Tough tough toys for big big boys
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Or on the staff of Caterpillar’s Malaga Demonstration and Learning Centre (MDLC). It is their bread and butter. Nestling in the hills 15km above Malaga is one of the Costa del Sol’s best-kept secrets. Caterpillar has occupied the 91-hectare site since 1971 and until recently only Caterpillar customers, employees and the locals knew of its existence.
The complex – serving Europe and Africa – has a 176-seat auditorium, 10 classrooms, workshops, maintenance bays, offices and is used to run courses for Caterpillar service engineers and sales teams as well as being a centre for product testing, performance analysis and seminars.
MDLC has a resident 65-strong machine demonstration fleet. The equipment ranges from mini excavators to 104-tonne 850hp bulldozers and 91-tonne capacity dumpers. Caterpillar builds dumpers for use in open cast mines up to 327-tonne capacity but sadly are too big to be demonstrated at the Malaga site.
But at Michelin’s test site along the coast at Almera they have two, which test the £25,000 tyres they use!
The equipment at Malaga is used primarily for demonstrations and for training operator trainers, but it also plays a role in performance analysis and training maintenance engineers.
MDLC’s customer programs manager, Malcolm High, is assisted by a handful of highly skilled machine operators who spend a large amount of their time manning the regular product demos.
‘On the general construction demo we normally bring out the full range of machines we have on site and we do it with only five operators,’ High says. ‘We do other demos, depending on the customer’s requirements, which include quarry and aggregates, waste, demolition, heavy construction, paving and road construction.’
The demo we watched was the general construction demo. Seated in the grandstand there was not a single machine in sight, but with a nod from Malcolm High, suddenly a procession of machines appeared including a 93-tonne 992G-wheeled loader with a 12.3cu-m bucket.
The loaders were followed by the big dump trucks and the loaders then went about their work of digging out from the base of a preprepared bench loading the material into the dumpers.
Once all the machines have been put through their paces, High brings the curtain down with MDLC’s party piece. Four big dozers line up behind the 500-tonne pile of spoil and push it in unison down the slope, over the bench with the dozers driving over the top; all to music.
ROADWAY had to get in on the big machine action and MDLC kindly allowed us to have a go. As you know the ROADWAY team are used to driving heavy trucks but an 18ft wide, 938hp monster tipper was, until we visited MDLC, well out of our league.
The 777D 4x2 tipper has a two-seater cab that is accessed by a climb up two ladders. Once inside the controls are similar to most automatic trucks with a touch pad seven-speed gear selection panel controlling Cat’s own transmission.
Two pedals under the steering column operate the brakes and throttle and on the steering column is a manually operated retarder. There is also a tiny flick switch that actuates the parking brake.
What’s the big deal? we wondered. Well the big deal is this machine will gross up to nearly 200-tonnes fully loaded and is capable of 40mph. Empty, the acceleration is impressive and controlling the truck is relatively easy.
The driver sits over the nearside front wheel. Eighteen feet the other way is the offside of the truck and large mirrors give good visibility down the side to the rear wheels.
We drove the 777D along a very narrow track up a hillside. With only 2ft clearance either side we had to concentrate but the steering is precise and we found we were getting used to the sheer size of the truck surprisingly quickly. The 777D has an amazingly tight turning circle thanks to its relatively small wheelbase compared with its size.
Descending our hill we tried the retarder, nearly standing the big truck on its nose. Loaded, this auxiliary brake is invaluable in saving the colossal oil-cooled disc brakes.
After our drive in the 777D we tried our hand in a 385C excavator. This 83-tonne machine has a maximum dig depth of nearly 12m and maximum reach of 17.36m. We were able to dig a hole to try the machine out.
The boom controls are smooth and user friendly, relying on advanced electronic control systems. Once we got the hang of co-ordinating the boom it only took seven or eight bucket loads before we had dug a hole big enough to bury an 8x4 in.
Foden has two Cat C12-powered 8x4 Alphas at MDLC for demonstration purposes and we fully loaded one of them with the spoil from our hole with three bucket grabs.
Caterpillar has a machine for every application and is a world leader in equipment ranging from mining to construction, demolition to agriculture. It also builds generating plant and marine diesels up to 9655hp, which can also be seen at MDLC.
Its facility near Malaga is not open to the general public, although if it were it would probably be a star attraction of the Costa del Sol. Well, for big boys at least.
● ROADWAY would like to thank Malcolm High and his team at MDLC for their co-operation and hospitality.
