Backwards over the bridge
January 30, 2014 | Markus Lackner
The ship’s route from the Dutch harbour town of Rotterdam to Linz led over the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal and onwards to the Felbermayr heavy load harbour in Linz. A number of diversion measures were needed for the subsequent road transport. For this reason, it was absolutely essential to be able to unload the transportation, consisting of about 200 tonnes of heavy components, on time in Linz. But this was only possible due to the foresighted action of the employees involved, among other things. “The ship is waiting on the water,” was said, for example, when the ship got stuck at Regensburg two days before the planned road transport. But with good will and thanks to Neptune, the god of water, two of the three ship loads could be unloaded “just in time” in Linz.
Two roller units, each with a length and breadth of eight by five metres, started the road transportation in mid-December. “Due to the weight of about 200 tonnes, the components were transported on two 20-axle low loaders in convoy,” explains Jürgen Steinbrecher from the Wels-based transport department. The first obstacle was already waiting for the transport team just a few kilometres outside of the harbour. A 100-metre long bridge had to be crossed in a “backwards motion” for static reasons. “This involves the low loader being pulled diagonally over the road using two towing vehicles,” says Steinbrecher, explaining the procedure for better weight distribution. Luckily, sixteen other bridges could be crossed without any special measures. But the motorway exit of Ort im Innkreis came after about 90 kilometres and with it, a bridge over the A8, which could not be crossed due to the total transport weight of 305 tonnes. “As a solution, we planned to exit at the bridge-free slip road,” says Steinbrecher. The condition for this was the temporarily blocking of the section of motorway and the removal of the central reservations to change traffic lane. After about three hours, the motorway could be reopened.
Another convoy, consisting of two transports, followed in mid-January and could also be executed according to plan. The heavy components will be used for a new hot tube mill. The client for the transport project is the Italian mechanical engineering company, Danieli.
