South Australians are watching the River Torrens to Darlington (T2D) upgrade reshape Adelaide’s transport future, with some of the largest tunnel boring machines ever used in the state.
But while the scale is impressive, this is not South Australia’s first major tunnelling milestone—and it’s certainly not the first time Australian Welding Solutions (AWS) Managing Director and Chartered Welding Engineer, Neville Cornish, has been involved in tunnelling innovation.
In fact, AWS’ connection to large-scale underground machinery stretches back more than 40 years, to a groundbreaking engineering achievement that helped place South Australia on the global tunnelling map.
A Look Back: The Robbins Mobile Miner (1984–1992)
Long before the T2D tunnels were conceptualised, South Australia was home to the manufacture of one of the most advanced hard-rock mining machines of its era—the Robbins Model 130 Mobile Miner.
In 1984, Robbins built a prototype Mobile Miner for Mount Isa Mines, paving the way for a second-generation machine. By the early 1990s, a fully assembled Robbins Model 130 Mobile Miner was manufactured in Adelaide and delivered to Pasminco’s Broken Hill operations.
This machine was a major leap forward in continuous mining technology:
- 28 metres long, mounted on tandem crawlers
- 280 tonnes, more than double the weight of the original prototype
- 500 kW cutting power, boosting advance rates
- Designed for high cutting loads and a 25,000-hour fatigue life
- Capable of mining 200 tonnes per hour
- Built to navigate the tight-radius curves typical of underground operations
Manufactured under Robbins Pty Ltd in Adelaide, the project demanded advanced fabrication, structural engineering, and high-integrity welding—exactly the type of environment in which future AWS Managing Director Neville Cornish built a foundation of practical, standards-driven welding engineering.
Neville’s involvement in the manufacturing development of the Robbins Mobile Miner embedded him in one of the most significant underground machinery projects in South Australian history.