Adventures on a Pale Blue Dot: The Wabco 3200 Mining Truck at Britannia Mine Site

Aerial photo that I took from a helicopter, 14 years after visiting the site with my dad

This was taken in 2006/07...the site has been massively improved since then

The original idea was to just post a few old photos from the early 90's, when my dad and I stopped in at the Britannia mine site to look at the huge mining truck that had just been re-assembled there. The truck used to be one of the workhorses of the Highland Valley Copper operation at Logan Lake. At the end of it's service life, it was donated to the Britannia mine site museum. It had to be taken apart and shipped in pieces from BC's interior to the coast at Howe Sound.
The truck is a 1974 Wabco 3200B, and carried a record for the era...235 ton payload. There is a lot of information online about these trucks and their history and evolution.

A couple of interesting points..
Wabco...is short for "Westinghouse Air Brake Company"

I read an online comment that mentioned that the Logan Lake 3200's were a bit unreliable, and had lots of downtime...plus...when it rained, the tandem drive wheels would make turning a corner in wet/slippery conditions nearly impossible. So the trucks had to be parked when the roads got greasy.

I would recommend two things about the Britannia mine site.
Number one, absolutely and totally go and take the tour. It's better than you think, even if you are a hardcore kinda guy ( try it, you'll like it )

Then, do a bit of studying up on the history of the mine ( pretty ugly and nasty at times )...also the massive efforts to clean up the site, which was leaching some pretty horrendous stuff into Howe Sound.

Scans of my old photos from the early 90's..

My dad looking at the newly re-assembled Wabco 3200B, in the early 90's. On this road trip, we toured Whistler, the train museum in Squamish, gawked at the Royal Hudson steam train, and hiked into some of the climbing areas in behind Squamish.

The massive truck hasn't been cleaned up and painted yet. None of the "anti-tourist" barriers have been installed .

In it's heyday, the Wabco 3200B was motivated by 2400 horsepower

From this angle, you can see why all the wheels on the loaded rear of the truck might make for difficult steering. They would tend to push the truck straight ahead


Too bad there was no power plant in it, I think my dad wanted to take it for a rip around the parking lot. Some jumper cables, maybe a bit of ether and away you go.