The Legend of Babe the Plough-dozer

June 09, 2016  •  2 Comments

The story would never have happened if old dozers had any resale value.  But no-one will pay you anything but scrap value for a decades-old second-hand dozer...

Babe the plough dozer first proudly entered service for the Post Master General as a shiny new Caterpillar D9G in December 1968.  Weighing-in at a massive 49 tonnes, she started life laying co-axial cable, including working on the Sydney-Perth Co-ax cable.
Babe in her youth

Over the years, as standards have evolved and life has become a little more civilised, she collected a few modifications, such as an air-conditioned enclosed cabin, roll protection, a zero-tension cable-laying assembly and a petrol starter-motor.

As the dozer fleet was modernised, Babe was increasingly moved into semi-retirement, and if she had any resale value she would probably have been sold.

Then in March 2014, the Network Construction team ran into an unusual challenge.  They had to replace a section of fibre-optic cable between Goodooga and Lightning Ridge.  Because of reactive soil in the area, the existing fibre-optic cable had been developing faults.  The shifting soil would pinch and bend the cable, causing breakages in the delicate glass fibres.  The technical advice was that the best way to avoid the problem was by going deeper, below the reactive soil, where there was less movement.  The challenge was that the standard depth for laying cable was only 900 millimetres, and the modern D7 dozers that the team had couldn't get down to the depths required.  In the face of an urgent deadline for completion, it looked like the job was going to require some expensive specialist excavation work, probably requiring multiple passes by different types of equipment.

Then someone remembered Babe.  She came from a different era, when sometimes cable would be laid as deep as 1500 millimetres.  Babe was broken out of retirement, given a thorough service, and brought back to work.  She laid the entire 41 kilometres of replacement cable herself.

Now Babe is back in the depot in Ningi, north of Brisbane on the way up to Bribie Island, sitting there dreaming of cable-runs long past, and patiently waiting for the next one that the youngsters can't handle by themselves...

Babe’s stats
Engineering role: Heavy bulldozer
Propulsion: Caterpillar tracks
Gross power: 385 hp (287 kW)
Drawbar pull: 71.6 tons
Operation weight: 49 tons
Length: 8.1 m
Width: 4.5 m (blade)
Height: 4 m
Speed: 11.9 km/h forward and 14.7 km/h reverse
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Comments

Rebecca Pierce(non-registered)
BABE is stunning.....captured in text and colour, a glorious beast that should be treasured like so many relics that served their purpose and were discarded when superseded.
Thank you for sharing
kendall taylor(non-registered)
Hi David

The email address i had for you bounced. I Hope everything is fine with you and your family. How are your parents going?

Just in case you didn't know about the 30yrs since yr12 event this coming saturday 3pm at the Kingston Hotel.

Catchya
Kendall
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