Despite the current economic downturn, Lafarge sees good long-term prospects for its rare smelting quality limestone. This helped justify the decision to extend the quarry, allowing access to some 20 years' worth of reserves in addition to the 17 years available from the existing site.

However, the new reserves on the other side of a small but important rural road, so gaining access to them building a bridge and cutting a new quarry haul road into the limestone underneath it. Being so close to a public highway meant blasting was out of the question, so Lafarge looked at mechanical excavation options.

Quarry manager Shane Tompkin took up the story. "On the quarry side we used a road planer. It took about 12 weeks, and it was getting through a full set of picks almost every pass. The machine just wasn't built for that sort of work."

After this experience, Lafarge looked around for a different solution to cut a ramp from underneath the newly constructed road bridge up into the quarry extension.