First Aussie Scania XT heads to work

Two Scania G 450 XT 8x4 twin-steer chassis have been fitted with new, higher-capacity 40,000-litre Shermac water cart bodies for a Western Australian mining customer operating in the Pilbara.

The custom Shermac bodies are more than double the capacity of those fitted to traditional road-going trucks used on mine sites. They are designed to replace mine-specific road train combinations.

Scania says the new Scania XT trucks offer the customer a more cost-effective solution to the requirement for dust suppression and road building assistance on-site.

“Our customer has had experience operating a fleet of Scania trucks on-site as service vehicles, flatbeds and technical support vehicles for the past year, and they have performed well,” said to Robert Taylor, General Manager, Mining at Scania Australia.

“When we were discussing the replacement of the customer’s existing water carts, we suggested a more flexible solution, in the form of the NTG G 450 XT 8x4 as they could handle the higher payload of 40,000-litres for a GVM of around 66-tonnes,” Robert said.

“The water carts are on call 24/7 and reliability is very important to our customer. They work in an extremely harsh environment where there is a lot of dust and heat and so water cart availability is critical to the mine’s operations. The vehicles will be serviced on-site to maximise uptime.” Robert said.

“Creating this new high-capacity water cart underscores Scania’s ability to configure a vehicle exactly to a client’s needs.

“Our client wanted a reliable, high-capacity vehicle that could be maintained easily and quickly and one that could do the job day-in, day-out. The new Scania XT range is designed for these conditions, and in addition to being able to source and fit a suitable body, we have been able to deliver a solution at a reduced capital cost to the client compared with their previous solution,” Robert said.

Jim Ray, who controls sales and sales management at mining engineering equipment supplier Shermac, said this was the first time the company had built a water cart of 40,000-litres capacity for a four-axle, road-going truck.

“Our client was looking for a new solution to its water cart requirements and wanted to combine the flexibility of a road-going truck with water capacity approaching that of heavy mining gear, in order to maximise availability and ease of maintenance,” Jim said.

“Scania has shown us that it has a lot of experience working globally with mining partners, and they said they were confident that the 8x4 chassis would be suitable for this payload, having seen 66-tonne payloads used widely in tipper configurations in South American and Indonesian mine sites.

“All of our water carts are custom designed and extensively tested to ensure optimum weight distribution and performance no matter how tough the environment or challenge,” Jim said.

“With liquid loads you do get high dynamic forces, but our Roadserve 2000 model water cart is well baffled and on-site speeds will be low and there are few inclines, allowing the vehicles to do their jobs reliably. Scania also has a lower centre of gravity compared with the previous solution, which also aids stability and safety,” he said.

The Scania NTG XT range has been designed for challenging operating conditions and comes with a 150 mm protruding steel front bumper bar that protects the vehicle against significant frontal knocks.

With protective grilles for the LED headlights, a fold-down bumper-mounted step to allow safe access for windscreen cleaning on-site, and a 40-tonne capacity tow point, the XT specification is well suited to the life of hard knocks expected on mine sites. Additionally, Scania has added extra tough door mirror covers for the XT, as they are often very vulnerable to accidental damage.

Inside, the Scania XT is fitted with a steering-wheel mounted airbag as well as driver and passenger side curtain airbags designed to protect occupants in the event of a rollover, making the Scania XT one of the safest trucks for extra-tough working environments.