Cat D9 gets trod on!

by Nick Drew | Mon 03 Jul 2017

Cat D9 gets trod on!

I came across this series of classic photos which were posted on the excellent Caterpillar D9 Track Type Tractor Facebook group page recently and thought them very worthy of a post on the stand alone Digger Man Blog.

Hard as it is to believe these days, not everyone has a Facebook account or any desire to have one, so it’s always good to share some of these photos that appear on that platform on to the blog. There is not a lot of information posted about this incident on Facebook, but I am hoping that some readers of this blog will be able to shed a little light on what actually happened and where it was in the world.

The date on the photos show 1993 and the accident happened as a giant walking dragline appears to have been “walking” backwards with the operator and ground crew unaware that a Caterpillar D9N was parked behind the behemoth excavator. In laymen’s terms these giant machines move by raising the large circular turntable under superstructure using two giant feet which move in a circular motion. This movement causes the whole upper body of the dragline to move upwards and coming back down before it takes its next step.

Clearly the damage to the D9N was catastrophic as the dragline came to rest on the dozer. I hope that the operator was not in the cab at the time! With the machines single tyne ripper on the ground I assume it was just parked up and nobody had noticed it!

A big thank you goes out to Ad Gevers on the Caterpillar D9 Track Type Tractor group page for sharing these photos.

The magazine for owners + operators

Digger Man Blog

Cat D9 gets trod on!

Loads more

Getting Attached with Holp

Red & Grey all the way for Mays

It’s Intermat Time!

Subscribe to Earthmovers