Coal Age

NOV 2015

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l i g n i t e m i n i n g c o n t i n u e d November 2015 www.coalage.com 25 across the mine's neighboring county road in just a couple of hours and were able to bring the D-13 that much closer to its new home at the Turlington mine, 3 miles away. Once on the other side it was loaded onto the self-propelled modular t r a n s p o r t e r s f o r t h e r e m a i n d e r o f t h e m o v e — w h i c h i t s e l f t o o k j u s t a f e w weeks. "With several new mining sites set to begin operation in 2014 and 2015, we designed a plan to move draglines to those sites as safely, quickly and cost effectively as possible," Gadt noted. "It [was] chal- lenging and exciting to move four draglines one after the other." Jerry Poland, the company's mining director of maintenance, added that the entire transport was done with the D-13 in one piece as part of a plan outlined by the company and partner Mammoet in 2013 and more than a year in the making, noted that only one other dragline had been moved using that method in North America. Dragline Move No. 2: Kosse mine, move to new Echo mining area — D-52 dragline — June 2014 While the BI 157W in this move was not traveling outside of its home mine, the Kosse operation, there was still much preparation put into the plan as the trans- port was more than twice as long at 7 miles. The 8-million-lb machine and its 300- ft-long boom were carried by 30 intercon- nected trailers to the Kosse mine's new Echo mining area. The lignite produced at the site will be used to fuel Luminant's Oak Grove power plant, located in Robertson County southeast of Waco. That involved crossing a state highway, and the entire journey extended just three days. The D-52 was essentially moved on a 600-wheel vehicle controlled by one opera- tor using a remote control. It became the third dragline in on the continent to use the move technique after the D-13. The current Kosse mine permit expires in February 2017, and a pending renewal application seeks to extend mining through 2020. Luminant heavy-equipment relocations manager Brad Gadt assisted with logistics during the transport of Luminant's D-32 dragline from the Beckville mine to the new Liberty mine.

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