfields initially, as mostly 35 tonners in the late 1970's (there were a few 17 tonners, but these were mostly small quarry trucks).

However, the dump truck size rapidly moved to 50 tonners in the early 1980's. The brother and I owned and worked 19 of the 50 tonne Komatsu 465-1's in the early 1990's in Kal .. and these were starting to become small trucks by 1995, when we sold out. 85 tonners were then becoming the norm .. nowadays if you haven't got 200 to 400 tonners, you're behind the times.

The 8 wheeler Macks were probably limited by their design to about 40 tonnes .. and their biggest single problem, of course, is that hauling out of the average mine ramp, with a 1 in 7 grade .. the front axles aren't carrying anything like their weight capacity, because nearly all the weight is on the rear axles, due to the steepness of the climb.

The other angle is that the Macks struggle on 1 in 7 ramp grades, whereas the dedicated mining trucks do it easy. Thus the ramp grades had to be lower for the Macks and any other dump trucks that were basically converted road trucks. You'll notice the ramp angles in the pics below are more like 1 in 12. This makes for slower haulage and the need for more material to be excavated from the pit.

Here's a few pics of the Princess Royal open pit (about 3 kms NE of Norseman), carried out by Charlie Hull, of Waroona Contracting, in 1975.

This was one of the first major open pit gold mines excavated in the W.A. Goldfields. Notice how the dump trucks Charlie used were 6 wheeler Macks (I think they were R-700's) with a capacity of about 25 tonnes .. none of the equipment had ROPS or enclosed cabs, and safety gear was a pretty low priority ..
The scrapers are open-bowl Cat 621's, the dozers are D9G's, the grader is a rigid-frame 12E, and the loader is a 988A.
All these earthmoving machines would be laughed at now .. they have probably nearly all been long ago scrapped, apart from the odd 12E still doing service as station maintenance graders.

Waroona Contracting worked 24/7/365 on this pit for over 6 months, to access a very rich parcel of ore that went about 1/2 oz to the tonne (about 15 grammes/tonne).
Nowadays, many mines are working on 1.5 grammes/tonne and making money out of it. You can actually see physical gold in ore that goes 1/2 oz/tonne.

The scrapers are hauling waste on this project, and the trucks are hauling ore. The ore has been stockpiled to the right front of the Cat loader, by the dozers, and the loader is loading it into the trucks.
Notice there's not an excavator in sight .. excavators hadn't even been considered as a work tool in this era, and the biggest excavator around then, had about a 3/4 cu. metre bucket ..
No-one would even consider using scrapers to excavate at this depth nowadays .. they are too slow on steep grades.
Big excavators and big dump trucks have put all this kind of equipment right out of the picture, with their massive increase in efficiency over scrapers, loaders and road trucks.

The Princess Royal was a fabulously rich mine that started life as an underground mine, accessed by a decline shaft, about 1910.
It produced about 1/2 oz gold to the tonne, consistently for about 60 years, and was one of the mines that kept Norseman alive.
It would have employed probably between 250 and 500 people on average, during its underground life.

jmackb - Thanks for the precise 8 wheeler Mack info, that's interesting. I found a few more pics of the Princess Royal pit.
I have a suspicion that because of the colour of these Macks, they were actually Brambles trucks that Charlie hired for the job, because he had no off-road dump trucks of his own, at that time.
These trucks are just road-legal, rock dump trucks .. they aren't even overwidth.

Notice in the last pic how a Landrover was still a feature of the workforce .. although there's a SWB FJ45 in the pic, too .. thus showing the trend starting, of going over to Tojo's .. away from the gutless, old, axle-breaking, Landrovers ..

Sorry about the long-distance shots .. but at that time, I didn't know anyone in Waroona Contracting, so I couldn't get into the pit for close-up shots.
As a result, I had to be satisfied with "tourist-type" pics, taken over the edge of the pit.
Of course, back then, I could drive in to the pit edge and take pics, and no-one cared.
Try doing that nowadays! - in todays climate, you generally have a boom gate on the driveway to the mine, and have to go through an airport-style inspection, just to get to the offices!! .. not to mention a full-on, one day, induction course of the mine, before you can even drive onto it!! ..

Ron, The Mack A8's trailers were built by Bellquip, they were equipped with 65 ton Bosich bogies. The hoists were twin 75 ton ROC. The complete units were built for 75 ton cap., and usually carried 65-70 ton for an all up gross around 105 ton. The articulating point was ahead of the leading rear axle's tyre. They were built for use between Sunrise Hill and Shay Gap.
Dave, If I'm correct the nickname 'Flintstone' or 'Flinstone' refered to an R600 Mack with steel butterfly hood and fenders as opposed to the one piece fibreglass tilt hood. A DM800 or an R800 uses the same front albeit longer than an R600. A DM600 also has either steel or fibreglass front although shorter than an R600. I think this was coined either because of flintstone, a hard rock, and the hard front of the said Mack or because of 'The Flinstones' you know, down at Bedrock. So I think the term can be used to identify one of these Mack Trucks. The Shay Gap A8-R800's used fibreglass one piece mudguards (fenders) and a fibreglass hood, the only hard item being the expoesed radiator. So even though 'Flinstone' is an unofficial nickname, I don't think a 'Shay Gap' Mack is a 'Flintstone'. But it could be argued. What is a Flinstone Mack?
My answer is ... An R600 with a steel front.
I could be wrong but I think 'Flinstone' is an Aussie term.
DM800 and R800 are all steel front anyway so no need to differentiate.
DM600, none came here originally so does'nt come into the story.
This is my opinion.

Regards Jeff

Great pics onetrack, I will check em out

Jeff - I've always understood that the "Flintstone" Mack saying, referred to the steel-bonnetted, angular-nose Macks .. because they sort of resembled the Flintstone cartoon vehicles.
Any Mack that had a fibreglass nose was never referred to a "Flintstone" over here in the West .. even though they might have been produced at the same time as a Flintstone, and had the same drivetrain.
They were always just called an R-600 or R-700. And yes, I believe "Flintstone Mack" is purely an Aussie term.

Cheers - Ron.

Onetrack, they are R600's, They could be R685 or R611RSX. They would fall in to the 8',2 1/2" oa width. I see what you mean regarding Brambles.
Leighton had 8 or more R685RSX, on 12.00x24",s but they had Highgate Aluminium bodies, 21 cu.yd. They came in at 8' 2 1/2".
Jeff.

I found a couple of pics of the Dampier Salt C-500's from the late 1970's/early 1980's. Dampier are very coy about letting anyone take pics of their operations, it's nearly impossible to find pics of the salt work.
I went into Dampier Salt in the late 1980's to inspect one of their loaders they had for sale, and you were carefully guided to only what they wanted you to see .. :

One pic shows the K-Whoppers dragging triples, and the other shows them dragging substantially overwidth doubles.

I'm not sure which trailers came first .. but I think they used the big doubles first, then went over to narrower triples.
The massively overwidth trailers would have posed an extra cost in having to make roads wider everywhere, so I suspect the narrower triples were regarded as being a more economic move.

The salt is heavy as buggery, it has a high water content, and these ole K-Whoppers earn their keep, they are hauling some massive gross loadings, well over the 120 tonne mark, and more like around 150 tonnes.

Jeff - I'm sorry, my memory is playing tricks on me here, and you have just galvanised it into gear, and made me realise, I've stuffed up on the earlier info posted.

The Princess Royal open-pit project was held and run by Leightons .. the Mack trucks ARE Leighton trucks .. and Waroona Contracting subcontracted some of the earthmoving gear that's in the pit.

My memory was initially faulty for thinking that Waroona Contracting held the contract. They were only subcontractors on this job.

Leightons owned the scrapers, and the Macks .. Waroona Contracting owned the D9G's and the 988 loader. I can't recall who owned the Cat 12E grader.

Cheers - Ron.