Ro-ro shipping company Wallenius Wilhelmsen has shipped a rail tamping machine from Bremerhaven, Germany, to Port Kembla, Australia.
Within the order were two pieces, the first of which weighing 78.5 tonnes and was loaded on one 62 ft (18.9 m) roll trailer. The second piece posed more of a challenge due to its length of 24.78 m and weight of 104.5 tonnes, so Wallenius Wilhelmsen had to devise a different plan.
“Together with deugro and Plasser & Theurer Export von Bahnbaumaschinen and our technical engineer Luca Schmid, we invented a new concept to load [and] offload the unit with an SPMT to get it shipped on railed blocks and beams,” said Andreas Raths, sales support officer at Wallenius Wilhelmsen. “This was the first time we used railed blocks and beams concept.”
Last week, Wallenius Wilhelmsen signed a 20-year lease with Georgia Ports Authority (GPA).
