Eastern Railroad Discussion > This couldn't move by rail and inconvenience the public less?

not to mention the safety hazzard?

https://www.yahoo.com/news/150-ton-superload-moving-allegheny-143251460.html

Victor Baird



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 06/01/23 12:50 by wabash2800.

It’ll probably get there a lot quicker with far less hassle and red tape then if it went by rail.

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Doug Wetherhold
Macungie, PA

Wonder what the heavy load is? Electrical transformer maybe.

I bet that it would still need trucking at one or both ends.

Steam Locomotive Boiler or Running Gear ...........?
 

Not clear from the linked article what the width of the load is although they did note that it would take two lanes. Perhaps it is too wide for railroad clearances on that route. I got stuck behind something similar a few weeks ago heading south on I-55 between Bloomington and Lincoln IL. This load passed me while I made a pit stop at the Funk's Grove rest area just south of Bloomington. It was rolling right along at 55 mph so the delay was tolerable. I-55 widens to 3 lanes at Lincoln so I was able to get around at that point. 

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No, it probably couldn't move by rail.  If it could have, it would have.  I tried to clear a couple super-loads that would have originated on our line - they simply would not fit thru the thru-truss river bridge on our line, nor would they fit past several obstructions on NS and BNSF between origin on us in Ohio and destination on BNSF in Kansas.  So the 17' wide load trucked as a Super-Load taking up both lanes and 25 mph to whole way - just like described in this article,

Anything dimensional gets very complicated by rail simply because of line side immovable obstructions - bridges, tunnels, buildings. etc..  Here is a fairly simple, "small" load that was still a pain in the a$$ - this just moved and is currently being unloaded - just a simple transformer on an 8 axle depressed center.   AAR Clearance Diagram for open top loading (conforming to Plate C) allows for a width of 10' 8" and a height of 15' 6".   This transformer is 12' wide, so 1' 4" "too wide: and 16' tall, so 6" "too tall".   That 16" of extra width mean that moving this from Georgia to Ohio was no longer a simply couple day trip over to Atlanta and up through Etowah and Corbin.  It became an couple week long trek on locals up through the coal fields on the old CRR to avoid clearance issues on the CC sub.   So something this small outside the norm resulted in a railfan fantasy rare mileage route.  



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/01/23 05:12 by scraphauler.

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