August 11 - Kentucky headquartered Edwards Moving & Rigging safely completed the delivery of 31 components destined for a gas power plant project in Proctor, West Virginia.
Three deck barges were used to ship the components - the heaviest of which weighed 196.5 tonnes - from the Port of Houston a distance of around 2,000 km, via the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, to the project site.
The project required three months of planning and one month to execute, said Edwards Moving & Rigging. The barges were scheduled to arrive at the final project site one week apart - the first carrying 10 components, with the remaining two barges transporting the final 21 items.
At the Port of Houston, the components were discharged from an ocean going vessel directly onto the deck barges.
In order to build a stable and secure barge-landing area at the final project site, an underwater survey was commissioned. Edwards was forced to carry out civil improvements at the landing area and along the haul path to the final jobsite. However, three weeks of heavy rain prior to the arrival of the barges eroded the banks and increased the difficulty of developing a safe roll-off site and haul path.
Once the necessary safety precautions had been taken, the cargoes were discharged from each barge. Precise ballasting of the deck barges ensured a stable platform during the roll-off of each component. Hold points allowed the Edwards field supervisor to confirm that the weight of the load and transporter were equally distributed and maintained a centre of gravity.
Due to the units being tightly placed on the barge, a PST/ESL Goldhofer self-propelled transporter was required to side-shift the outside loaded components to the centre of the barges.
Thereafter, the loads were transported across a railroad crossing, up a steep gradient, around tight turns and placed at locations under-the-hook, either at the power plant or in adjacent staging areas.
Scott Bridegam, director of sales, added: "Edwards Moving & Rigging takes great pride in solving transportation and rigging challenges for over-sized and over-weight loads for their customers. Projects like this one in Proctor, West Virginia epitomise Edwards' commitment to provide its customer with safety, quality, and service."
Prior to the job, Edwards invested 120 hours in transport engineering and ballast engineering planning, to ensure the project was executed safely. During the project, the company mobilised 18 axle lines of Goldhofer self-propelled modular transporter (SPMT), six lines of PST/LSE Goldhofer self-propelled trailers, in addition to barge ramps, mud mats, jack stands, beams and steel plating.
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