80,000 lbs or 40 tons is about the heaviest truck allowed on the interstate highway system. 12,000 on the steer axle and 34,000 on each tandem. there are exceptions however such as permit loads and double full length trailers like the phophate trucks in florida and double bottoms on some toll roads.
point is there is no way the truck you were following had 40 tons of steel. the net weight of the load would be quite a bit less.
grizlump
Point taken [:)] Maybe 28 tons of load… 18 of those beams… only about 1.5 tons per beam???
On the other hand some cuddly politician upped our permitted truck size to 48 tonnes (IIRC) without asking anyone… so I guess those beams could run a couple of tonnes each, (Yes we’ve been “metrictated”). (Also - being ancient - when I talk about tons it’s habitually real Imperial tons - which are different again [banghead]. That’s 2240lbs)
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During the summers when I was in high school I worked at US Steel Fairless Works in their National Tube Pipe Mill. This was the late “sixties”. We made butt welded pipe up to 4 inches in Diameter. In this process we first made “skelp” in the rolling stands from bars of steel. This skelp is up to 16 inches wide and is rolled into large coils. We handled the skelp with over head cranes with a large “C” shaped hook. the top part of the “C” was connectd to the crane cables. The lower part of the “C” was inserted into the center of the coil once it had been "up ended’ on the “coiling machine”. The crane would than move the coils to storage, to the pipe mill or to rail cars or trucks for shipment. The other method of movement was a very large forklift with a single pole they used to insert into the center of the coil and than lift to transport.
When loaded onto trucks they would place two or three over the rear wheels of the tractor and a few over the rear wheels of the trailer. We did not weigh them but I can only imagine they weighed several tons a piece. Rail cars would be loaded with more coils the same way over the trucks and not in the center. Hope this is helpful.
Chris
Hey Dave, finally got some pics for ya. Here are a few pics and I am waiting for, hopefully, a few more. Sorry gang but I do have to say this, These photos may not be copied, altered or shared by anyone other than the owner (me) in any way.
Here is a coil being carried to storage in the plant by crane with a “C hook”, coil is lifted right out of the car and transfered to storage area all in one move.
What a typical load in a coil car looks like. Anything that is not bare carbon steel gets packaging these days. These coils are wrapped in water proof paper to make sure no water gets in.
A pr of GPs pushing the cars inside the plant, these are remote controlled. The engineer walks along side of them checking clearences and such when pushing them into a building.
Doing the “receiving”, checking the paperwork before anything gets unloaded. This plant can fit 2 cars inside.
Not the bast pics but hopefully can give you a little idea of what happens. I’m hoping to get a few more which I’ll post later. If you have any questions please feel free to email or IM. Also, re your I-beams that you saw on a trailer - the DOT has set a max combo (t
THANKS! [tup] Those pics and notes are superb and really appreciated. [^]
On my daily trip to work, I passed a company that processes steel coil. Although most of the handling is inside the building, for moving stored coils around inside and out, they have a couple big heavy duty wheeled forklifts such as the Kibri Kalmar (Walther 405-11750 or 405-11751) or the GHQ Material Handler (Walther 284-61009) with single extra length forks. Big heavy lift units, not the wimpy warehouse types.
In regards to cross troughs, I don’t think that would ever be done as the coils could roll in the car causing serious damage to an expensive coil. I worked thirty five years at a major steelmaker and never saw that. A hint: If you use any Pro-Tec cars they would usually be trained together as they are insulated to keep the steel coils at a certain temperature in hauling and “Pro-Tect” the steel. Hoods do get mixed up, but never “Pro-Tec” hoods. Railroads want their own hoods back. Pro-Tec cars are dedicated to U S Steel product transportation only and are a joint project with U S Steel, the customer and the railroad. Steel can also be tranported as “black coils” which are about 1/8" to1/2" thick as a raw material for further prosessing by the customer.
Thank You.
zzz: Never say never.
http://freight.railfan.ca/cgi-bin/image.pl?i=cn187002&o=cn
And crosswise loading of coils certainly have been done before:
http://freight.railfan.ca/cgi-bin/image.pl?i=cp334044&o=cprail