"An oversized expansion joint for a Tacoma bridge project made it more than 1,300 miles before being stopped at a weigh station on the Washington border because the Washington State Patrol said it’s too heavy for its trailer.
State Department of Transportation officials looked for ways Friday to send the 73-foot expansion joint the final 300 miles to its destination to help complete the second span across the Tacoma Narrows. It has been sidelined on its custom-built trailer since Saturday at the Spokane Port of Entry on Interstate 90 just west of the Idaho border after tipping the scales at 330,000 pounds."
Full story…
http://www.columbian.com/news/state/APStories/AP03232007news118585.cfm
Hmmmmm…73 feet long…less than 330,000 lbs…
Couldn’t this bridge component, indeed shouldn’t this bridge component have been moved by rail? Don’t railroads move this type of stuff all the time?
Come to think of it, I’ve also seen some wind turbine blades being moved by truck through this area via those special (and by the looks of it, very expensive) highway escorts.
As for those poor movers stuck at the Idaho-Washington border, absent a reprieve from WSDOT regulators, they’ll either have to mosey on down to Lewiston ID and get the thing transloaed to ocean going barge (that way they can park the barge right under the bridge construction site), or get UP or BNSF to provide a Schnabel car at the nearest Idaho siding - that’ll at least get it as far as the old Ruston smelter!
To the trucking industry railroad just get in the way and are to slow!
WSDOT the load will “dammage the hiways, the bridge at the columbia river and the old Tacoma Narrows Bridge” but these are the same people who couldn’t mesure the total hight of the ship and bridge decking and then got it stuck under the old bridge last year.
If I remember old school enginnering bridges are normaly built to carry loads 1 1/2 times the common loading for a safety factor.
But go figure it came from Minn. to Spokane on other states hiways and gee no problem!
It is routine for the OTR trucking industry to carry oversize and superloads. Those monster shovels and dump trucks used to mine in the Powder River guess what ALL OF THEM were brought in by truck. What probaly happened is the State of Washington misread the weight on the application for the permit and told the company that was doing the haul that they needed to few axles on the load. All the company will have to do is add more axles to lower the axle loadings and that is done by adding jeeps and stingers to the trailer.
[#ditto] and a big [#oops], I have to agree with edbenton, One of the previous posts mentions that the load is utilizing a special trailer, if that is the case you can bet the engineer who spec’d the trailer had it figured to equal or surpass the loading requirements for the states along the route…I would guess that it is probably some state weight and measures officer [D)]who is figuring to make a name for him/herself.[X-)] You can bet it will be responsiblke for a lot of extra stomach acid being pumped by all involved…[:O][:O][:(]
WOW that’s a big truck they got there and you are right that railroads carry oversize loads all the time and they never have troble with weigh stations and most times the trains can go longer then most trucks can cause truck drivers can only drive 10 hours a day by per state law. But then again engineers can work only so many hours before they have to changed out with a new crew but even then after that crew change the train can cont’d on to it’s final dest.
Correct on that one a load that heavy does not move UNLESS EVERYTHING is in perfect order with every state. Something tells me that the DOT officer that stopped it from moving is going to be looking for a new job. And as to FM suggestion to using rail to move it or a barge forget it rail would not even touch it also a barge you would need a crane to lift it into position and so there would be problems in the rigging of the load. Remember a truck can go anywhere there is a road trains only go were there are tracks already laid.
Update:
More details regarding the specs of the component have come in, and it looks like the reason these things can’t move by rail is the width - the special trailer designed to carry the component is stated as being 15 feet wide, and from the photo in this accompanying story it looks like parts of the component stick out laterally at more than 20 feet wide…
http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/story/6428885p-5729459c.html
I believe their best bet would be to head straight south down to Lewiston and have the thing transloaded to barge.
Hey, I’ve always argued that railroads should widen their gauge!
Wait! What’s that up in the sky? It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s…
SkyFreight to the rescue!
http://www.worldskycat.com/markets/skyfreight.html
According to the website, this freight dirigible can lift 220 tons in “STOL mode” - short take off and landing.
Perhaps this would have been the right solution!
Actually, truck drivers are allowed 11 hours behind the wheel in a 14 hour work day. This is a Federal regulation, which covers interstate drivers, which this load would be handled by. In 11 hours behind the wheel most drivers can cover much more ground than the railroads could hope to, other than a VERY HIGH PRIORITY train such as a UPS intermodal Z train. Factor in team drivers and a truck can cover (legally, in most cases) about 1200 miles a day, more by playing with the log books (NOT LEGAL, BTW) This is why long haul trucking still exists, everybody wants to order it TOMORROW and get it YESTERDAY, nobody orders ahead, or wants to wait. Rail IS MORE EFFICIENT, TRUCKS are FASTER. Although oversize loads do have travel time restrictions (generally daylight hours, not in peak rush hour traffic time/areas) this would reduce the time in transit advantage for oversize loads going by truck.
It does appear that this load was too wide for rail shpmt, and as far as Futuremodal’s idea on the large lighter than airship, does that have the INTERNAL capacity for this load? I do know that the regulations covering EXTERNALLY slung airborne loads are EXTREMELY RESTRICTIVE when flying over populated areas, and this load over this distance is going to have many of those along the way.
These are just some of the issues that I see in this case, BTW, I have been a Professional truck driver for almost 19 years with approximately 2 million miles experience.
&n