Ok,
You guys be on the look out for a weird looking train…has something like 90 blades, each longer than a 89’ flat, with several flats carrying hubs, and just as many nacelles…we shipped out a WindMill train today…went UP at 10:oo am…I will find out where it is headed tomorrow.
For those who don’t know, its a train carrying a bunch of GE Siemens Electric Generator Wind Mills…like you see on the GE commercials, the things with the three blades.
The blades are so long that each one hangs over the end of its flat; we put idler cars in between them.
The one we shipped today are in open frames welded to the flats, instead of shipping containers, like the last few.
You will recognize them instantly…nothing else looks like that.
Couple of million bucks each fan, hub, nacelle and pedestal, and we sent over 30 of them out.
Head end power out of the PTRA was a old UP SD 40-2, followed by a CSX SD40-2…dispatcher had them a green board all the way out of town, with a MOW crew HiRailing ahead, lining them up and spiking switches up to the CTC limits.
…Yep, Ed the windmills in our home area of western Pennsylvania have 95’ blades on 200’ cyl. type towers…Are these GE units now being manufactured overseas or here somewhere in the States…?
Overseas, they came in by ship, Germany, I think.
Will find out more tomorrow…I didnt know we were going to run it today, or I would have gotton more info…knew were staging the flats, and the stevadores were welding the frames on, just expected it to be friday before it left…
Virlon,
it left out of here at restricted,had to be still creeping when it hit the yard limits and entered CTC, last I saw of the fred, he was still moving very slow…I think they worried about the blades moving around, these things were flexing a lot at restricted, and with the way they are shaped, it didnt look like it would take to much to get them moving around a lot.
I pushed on one as it went by, very light and very flexible, the tip was easy to bend, but it seemd tough stuff, it was wrapped in some plastic tarp material, so I dont know exactally what they are built of.
I moved the blade quite a bit to the side, and it snapped back the instant I let go.
I’ve seen these being transported by road to the wind farm site - was driving home one day when I came to a line of stationary cars and a police car in the middle of the road, pulled up behind the queue and wondered what was going on. A few minutes later a truck hauling a very long semi-trailer with a wind turbine blade loaded on came screaming over the hill (these guys had to be doing a good 50mph which is pretty quick for a big truck on the roads around here!). Two more followed, they all pulled into an entrance leading to the wind farm, the police car moved and we set off again. Encountered the same situation another two or three times before the farm was finished.
…On the wind farm near my home in Pennsylvania one can drive up very close to at least one unit and when it is turning it is sure something different to watch…and it’s not making much noise and not much wind is needed to turn it…Operating wind bracket noted on a sign at the location: 8 to 55 mph.
I heard within the last week that a wind farm near Horicon Marsh was just approved, though I would question whether they would be shipping them already! Would be cool if it was for that wind farm though…
Interestingly, this wind farm was almost killed by environmentalists! They said that the migratory waterfowl and bats that use the Marsh would be attracted to the spinning blades, and there would be a pile of bird and bat carcasses at the base of each windmill as a result of unfriendly meeting of animal and blade! Duh, now we can’t even have clean wind power!!?? But I’m happy things went thru, in spite of the ridiculous environmentalists.
I saw a shipment fo windmills on the dock at Duluth,MN last week. They had been unloaded from a ship that had come up the St.Lawrence Seaway, and were awaiting shipment by train.
They use that argument in your part of the world too? We get that, along with alleged noise, despoiling of landscape and claims that they’re a danger to aircraft. Can’t say I can agree with any of those - they look somewhat more elegant than a coal or nuclear power plant and most pilots carry maps. I often wonder if these people would accept the alternative, this being a major drop in their quality of life due to lack of power to run their household appliances - could they give up their microwaves and dishwashers? I think not!
Did you fall asleep on the space-bar or return key? I suspect you could edit that out (and if you do, and delete your question thread, I’ll delete this!).
They aren’t environmentalists, they are BANANA’s - Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone. They don’t want coal-fired power plants, nuclear plants, or windmills, or drilling for oil in ANWR, or urban sprawl, or cell phone towers within sight. However, don’t limit the number of Starbucks and World Food Markets or tony subdivisions or SUV’s (they are FAR too cool to be seen in a sedan, or horror of horrors a minivan), and provide ample cell phone coverage. If these people are such staunch environmentalists, let them eat wild fruit and nuts (don’t you know, farming is just raping nature) and live in caves to preserve the noble trees. And don’t even dare think of them living in a small cramped apartment and riding the bus - reserve that for the common rabble, so that the “nature lovers” can have their McMansions and SUV’s without us clogging up THEIR landscape and roads, because it is their right.
Ok,
Talked to the conductor and engineer we handed it off to at basin yard.
She said her paper work had California as final destination.
They went out the West Belt, jogged over to the Glidden sub and headed west.
Got relieved in Flatonia with a fresh crew…