Scraper Meets the End of the Road

It’s been a while since we featured any material from long term Australian friend of the Digger Man Blog Gary Steen, who has shared these photos of an ageing Cat Scraper meeting its maker!

Gary has worked on some of the most massive earthmoving projects in Australia, including most recently the giant Western Sydney airport job, which at one time hosted the largest fleet of motor scrapers anywhere in Australia, with 78 units in operation at one point.

With large numbers of scrapers now heading back to the yard in preparation for the next big muckshift, Gary and his team have been having to find room to store the returnees, unfortunately this has meant that certain end of life service units, have had to be disposed of, either for spares or scrap value.

This machine was a Cat 651B single engined motor scraper from the 1970's, according to Gary she had big hours on the meter and had not been used for many years. It came from the era of old technology, and its increasingly difficult to source parts to keep these old girls going.In addition, with all the new emissions regulations, it is difficult to get these old units onto projects.

Gary said, "Its sad but her time was up, this old machine would have made loads of money for the company over the years. It only took the cutting torch and a Cat 336D excavator fitted with a grab one day to reduce her to scrap". 

The scene is enough to break any old earthmoving man’s heart as this once mighty beast, is reduced to lumps of scrap metal, and who knows, you may one day buy a new piece of equipment with some of its DNA built in.

As sad as the photos are, we thank Gary for sharing them with us here on the Digger Man Blog.