Caterpillar lies.

There on the running sheet it clearly said “operate”. But it was not to be.

Okay, so Supply Side may never have operated a wheel loader before. He may not have even operated a Kanga Loader before and may have had more than the expected amount of collisions when operating a wheel barrow. But that was not going to stop him taking charge of an almost 24-tonne piece of earthmoving equipment if given the chance.

So he was quite excited, if a little apprehensive, on the sunny late spring Tucson, Arizona morning as Caterpillar’s latest big gun was wheeled out.

The Caterpillar 994K wheel loader is the company’s latest offering in the wheel loader space and is designed to load a 220t haul truck in about five or six passes.

When it came to the crunch and Supply Side was invited to take his seat in this large lump of yellow iron it turned out it was only the trainer’s seat and not the one behind the controls.

Still, when the operator put the machine to the “face” all disappointments were forgotten.

Wheel loaders arguably have one of the liveliest rides on the mine.

There are some noticeable g-forces as the machine engages with the face, twists and turns and offloads before diving back into the face again.

They should hire this thing out for kids’ parties, although Supply Side fears the adults would probably hog the fun.

Ride fun aside, the 994K is winning fans for its digging ability.

At the moment the wheel loader is on field follow trials. There are only four out at the moment – with two at Caterpillar’s Tucson Proving Grounds at Tinaja Hills and one at the Gibraltar copper mine in Canada.

The fourth is being put through its paces at the Cripple Creek & Victor Gold Mining Company in Colorado.

Mine manager Greg Gibson said the gold mine moved about 20 million tonnes of rock a year and had mainly been using hydraulic shovels and Caterpillar 793 trucks to do it.

He said the company brought in a Cat 994K with a 17cu.m bucket and that had “opened up the flexibility of the mine”

This flexibility is important because Gibson said the mine had brought in a high grade mill and was moving from a heap leach to a more flexible operation.

“The machine performed way better than we originally expected,” he said.

“It is keeping up with 28cu.m hydraulic shovels and taking five passes to load a 793.”

In developing the Caterpillar 994K, the company listened to the voice of its customers and responded with its largest wheel loader yet and one that is stepping into the realms of an alternative loading tool.

This machine outsteps its predecessor in all major metrics. At 23.9t it is about 4t heavier than the 994H, is 1.9m longer and has a 5.5t greater payload. That equates to a one-pass reduction when it comes to loading a truck.

The 994K also has a 28% increase in breakout force over its predecessor, a 19% increase in power and a 17% rise in rimpull.

It can come from the factory with up to a 24.5cu.m bucket and can lift up to 40.8t in a standard lift configuration.

Okay, the 994K still has a way to go to overcome the undisputed heavyweight in the wheel loader game, the P&H L2350, with its 72t payload and standard 40.5cu.m bucket.

Even so, it is a sizeable step up from the 994H and can load a 220t haul truck, such as a Caterpillar 793, in five to six passes.

Caterpillar large wheel loader product manager Kurt Norris said the idea behind the 994K had been to create something that would be a six pass match to a 220t truck.

“The platform for this machine hadn’t really changed fundamentally in the past 25 years,” he said.

“We really wanted to get the 994K right.”

To do that Norris said Caterpillar started off working with its customers and the dealer technicians that worked on large wheel loaders.

Maintenance and the safety of the maintainers has been a key consideration in the machine’s design.

Engine change-outs have been made easier. It takes the removal of 10 bolts before the housing can be lifted off and the engine pulled out.

The whole head assembly can be removed in about 20 minutes.

All the fluids can be drained and refilled at ground level using standard industry connections.

There is also capability to fill straight into the tanks wherever they are if the service truck does not have the right connections, but the ground level option is the preferred one both from a personnel safety and a fluid cleanliness standpoint.

That ground level service point has been moved to the left hand side of the vehicle. This puts it on the same side as the main access stairs to the wheel loader’s cab.

Caterpillar marketing professional Randy Aneloski said operators tended to park the wheel loader with the main stairs facing away from the pit wall.

Thanks to the swap, the service points will also be on the opposite side of the wheel loader to the pit wall and means the service technician or operator will likely not be between the machine and the pit wall.

As another safety feature, the wheel loader comes with a rear camera as standard and can have the Cat Detect radar system fitted as an option.

Aneloski said with the machine being the largest wheel loader Caterpillar had ever made, its designers seized the opportunity to “open things up”

“The access is incredible,” he said. “I can literally walk around outside the machine.”

From a performance point of view, Aneloski said Caterpillar had made a wheel loader that was “a good digger”

“It can get into the back and lug out the material out of the bank.”

Another aspect of the 994K is that its fuel and hydraulic tanks have been moved to the centre of the machine.

This is designed to improve its fore-aft stability.

Aneloski said that when Caterpillar reviewed the customer poll, one improvement customers wanted was to have a more stable machine.

Caterpillar tackled the side to side stability by increasing the vehicle’s footprint and relocated the tanks to handle the other aspect.

“We’re talking about 1500 gallons [5700 litres],” Aneloski said.

“As that drained down over the day, a machine that started out really good in the morning can change.”

Relocating the tank to the centre mitigates this problem.

Another thing helping the 994K better load large mining trucks has been the change in configuration of the loading system.

The 994H came in three loading configurations – standard, high lift and extended high lift.

The 994K’s standard is what used to be the 994H’s high lift and its high lift is what was called extended high lift in the 994H.