High voltage pylon crane lifting operation

“The heaviest parts weighed in at some 4.5 tonnes,” says Roger Beck from Bau-Trans’ Vaduz (Liechtenstein) location. Taking into account that the steel elements had to be lifted in place millimetre by millimetre at heights of up to 68 metres it becomes obvious that the crane operators had to proceed with great sensitivity so as not to endanger the fitters’ work. Making matters worse, the construction site was located between a railway line and the motorway. “We could only perform our crane operations in times of no wind,” Beck adds. Otherwise the load would have started to swing. This could have had serious consequences. “We used an LTM 1130 mobile crane with a 60-metre telescope boom and a 10.8-metre hydraulically adjustable latticed pylon point,” Beck illustrates the technical details.

Great communication between the crane operators and fitters ensured to set up two high voltage pylons 58 and 68 metres high in a mere week as well as to take down one that wasn’t needed any longer. The construction of a new transformer station and subsequent line re-routing had made the construction necessary.