Omega Morgan’s specialised transport team hauled a transformer from the port of Tacoma to a power station in Central Point, Oregon, in a job that required quick adjustments to the transport schedule.
The team began the pre-transport process by applying for the necessary permits through the Oregon and Washington departments of transportation for the movement of a transformer weighing 242,000 lbs (110 tonnes). The next steps involved building a transport configuration to handle the transformer and conducting a route survey.
Planning went smoothly, according to Omega Morgan, until two weeks before the ship’s arrival, when the transformer’s weight details increased by 13,000 lbs (6 tonnes). The company immediately reapplied for permits, knowing that it would take at least 30 days to receive them.
Fortunately, Omega Morgan established that it could park the transformer at the dock until the permits came through, and developed a flexible transport plan that could change depending on when each permit was approved.
As soon as the ship arrived at the port of Tacoma, Omega Morgan’s specialised transportation team, machinery moving crews and equipment were mobilised to meet it. Without a ship crane or an adequate port crane to handle the load, a floating crane was brought in to offload the transformer and its five containers of accessories.
With the permits still pending, the transformer was lashed onto Omega Morgan’s dual-lane trailer and moved from the dock to the designated space at the port to wait.
The five accessory containers, however, could be moved. They were transported to Omega Morgan’s Fife yard via step-deck trailers. The company’s logistics services crew then organised for a partner carrier to receive the crates from its yard and transport them to the Central Point station.
As the permits came through for the transformer, the team adapted the plan to accommodate where and when it could be moved. The Washington State permits came through first. This meant the transformer could be transported to the Fife yard and be staged in preparation for the remaining part of the journey.
Once the Oregon permit came in, the transformer began the three-night route to the station pad. Here, the flexibility of the Omega Morgan team was tested once again: the team realised that the foundation was atypical and instead of being a solid pad it was made of 15 evenly spaced pilings.
To make installing the transformer possible, the crew filled in between the pilings with cribbing, creating a flat surface. Then, the team jacked and slid the transformer onto the pad and finished offloading the accessory crates that had been previously delivered.
