Thursday, March 2, 2017

And now for something completely different!

Not trains, but cool!

Last night Joseph told me about an oversized load that would be coming through Canton (pretty much out my back door).

From what I recall, this is a turbine/generator for a new power plant in Oxford. This is the first of 6 such moves, although the last 3 or 4 turbines might be a little smaller. The move started by rail to Windsor Locks, CT. Then it was loaded onto this rig that brought it down to Simsbury (stopping at the old Wagner Ford property. Last night it went from there to Collinsville Antiques in New Hartford. It moves about 12 miles or so each night.

It is so heavy (I saw a reference to over 1,000,000 pounds including the rig), they install plates over some of the bridges. These span the bridge altogether avoiding any impact on the bridge. A large crane placed the two plates here. Apparently in Simsbury the bridge was a much larger span and used larger plates comprised of 6 or 8 pieces.

It's moving at 3-5 mph, by remote control. In the video you can see two men with remotes, I think each end is under separate control. The rig itself was reported at about 210-feet long, and 21-feet wide on 28 axles with 8 wheels per axle. So the bill included 224 tires. The total cost for moving them is $19 million.

J Supor and Son is the same company that moved the "Miracle on the Hudson" plane after it's emergency landing. Obviously they specialize in very large loads.


1 comment:

  1. pretty neat to get to catch a bit of this movement of a large object - the bridge span plate is neat. Interesting how much the suspension of the bogies of the platforms can travel to keep it basically level.

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