Terex Titan 350 Ton capacity

[DarrylMueller]

The Terex Titan has been retired and preserved in Sparwood, British Columbia.

The Terex Titan 33-19 was a prototype off-road earth hauler built by the Terex Division of General Motors Corporation in 1974. It was first shown to the public in Las Vegas at the American Mining Congress. ( I was there and stood on head board of the Titan at the American Mining Congress in Las Vegas at the time this was the biggest. ) Built in General Motors' London, Ontario, Canada plant, the 33-19 was the largest in the Terex 33 series of off-road haulers, others being the 33-03, 33-05, 33-07, 33-09, 33-11 and the 33-15. It had an operating capacity of 350 short tons (320 t), an empty mass of 256 short tons (232 t), and a maximum loaded mass of 606 short tons (550 t).[1] At the time of its construction, it was the largest truck ever built, but the size record was broken by the Caterpillar 797B in 1998 (360-400 US ton/325-350 tonnes).

The Titan was powered by a 16-cylinder 3,300/3,000 horsepower (2,500/2,200 kW) locomotive engine with a displacement of 10,343 cubic inches (169.49 l) coupled to a EMD AR10-D14 generator. This Electro-Motive Division engine, as the 16-645E4 prime mover, was aftercooled and turbocharged. The generator then powered 4 electric traction motors, one at each rear wheel. The Terex featured large 40.00x57 tires made of rubber. It is 66 feet (20 m) long and 22.6 feet (6.9 m) tall; or 56 feet (17.1 m) tall with the dump body raised.

Terex assembled the Titan for Kaiser Steel in its Eagle Mountain iron mine in late 1974. At this mine the Titan suffered from downtime problems but eventually hauled some three-and-a-half million tons of earth until 1978.

In late 1978 it was then brought to Kaiser Steel's Sparwood mine in Canada. In 1980 the mine changed hands as B.C. Resources acquired all of the Kaiser property, and was renamed B.C. Coal. In 1983 the mine was again renamed, to Westar Mining, and the Titan also changed colors from lime green to Westar's blue and yellow. Shortly after, Westar directly purchased the Titan from General Motors, for US$200 thousand and $1 million in spare parts. In the following six years the Titan had an uptime rate of over 70% as it hauled loads of over 360 tons during this time. Westar finally retired the Titan in 1991.

Teck Corporation bought the Sparwood mine in late 1992 and offered it for preservation as a public monument in 1993; the Sparwood Chamber of Commerence subsequently established a fundraising effort for the restoration of the Titan. It currently sits on Highway 3 in Sparwood as a public display and Sparwood promotes it as a tourist attraction [3]. The engine has since been removed.

The Terex Titan division grew out of the Euclid company that General Motors purchased, and later renamed as Terex before they were forced to sell it, under Anti trust legislation, by the US Government. The Titan division was retained, when Terex was sold to IBH group of Germany, and on there collapse in 1983 then passed to Canadian company Northwest Engineering Group in 1986 who became the Terex Corporation of today. Northwest Engineering also bought the Unit Rig company, another specialist in 'Ultra' dump trucks for mining in 1988. The GM Titan division was sold to LeTourneau in 1985, by GM. LeTourneau developed the small 33-15C into the T-2000 range with a payload of 170-200 US ton/153-180 tonne).