Here's somthing you dont see every day!
 

This company from Oregon is moving a piece of oil field machinery through our area so we had to check it out. The thing weighs a touch over 900,000 lbs and is almost 400 feet long with the 3 trucks attached and there is something like 128 tires on all the dollies. Its 28 feet wide and maybe 20 foot tall. There is a platform on the back that has two steering wheels to help maneuver it around corners. One of the security guys there says the front truck is around 1,900 horsepower, the first rear one is 1,500 horsepower and the other two rear ones are around a thousand hp each. They move it after 10 pm at night and go till 6 am or the next pullout wherever that may be at a blinding speed of 10 to 12 mph. They have several really sharp corners to go around tonight and a bunch of us are going to camp out by the sharpest one so we can see how they negotiate it, should go through at 1 or 2 am. They are trying to get to a town called Salmon Idaho by morning then tomorrow night they will go up over the continental divide into Montana over Lost Trail Pass which is partially snow covered and icy, also there is supposed to be a snow storm coming in tomorrow night. Whats the pucker factor of taking a 450 ton load over a snow covered mountain pass 40 miles long with 6.5 % grades? I wouldnt want to be driving the front truck.... Tried for the gratuitous suburban shot but it didnt turn out so well.

Re: Here's somthing you dont see every day!
 

Lets see a Toyota tundra do that lol

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I love the concrete blocks for down force. Those are roughly 4000 lbs each, and it looks like 6 or 7 of them-24,000 to 28,000 thousand on those rear wheels. That ought to do it!

Re: Here's somthing you dont see every day!
 

Folks live on the route in eastern Oregon and we watched it go by their house, awesome site for sure. The second one is on iTs way now.

Daryn

Re: Here's somthing you dont see every day!
 

That's a sight, ain't it? I've seen several moves like that, they moved a reactor or something into a powerplant near me, across a mountain, a couple years ago, and I once worked building huge "cold boxes" that had to be moved on dollies like that from the fab shop to the waterway and loaded on a barge. Very impressive the way they do it. I'd love to see it moved across that pass you're talking about.

Re: Here's somthing you dont see every day!
 

That's one huge square body!

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Wow! I would been one that would be camped out watching a site like that also.

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The first thing I noticed was the concrete blocks.

Just a touch over 900,000 lbs..... at that weight I dont think a touch matters much..:lol:

128 tires... I am glad I dont have to check pressure every morning...

Pucker factor.... yes, I can only imagine, hope the brakes are in good working order.

And yes, you sure dont see something like this every day. Wonder how much the permit cost and what it gets for fuel mileage..

Re: Here's somthing you dont see every day!
 

It doesn't get mileage, it gets yardage!

The pics are impressive. Gotta be much more so to see a rig like that in person.

Re: Here's somthing you dont see every day!
 

The concrete may help it from spinning the drive tires.

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I passed one of those convoys in the middle of the night leaving montana and crossing into idaho a few yrs ago. Takes awhile to get around them on the mountain passes. :waah:

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I have new appreciation for that tiny little 5th wheel pin

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Those guys know what they are doing. We use that kind of rig all the time at work to hual turbines, reactors and generators.
The concrete is for traction. It is a multi steering rig that we use and I doubt the driver ever goes to fast. While they are on our job site they can't go over 5MPH and have guys walking all around the rig watching for tires to blow out mainly and steering it.;):chevy:

Re: Here's somthing you dont see every day!
 

cool,, saw a show where they were using a rig like that in south africa.. it was a regular convoy,,,

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^^^ That's what I figured Pritch meant by downforce...traction.
Andy,I thought of you and wondered if you saw stuff like this at work. I've watched videos of some extreme prime movers. They'll use a ballast tractor fore and aft and sometimes doubled up

Re: Here's somthing you dont see every day!
 

Here one to see. It's British (with American flair),but I'll find more from trucks we know better...and in action:
This one's British,too,but American trucks

Re: Here's somthing you dont see every day!
 

So how did the trip go, any problems?

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My dad said he heard something on the news last night about the mega load getting stuck but they didnt give any details. The only thing I have found on the internet is that the company is still waiting for permission from Montana to let them enter the state. So maybe "stuck" means they are waiting for permission?

Re: Here's somthing you dont see every day!
 

uummm, wouldn't they get all the permits in order before taking off?

Re: Here's somthing you dont see every day!
 

I dont know the roads that this heavy thing has taken ,,but wonder how some of the back roads are going to fair after this heavy weight has crossed it..
I too like Andy tells have seen some enormous machines move reactors into nuclear powerplants that I have worked at,, some machines are assembled right at the plant site as they are to large to travel the highways ,,one was at Satsop Nuclear Plant by Elma Washinton ..some on here might have seen it also .